Acando had 5 consultants working with BAA for 2 years at Heathrow airport & associated project sites. BAA have relied on Acando for provision of a fully-managed training department to provide comprehensive training for all internal and external Terminal 5 project members who are users of the project’s document repository, built on Documentum.
Project and Client Background
BAA, one of the largest aeronautical organisations in the world, undertook a £2.75bn construction project to create a fifth terminal for London Heathrow airport. This adventurous project was instigated to increase the passenger capacity of Heathrow, maximise the usage of runways and to help maintain Heathrow’s dominant international position.
Challenges faced within the project included the integration of personnel from many partner companies across design and build activities, their interactions and transfer of vital project information.
Documentum was chosen as the document management solution for the project to meet the following key objectives:
• Provision of a single central repository for all project information
• Facilitate up-to-date documentation for all team members at all times
• Provide access for both internal and external project members
Overall, it was estimated that Documentum would provide 30% cost savings across the board, increase productivity and quality while reducing timescales.
Project Requirements
For Documentum to be utilised correctly, BAA realised that all users of the system would need to be properly trained in the mechanics of the application, as well as have full understanding of the concepts that drive it.
The solution required from Acando was effectively a fully-managed training department for all potential users of Documentum. Consultants from Acando had the responsibility to produce effective customised training material to cover the full range of users, and then deliver that training in the most cost-effective and retentive way.
Solution
Acando were chosen as the training supplier based upon their specialist position in the marketplace for providing tailored learning solutions that best meet the business needs of the project and organisation.
Initially a single consultant was engaged in the scoping, creation and delivery of training material, although as the project evolved this led to increased numbers of full-time consultants being on site. While on site, Learning services’s specialists performed a range of duties, from being a single point of contact for all Documentum support issues through to a variety of training applications.
Not only did Acando Learning Services provide full classroom sessions in the various disciplines of Documentum usage (Desktop client, Super User etc), we also provided a fully “blended" learning approach to the training, incorporating one-on-one coaching sessions, workshops focused specifically on teams within the project, custom-printed reference materials and fully-customised Intranet- and Internet web-based training and reference solutions.
The adoption of a blended approach ensured successful fulfilment of the diverse educational needs of each and every project member.
Single Model Environment
All consultancy supplied by Acando Learning services personnel was developed hand in hand with BAA’s own business processes, focusing heavily on their proven methodologies and best practice guidelines, specifically to facilitate their goal of employing concurrent engineering as its design process model.
Concurrent design is only achieved by ensuring that the most up-to-date information is available to the design teams and that they use it as part of a concurrent process. This requirement led to the development of an IT environment for the project known as the Single Model Environment (SME).
To deliver the benefits of working within the SME, Acando Learning Services developed a range of role-specific courses which most effectively communicated to project staff why SME were critical to T5 design/construction phases of work and demonstrated how the many remotely-based project staff worked.
Project Outcome
As a result of the integration of the Acando Learning Services team within the project, project members were able to gain an understanding of:
• T5’s concurrent design process and its relation to the T5 agreement
• The differences and benefits of working in a SME
• The document lifecycle process which includes practical demonstrations of its use
• Internal and external document transmittals and review matrices
• Receipt and integration of external documents
• Management of the SME
Summary
The expansion of Acando’s dedicated resources within the Heathrow Terminal 5 project over the last two years speaks volumes about our commitment to meeting the needs of our customers, our reliability and integrity. Our ongoing engagement, coupled with the effective and efficient use of Documentum within the project is a true indication of our understanding of client needs, our knowledge of successful Documentum usage, and of the quality of our project resources.
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