4-page Case Study - Posted 3/21/2007
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Engineering Consultancy Streamlines Document Management with New System
Founded in 1967, the international engineering and consultancy company ILF Beratende Ingenieure (ILF) offers a wide range of services—from planning to project management—to the oil and gas sectors. Due to geographical challenges and the sheer daily volume of documentation to be processed, ILF employees found it difficult to file, follow up, and manage critical e-mails and documents efficiently. With the help of Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner TRIA, ILF plans to deploy a solution based on Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007. The technology will provide employees with a central data storage facility and automated work processes, resulting in effective document management and improved customer relations.
Situation
ILF is an international engineering and consultancy company that undertakes major construction projects worldwide, predominantly in the oil and gas sectors. Founded in 1967, ILF has offices in Innsbruck and Munich and more than 20 branches around the world.
The company has more than 900 employees in the development and implementation of project solutions for international clients such as BP, OMV, and Exxon-Mobil. The size of projects varies between a few hundred thousand to several billion euros. For each of these projects, managers require an IT infrastructure that can be set up quickly and simply.
One of the greatest challenges for ILF is the management of project documentation. An enormous volume of documents is produced internally and sent in by third parties. These documents mainly consist of correspondence and project documents, such as reports in graph form and specification sheets. In a large-scale project, up to 20,000 documents can be amassed. ILF manages 120 projects each year—60 from the Munich office alone―and this figure is rapidly growing.
Until now, each ILF office used its own server to store documentation. For each temporary office that ILF set up, it had to create a new server. ILF also relied very heavily on hard copies. Employees printed out a lot of the documents and filed them manually.
ILF tried to keep the need for hard copies to a minimum, beginning with the implementation of a quality assessment system known as the integrated management system (IMS). Richard Schooling, Project Management Head, ILF, says: “IMS sets the ground rules for the management of documents. It defines how documents are recorded and distributed, when they reach our office or when they leave it. Easy integration of the new solution with IMS was a decisive factor.”
Solution
In 2004, ILF evaluated various document management systems on the market and opted for a solution based on Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Portal Server 2003. ILF already benefited from a company-wide licensing agreement for the simple management of licences and a standardised software environment in all offices.
“It was obviously a great advantage for us to be able to have full use of our licensing agreement at a low implementation cost,” says Schooling. “The main reason for our choice was the flexibility offered by SharePoint Portal Server. The enormous range of options for integration with applications from third-party suppliers was also a significant factor in our decision-making.”
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With the new solution, all documents can be easily traced, and that alone will improve cooperation. |
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Richard Schooling, Project Management Head, ILF |
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In the initial phase, ILF used the SharePoint solution mainly as a document portal. In July 2006, when ILF was ready for the next step in the document management project, it carried out a survey to determine whether SharePoint Portal Server was still the most suitable tool.
After studying offers from competitors, the consultancy firm opted for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. To help it maximise the benefits of the system and automate work processes, ILF turned to Microsoft Gold Certified Partner TRIA. Together, they built a new solution in two parts—an intranet and an extranet—which they began implementing in October 2006.
All employees need access to the intranet, with set restrictions to access rights. All documents are stored on the intranet, with each project having a dedicated portal. This includes document drafts still in preparation, as well as the correspondence filed for a project. Integrated with IMS, the system intercepts all e-mails received and sent whose address contains a project number. The number is matched with the corresponding project in a Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005 database, and the e-mail is assigned to a report number, also from an SQL Server 2005 database. Finally, a copy of the e-mail is automatically stored on the intranet.
ILF opted for the establishment of an extranet because it wanted to make a space available exclusively to clients, who now have easy access to a professional-looking portal for all the documents they need.
“Only 300 employees use our existing system, and only 10 per cent of them use it regularly,” says Schooling. “We are expecting more than 1,000 members of staff to use the new solution. Others involved in the projects will also use them. In total, after company-wide commissioning, there will be up to 5,000 users.”
Benefits
After the launch phase is complete, the solution will help ILF employees improve their internal work processes and relations with clients.
Document Management Improves Processes
For the first time, employees at ILF will be able to store all their documents in one place and call them up from any desktop. Each project will have its own dedicated Web site, and access to all individual portals will be possible through the main intranet page. “With Office SharePoint Server 2007, we can now open every project site as a tab in the same browser,” says Schooling. “This is very useful because we often have to keep several portals open.”
By implementing SharePoint Server, ILF has gained a solution that not only consolidates company data and standardises its processes, but also manages the entire information cycle. “The solution will ensure that all our e-mails are copied and filed,” says Schooling. “All documents are stored in one place and, subject to appropriate access rights, can be called up from any location. With the new solution, all documents can be easily traced, and that alone will improve cooperation.”
Solution Increases Efficiency, Cuts Costs
ILF has reduced its need for printed versions of documents, and the associated costs will also be significantly lower. “We will save an enormous volume in paper documents,” says Schooling. “We are expecting to reduce our printing costs by at least 50 per cent—maybe significantly more than that.”
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The enormous range of options for integration with applications from third-party suppliers was a significant factor in our decision-making. |
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Richard Schooling, Project Management Head, ILF |
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Reduced manual processing will increase employee productivity and the efficiency of work processes, which, in turn, will boost knowledge sharing. “Efficiency will no doubt increase,” says Schooling. “Traceability with this highly automated system is amazing. It reduces the risk of human error.”
Dedicated Services Improve Communication
The work processes associated with the supply of documents to clients have been streamlined. If a client needs to check a document, it is now stored by ILF on the extranet, where clients can access it, open it, and insert and store comments.
“This new portal—designed just for our clients’ use—will look more professional and assist us in improving communication and the services we provide,” says Schooling. “The new system has had a very high level of acceptance among our clients. For us, it is a major marketing advantage when our use of modern technologies, modern project-management tools, and workflow management is visible. Because many of our clients are themselves trying to implement document management systems, we are considering further integration options for the future.”
Microsoft Office System
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For more information about the Microsoft Office system, go to: www.microsoft.com/office
Further information
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For further information on ILF Beratende Ingenieure products and services, please call 0049 6107 772-0 or visit the Web site: <a href="http://www.ilf.com/index.php?id>http://www.ilf.com/index.php?id=1&L=1
