GR Engineering
iManage WorkSite Implementation Case Study
GR Engineering Services Limited is an engineering, consulting, and contracting company specialising in fixed price engineering design and construction services to the resources and mineral processing industry.
Overview
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Founded in Perth, Western Australia in 2006, GR Engineering has rapidly grown through the completion of design and construction projects and studies for a diverse range of clients, including global mining houses, mid-tier miners and junior developers undertaking their first projects. In light of this rapid growth, GR Engineering requires reliable and robust solutions to manage their ongoing internal development and change.
Challenges
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Remote site content sharing utilising intermittent communication links.
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Business risks associated with manual document control.
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Substantial data migration.
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Outcome
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Document Management & Security significantly increased
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Centralised content and streamlined email filing, with emails stored with their attachment
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Minimised the likelihood of human error
Mitigating Risk
GR Engineering were storing information, documents, and data on local drives, and Excel registers were being controlled by an internally developed document control process. This presented a less than desirable situation for GR Engineering as it increased the likelihood of human error, misfiling, and generated difficulty when users tried to look back for information or data stored in systems such as these. Adam Totaro, GR Engineering’s Commercial Manager, and the driver of this project, says “As a group we had focused on maintaining largely manual procedures for document control and it was presenting significant business risk to us.” Adam, having previously used iManage WorkSite during his time with Blakiston & Crabb (now Gilbert + Tobin) recalled the product and recognised it would be a perfect fit for GR Engineering, approaching Office Information Australia (OIA) soon after. Through implementing iManage WorkSite, GR Engineering were able to centralise their content as well as streamline their email filing, and content management. WorkSite has provided GR Engineering with a solution where emails are stored with their attachments alongside related project content, ensuring they retain their full context and meaning, and are readily available for reference and future use either by text searching or file structure navigation.
Implementing a Cloud Solution
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GR Engineering’s main office is in Perth, however they also operate out of remote sites with weak and sometimes intermittent communication links. Realising a significant roadblock, OIA presented a solution utilising replication processes through Dropbox and email management that allows office users to use iManage WorkSite as normal, whilst site staff review and create documents on local systems, regardless of connectivity, allowing smooth synchronisation of data between remote sites and main offices and availability onsite when communications fail. Each project has an internal e-mail address assigned and available through the e-mail address book. Site Staff CC the relevant project and a copy of this correspondence is available to the workspace and search technologies of iManage WorkSite.
“OIA always demonstrated quick response times during project appraisal, development and implementation either by phone or email. Interpersonal skills were a strong suit of all team members making the interface between GR Engineering and OIA seamless"
- Adam Totaro
Overcoming Challenges
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Along with coping with poor communication between sites, GR Engineering needed to maintain document filing structures that retained elements of the core logic of the existing file structure with suitable modifications to maximise the functionality and effectiveness of WorkSite. GR Engineering co-ordinated a replacement of their server infrastructure and required OIA to work closely and sensitively with GR Engineering’s IT service provider to ensure accuracy and continuity. A tight implementation timetable was produced that all parties worked together to achieve. Significant data migration needed to be executed, which OIA achieved not only successfully and timely, but also with minimal interruption to daily business operation.
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Delivering Outcomes
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While OIA and GR Engineering together endured a difficult and demanding implementation phase, GR Engineering’s Adam Totaro says “GR Engineering’s expectations were definitely met during the project. OIA’s level of service was to a standard representative of a top tier IT consultancy and the project outcomes to date have been outstanding.” iManage WorkSite has now been in place at GR Engineering since September 2012, and after a period of training, users have broadly adjusted to iManage WorkSite, user uptake has been strong and document flow through the system is continuing to steadily increase as habits evolve around WorkSite document creation and email filing. GR Engineering now operates under a reduced risk profile since the implementation of WorkSite. Document Management and Security are significantly enhanced which has improved GR Engineering’s overall business practice.