The University of Sydney Plans for the future
with Incite
THE CHALLENGE
The University of Sydney’s Campus 2010 project, with a budget of $250 million, is
the largest single capital development program ever undertaken at the University.
The project aims to renew, rebuild and enhance the University’s campuses and provide
new teaching and research facilies.
The project planning began in 2000 and like all big construction projects, involved
multiple parties, some of which were not based in Australia. In mid 2003, Gerard
Gabriel, the then Facilities Information Manager at the University’s Campus Infrastructure
& Services, realised the project needed a centralised system to capture the business
processes, workflows and communication exchange.
As Gerard explained, "Communication and continuity on a project of this size are
sometimes areas of weakness, particularly when so many parties are involved. It
was very important for us to have one robust system that covered the whole project
and captured the exchange of information. We wanted to be able to monitor what was
happening on a project at any given point in time and we needed a tool to reduce
the risk, manage the documentation and improve the performance and communication."
THE APPROACH
The University looked at various project management systems available. Some of which
were web‐based, some client‐based and some a mix of both. Incite was chosen as it
was fully web‐enabled and because it had a number of processes that didn’t exist
in the other systems.
Gerard outlined some of the benefits, "Incite has an online document viewer that
views a huge range of different file formats. If someone is working on a PC that
doesn’t have Microsoft Office installed for example, it’s not an issue."
The Incite document viewer opens spreadsheets, word documents, pdf files and even
CAD drawings. Gerard explained how this benefited the project team, “It enables
you to superimpose two CAD drawings and see the differences between a current version
and a previous version. That was a really important tool for the project managers
and one which some of the other solutions didn’t offer."
To ensure the smooth running of the construction project, the University made it
a requirement that all parties within the Campus 2010 project used the Incite platform.
Initially there was some resistance to the change, but after a few months the system
was well‐established and people started to see the advantages.
RESULTS
The results Incite provided were clear. As Dave Rowland, a senior project manager
with Capital Insight which is running the project explained, Incite didn’t have
the risk factors associated with traditional email communication. "Within Incite
it's very simple. Communications can’t be deleted when people move on or at any
other point. Everything is role based and roles are assigned and reassigned within
an organisation as necessary."
The University was also able to ensure all information was stored in a particular
way that wasn’t affected by personal filing preferences. Gerard summed it up, “We
designed a specific naming convention for the drawings. So the file name itself
had a nice long string of alpha‐numeric characters that defined what the project
was, what revision it was and what stage of the project it was at.” Gerard said
Incite enforced this discipline across the project team, “When the consultants were
uploading those files, Incite would then check if it was a valid file name and update
the revision accordingly."
Incite users can easily configure the workflow processes in the system to meet the
needs of the project and each individual’s job role. The University set rules for
processes within Incite around who could raise a data file, what happened after
it was raised and the gateways it went through. This allowed the project team to
see who was really sittng on a data file at any point in time.
Dave Rowland said, "As one of the project managers I am able to click on a report
every morning and see exactly where bottenecks are, whether they are with the project
management team, the architects, service engineers, the contractor or the sub‐contractors.
I can even see where each communication stopped and whether or not the relevant
person had reviewed it."
For the University, this was a powerful performance management and risk management
tool. As Alan Masterton, the former head of Campus Infrastructure & Services explained,
“The project manager could go to his weekly meeting armed with that set of reports.
It provided complete transparency around where the bottlenecks were and who was
accountable for them."
Another key benefit was the ability to customise elements of the platform to the
requirements of the project. Alan continued "We have certain workflows that are
specific to the University and we were able to do a fair bit of customisation to
accommodate that.” The University was able to build its own special features into
the Incite platform. Gerard explained, "We have webcams on site that take regular
pictures. Three times a day pictures are retrieved from the cameras and automatically
filed within the Incite system. This becomes a photographic record of the progress
on the project and photos can be used to verify claims to do with weather issues
or other obstacles."
The fact the Incite platform is hosted was another big plus for the Campus 2010
project. Incite runs on Infoplex technology, which makes it scalable, secure and
reliable. As Gerard saw it, the University was able to outsource a lot of the operating
risk, "In a way, we've passed a lot of the risk off to Incite in that we don’t have
the responsibility of running the platform ourselves or storing the project information
on our own servers within the University."
Another benefit is that Incite keeps accurate historical records the University
can access at anytime. Gerard explained, "Once buildings are constructed, the construction
plans are relevant for ongoing maintenance. On other projects in the past, when
we got to the end of construction we’d expect a lot of deliverables apart from the
physical building, such as information related to how it was constructed and the
operation manuals. Sometimes these were not forthcoming, but with Incite we always
have the latest set of construction drawings there available for us to download.”
As Gerard put it, "This saves us a lot of time spent chasing documents once the
project is complete."
The Campus 2010 project is nearing completion and so far, Incite has helped keep
the project on track. "Incite has been an invaluable performance management tool
for Campus 2010 and I’d hate to think where we’d be without it." Gerard concluded.