Construct IT Autumn 2007 Members' Meeting

in conjunction with the West Midlands Centre For Constructing Excellence
 
Summary (2 of 3)
In the next session Kevin Thistlethwaite (Mott MacDonald) addressed as organisations drive towards being more effective and efficient, the creation of 'Lean' business with smart processes invariably relies on a technology underpinning. By drawing on a diverse set of sectors Kevin compared and contrasted what is possible and where the future might lie in both construction and wider service provision. Kevin began with focusing on the business challenge of doing more with the same resources or doing more with less!! He then went back to basics of why we use/need IS/IT in relation to informing decisions, automating transactions, maintaining 'statutory' records, communication and supporting processes. The fundamentals of 'Lean' were then presented of identifying and focusing attention on adding value to a product or service, while eliminating wasteful (non-value adding) activities from processes which can be associated to over processing, unclear communication, delays, duplication, lost opportunities, unnecessary movement, incorrect inventory, etc. Kevin then discussed Mott Macdonald's philosophy of rethinking the normal approach towards a multidisciplinary approach of bringing together 'Lean' and the focus of People, Process, and Technology to bring fresh dimensions when engaging with clients. A number of recent examples of 'Lean' process were presented from a variety of sectors which included the process of pre-sentence reports (probation reports to the courts) with an estimated saving of £25 million over the next 10 years, addressing the system of systems legacy within a large local authority, understanding the core business, processes and aligning the necessary technology of a South African mobile operator start-up company providing mobile phones to Africa and going back to basics to work with users of a police intelligence sharing system to produce useful and necessary information. In terms of ICT in the built environment, Kevin believes this is an area that is being neglected and that getting ICT providers engaged in the master planning stage would add to the value of projects/facilities. Finally, delegates were left with a number of questions to take away - Do you understand the processes you are supporting? Are your processes lean? Do you speak 'capability' (talk and buy capability NOT technology)?
 
Before lunch Alister Coombe (Atomic Weapons Establishment) provided a personal view of a business user on the strategic IT thinking and implementation in relation to being driven by IT or business. This was provided through a review of how IT systems are being developed and implemented to support a facilities development programme of work at AWE approximately valued at £4 billion. This focused on how the IT strategy has evolved to address the design and construction of these facilities. Alister began by discussing the challenges of managing their large and geographically dispersed supply chain along with different cultures, systems, processes and standards, in addition to security. In managing their projects it is important for AWE to control the review and approval of the design and the co-ordination and integration of the design elements from package contractors. Alister discussed the need for AWE to manage their facilities over the next 50 years, i.e. FM, AM and maintenance, which influences how data is created & stored (metadata, standards and applications) and the requirement for one version of the truth, consistency of an approach, confidence in data accuracy, and configured data and documents. The approach taken to address the challenges and opportunities were then discussed including the collective grouping of the various applications (EDMS, CAD, AMS, MMS, GIS Mapping and legacy data) during development through a 'Facilities Solutions Centre' (acting as a Steering Committee) and the incremental/staged approach to development rather than a 'Big Bang'. He also discussed the involvement of Tier 1 of the supply chain in the whole process (i.e. establishing the user requirements, selecting the solution, etc.), a policy of upgrading CAD systems collectively through their whole supply chain (with AWE providing licences, software, training for the EDMs, etc.), and a rolling supply chain framework agreement that is in place. Alister next presented examples from the current ongoing programme demonstrating a 'win - win' in terms of business and IT, change in business process driven by IT, and consistent approach and output along with the key issues that have been identified and addressed. The lessons learnt were then presented including establishing common aims and objectives, driving change from both the top and bottom, adopting an incremental approach to development and deployment over a 'Big Bang', selecting COTS applications that are configured out of the box and not developed, metadata being 'king' with modern applications, focus of development meeting business needs and not over-complicating or implementing just for the sake of it and key systems and standards being mandatory across the supply chain. Finally, Alister stated that IT strategic thinking is driven by the Business needs and is NOT Business or IT led but is team based (e.g. 'Solution Centres'), which will result in changes to business process. ... more>