Sir Robert McAlpine has adopted a common data environment (CDE) from SaaS provider Business Collaborator (BC)
The CDE solution will drive end-to-end project and asset information management across new projects, and enable a single, unique data source to be accessed by Sir Robert McAlpine and its supply chain partners.
After a rigorous tender process, the contractor selected Group BC’s CDE as its preferred solution and was impressed with the architecture, flexibility and usability of the solution.
Working and steering groups were formed in order to enable decision-making and drive the process to its completion.
Gareth Parkes, head of data & analytics at Sir Robert McAlpine, said: “It was a collaborative effort all-round, between ourselves, BC and information management consultant, Concentre Consulting.
“We had a great team with the right support in place to make it a very straightforward process.”
‘A data-driven company’
In implementing the new CDE Sir Robert McAlpine is also working with information management provider, Amodal.
Michael Barber, director and co-founder of Amodal, commented: “I have been working with Sir Robert McAlpine for the past year defining the strategy on how to implement BC’s platform.
“It has been a real privilege supporting their move towards becoming a data-driven company and we look forward to continuing the relationship as Sir Robert McAlpine’s implementation partner.”
BC’s most advanced offering, BC Enterprise+, was tailored to Sir Robert McAlpine’s exact requirements.
The CDE solution helps to manage the vast amount of built asset data, improving programme and asset control, and the delivery of new projects.
Compatible with both Sir Robert McAlpine and its supply chain’s existing systems, the solution is aligned with BIM standards PAS 1192 and ISO 19650.
BC Enterprise+ gives the company the edge when it comes to its project management – reducing costs and boosting the security of client and supply chain information.
“The structure of BC’s solution is extremely flexible – it is modern and intuitive,” continues Gareth Parkes.
“For our end-users, this really helps with usability and accessibility. Our users, for instance, have the opportunity to see everything they need to on a single window.
“This degree of visibility is essential for all members of the project teams to make quick, informed decisions.”
Utilising flexible workflows
Sandra Popple, project systems manager at Sir Robert McAlpine, said: “With BC’s CDE we feel empowered to make specific changes, which is a real benefit. This is particularly crucial as many of our clients have their own requirements that we need to accommodate.
“The flexibility of BC’s workflows enables us to have more than one person accessing the information needed to make important decisions regarding the projects.”
As well as being flexible, the CDE solution also has a notable integration capability.
Not only does it give Sir Robert McAlpine the ability to extract data from the system, it can reconcile the data to create links to other systems.
“This is quite a complex requirement,” explained Gareth Parkes.
“Yet the compatibility of BC’s CDE gives us lots of opportunities to be more creative than we have previously been.”
Sanjeev Shah, partner and international development director for BC at Bentley, added: “We’re thrilled to be selected by Sir Robert McAlpine.
“The flexibility of our system, together with our customer focussed philosophy is proving attractive to main contractors that are finding their incumbent solutions increasingly unsuitable for their collaboration frameworks.
“The investment in our interface design and unrivalled functionality are proving attractive to the innovate leading across the industry.”
