Connecting boardrooms and building sites

This leader in planning and delivering capital projects - ranging from development of New Zealand's largest new town, to infrastructure projects and construction of corporate headquarters and retail malls - has six branches across New Zealand and Australia and up to 40 multiple project site offices at a time, in both countries. 

While being largely independent, each office and each construction site needed access to common data.  A range of software was in use to provide services for offices, architects, engineers and people on site.  Historically, it had been a struggle to give employees on sites consistent access to applications and files running on their corporate network. "These staff members often reported that it was easier to just hand-write and collate important business information than to spend the time required to log into the network and wait for access," reported the CEO.  Not only did the client require a solution - that solution needed to be unaffected by the dusty and often difficult environmental conditions common in their industry. 

CommArc undertook a review, which included visiting each branch office and some of the site offices and speaking to users of the system. CommArc found out what users liked about the current system and what they didn't like, how they worked and what their critical dependencies were.

A project team was formed consisting of CommArc project management and consultants along with the client's senior management. Staff were advised of the changes to their IT system, and the proposed benefits via email, the intranet, weekly meetings and roadshows. This high level of communication managed the potential risk of initial resistance to a new and more structured system.

CommArc's recommended solution was to install Citrix Presentation Server software across seven servers, deploying applications to branch offices and construction sites across the country as well as to employees working from home.  This allowed project technicians and engineers to manage workflow and collaborate with diverse groups on project updates, all without delay and on any device.  It could be a dumb terminal, laptop or PDA, in any location. A dedicated training environment was created as part of the live system and training was delivered to branch offices and sites during the week prior to their installations. Using Citrix also enabled CommArc to provide remote training sessions - five people were being trained across the country by one trainer in one office. 

The new system also incorporated a number of smart features designed specifically for the client by CommArc. One example is that if an ADSL line goes down, then a modem connection is automatically made and users can keep working without interruption.  Another smart feature is the customised hybrid laptop configuration, which enables users to catch up with work emails offline when travelling, synchronise those emails securely, and connect to live data and applications, all via a simple internet connection. 

"The new infrastructure not only helped us to connect disparate offices and overcome our business environmental challenges, it also cut our external IT consultancy costs by 50 percent for new site setups and ongoing support," says the CEO. "In order to grow our business and become more competitive, we needed to lower the IT costs that were being passed onto our clients."

"The benefits are not only financial," continues the CEO, "employee morale and job satisfaction have improved, with staff no longer having to endure long wait times and frustration associated with accessing the network and applications."

Implementation of the new system was phased and was done in such a way that staff on both the old and new infrastructures could still communicate and share files and access the same critical business systems.

The experience of most staff on the Monday morning following their upgrade was that they sat down at their desks, logged in, and started working using the skills they had gained in their training sessions prior to implementation. The feedback has been extremely positive.  One Manager mentioned the difficulties he had previously had to work with when he and his assistant produced reports containing pictures.  The pictures were sent individually as email attachments due to speed and size limitations of the old system.  Now the manager saves the pictures into the shared drives and his assistant inserts them from the files directly into the reports.

The company reports considerable business benefits as a result of the new system, with users saying it is now easy to access their applications and data when working in other branches, even to the point of not having to take a laptop at all.  "Well done getting this new system over the line.  Before it I had to travel with files and disks - now I can travel with almost nothing," says one staff member. "You'll be happy to know that I am sitting in Hamilton - logged on to the new computer system and I am accessing all my files and emails like I was sitting in Dunedin."

Once the project was completed, and signed off by the client, support for the IT systems was passed to their in-house IT team, backed up by the monitoring and response services of CommArc's Response Centre. Further IT projects continue to be implemented in partnership with CommArc staff.

The IT infrastructure is now seen by this company as a tool that's as reliable as picking up the phone. It has provided them with a solid foundation for any future IT initiatives.