While many construction companies have implemented niche IT solutions for human resources, finance, procurement and project management at a functional level, few have pursued truly cross-organisational applications. This tactical approach has often resulted in the IT investment providing neither value for money nor the robust technology platforms necessary to gain competitive advantage in the modern business arena.

Optimising efficiency in construction

Construction companies need flexible, integrated IT solutions that allow them to run business processes effectively and coherently, while also enabling them to collaborate easily with partners, suppliers and customers.

Atos Origin’s integrated construction solutions enable a radical transformation of traditional management methods and restructuring of business relationships. They also provide a powerful IT infrastructure that can support business process improvements and innovation, particularly in areas such as knowledge management, procurement and supply chain management.

Benefits of integration

These highly flexible infrastructures enable construction projects to be governed and delivered by integrated project teams involving clients, designers, contractors and key manufacturers. Integrated construction solutions reshape the business, making it easy for plans, teams, plant and materials to be quickly mobilised, contributing to the realisation of any project to time and within budget.

• Increased efficiency – in all business processes, raising productivity, eliminating processes that don’t add value and creating scope for continuous improvement
• Reduced costs – savings of between 5 and 30% can be made by optimising the utilisation of resources such as workforce and assets, with a clear focus on driving better efficiencies, cutting duplication and stripping out surplus costs
• Better customer service – improve access to information and ensure better control of budgets and timescales for delivery
• Increased profitability – identify the most profitable projects by forecasting time and costs more accurately
• Improved quality – define clear criteria to prove best value other than the traditional way of lowest cost
• Consistency – standardise processes and enable ‘repeatability’ of successful methods
• Agility – respond faster to new opportunities and stay ahead of the competition
• Collaboration – improve relationships across teams, with business partners, supply chain partners and clients
• Compliance – with security requirements, government regulations and quality standards.

Our approach

Drawing on our wide experience of enterprise solutions and partnered supply chains, we take a highly collaborative and practical approach to deliver consolidated, structured solutions for linking multiple processes and systems.

Everything we do is driven by the need to meet clearly defined business requirements, as follows:

• Best fit – we are not restricted by product or vendor, thus we are free to design and match the best solution for each client’s particular business needs
• Full lifecycle approach to projects via a process of audit, consult, design, build, operate
• Development of accurate process models (workflows, information lifecycles, etc)
• Building infrastructures that are secure, reliable, flexible and manageable
• Stringent security and content checking to minimise risk
• End-to-end application, database and operational systems management
• Key performance indicators to continually evaluate quality and return on IT investment.