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balfour beatty capital

Balfour Beatty Capital, is a market leading investor in major PPP/ PFI infrastructure, roads, hospitals, and schools projects in the UK . The company has a broad range of skills from project promotion and development, through to financing, project execution, and long-term asset management and operations.

The sheer size, scale, and duration of these projects leads to vast amounts of information being gathered over a number of years. Project information such as bid related documents, drawings and letters would be scanned then filed on one of 20 file servers in different locations. This created silos of information, which made teamworking and communication difficult.

The company recognised that creating an online central information store, securely accessed from any location, was critical to improve project communications and support their aspirations for growth. Balfour Beatty Capital had searched for an off the shelf package, or one that could be quickly adapted to suit their needs, but couldn't find anything in the market.

John Bromilow, Head of IT at Balfour Beatty Capital, spotted the potential in BC:

“Nothing else in the market could meet our specific document management requirements. Balfour Beatty Plc already had a strong relationship with Business Collaborator Ltd and this gave us the confidence to partner with them and see if BC could be adapted to meet our business needs. ”

The Approach
The BCL consultants worked closely with Balfour Beatty Capital to fully understand their processes and requirements for scanning, distribution and storage of paper-based project information to provide a complete central document repository. BC was integrated with third-party document scanning and OCR software from ZyLab and during the pilot in early 2006, as Balfour Beatty Capital familiarised themselves with the document management system, they also began to explore the possibilities offered by BC as a future knowledge portal and intranet candidate.

To ensure a smooth roll out and transition to the new system, known as The Library, a staggered approach was adopted and tied in to the data migration strategy. The BCL team created an upload script that enabled Balfour Beatty Capital project data stored on multiple local file servers to be safely migrated to BC.

Bromilow said about the roll-out:

“We decided to tie the training in with the migration of individual data sets, so it was a case of a big bang on a small scale for those involved. Moreover, it enabled our teams to be effectively trained and supported by the BCL team, whilst using familiar project information, but in the new environment. It also meant that the experts were at hand to deal with any technical issues. ”

How BC Manages the Information
With a hospital PFI often taking 24 - 36 months to reach financial close vast amounts of information and paperwork build up. Previously this amount of information was difficult to manage, but now all project-related information is scanned and centrally stored online in The Library and provides a full audit trail of a file's creator and whose read or edited it, which means that it also supports Balfour Beatty's ISO9000 status.

All project-related paper information is now scanned in at source. The documents gathered are indexed and stored in virtual folders, but can be recalled using content and context sensitive fuzzy searches at any time.

For example, a letter is received, scanned and entered into the system using two screens, one to view the contents and the second to enter key information or metadata such as 'transform schools', 'marketing', 'knowsley project' is attached to the file. Users can then put in additional details such as who sent it, and the addressee. BC will then notify the person that they have post and file the letter in the relevant area of The Library.

The metadata helps the system to 'file' the letter away. The Library uses virtual folders rather than having a traditional folder structure so users don't have to worry about whether they've put it in the right place.

Improved Communication across the company
Virtual folders also make finding information easy. A user clicks on a folder name,and the system will search through all of the information, using metadata and present all the relevant files. ZyLab provides a very intelligent search function that enables users to search inside the contents of letters, proposals, and any other information stored in the system using fuzzy searches which allows it to handle spelling variations in words.

Centralization of data on BC has improved communication and teamwork at Balfour Beatty Capital.

It has also increased productivity of the company's predominately mobile workforce who can access the system securely using their laptops from anywhere in the country. Previously, mobile workers used to work on documents over a network share and as a result quite often suffered from the system hanging. Now with BC the document is downloaded and worked on locally and then uploaded once changes have been made, which has increased productivity.

Bromilow concludes that:

“The BCL Team has always been very helpful, professional, and enthusiastic. With any other company I think we may have had problems with a project of this scale, but the team has constantly stepped up to the mark to deliver an excellent solution.
Since implementing BC there has been a mind set change, for people to adjust to the different way of working with documents. Training has been very important to ensure users are comfortable with the system and removing the fear of the unknown has made the reception warmer. ”

Most recently The Library has been redesigned to offer more than just a document management system. It has now become a multi-tier intranet for Balfour Beatty Capital, offering users an individual touch as well as providing additional functionality. New functionality rolled out in early 2007 means that employees now have a personalised front page, with latest company news on an editable News board, the ability to add items for sale or notices on the 'virtual staff notice board', have immediate access to their Post. Each user adds a photo along with their details, allowing the system to automatically build company photo organograms.

The system now ensures that all users are informed of company and corporate information and standards through the intranet as well as being able to access their day-to day project information.

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