Founded nearly 100 years ago, McConnell provides refurbishment, retrofit, energy efficiency upgrades and maintenance services to a broad portfolio of public and private sector clients. This includes local authorities, the Ministry of Defence, major retail chains, universities, and commercial units.
While McConnell had previously been using a general Sharepoint based approach to document management, with the increasing size and scope of its major projects, this soon became ineffective and unsuited. It presented the team with numerous challenges, including sharing documents externally, version control of documents and drawings, and ensuring all project information was stored reliably and efficiently. The need for effective document control was only heightened by the golden thread of information requirements introduced by the Building Safety Act.
Beth McMorrow, Business Quality Manager at McConnell explains why the decision was made to switch to Trimble Viewpoint For Projects: “Given the nature of construction projects, we knew we needed a system developed specifically for this industry. I had used Viewpoint For Projects in a previous role, so I was well aware of its capabilities. What’s more, the business was already using Viewpoint Field View for tracking quality and works on-site, meaning that Viewpoint For Projects was a natural fit.”
Viewpoint For Projects is a complete document management solution and common data environment, designed to simplify the control, sharing and storage of all types of project documentation and communications. It also enables effective collaboration between different stakeholders on a project.
Among the benefits of Viewpoint For Projects for McConnell was the custom workflows that it offers, providing a robust and structured process for progressing construction documents through reviews, revision and approval. This is something that simply wasn’t possible with a less sophisticated system, not designed for the complex specifics of the design and construction process.
Beth continued: “Viewpoint For Projects also helped solve potential issues around tracking and capturing project communications, especially when managing RFIs and confirmation of verbal instruction (CVI) documents. The ability to see who had viewed key documents, as well as providing a full audit trail of revisions and approvals, has really helped us to deliver on true traceability and communication.
“The workflows, version control and audit trails are all very important features for us from a compliance perspective. It’s all about ensuring we have the right documents exactly where they need to be – a complete record of the project in one place.”
Another key feature for McConnell is the ability to grant tailored access permissions depending on the user. This means that all files can be stored on the same platform and everyone involved can use it without concerns around the security of certain documents. With Viewpoint For Projects, access can be controlled at an enterprise, project, folder or file level, meaning it is flexible and simple to manage.
Speaking about the adoption of the platform, Beth said: “Trimble supported us throughout the implementation of Viewpoint For Projects, including full training on the software for our team of document controllers and meetings with the team to discuss any questions or issues they had encountered.
“The adoption of Viewpoint For Projects has made a real difference to how we manage projects and the feedback from the teams using it every day has been very positive.
“Users quickly saw the benefits of its collaborative features and the huge improvement over the previous system when sharing files. Our team really appreciates the simplicity of being able to open and work on the documents and drawings in the live environment, rather than downloading, editing and reuploading. Overall, it has streamlined the process of document management in a way that has proved simple for everyone working on the project.”
Following a successful implementation, McConnell is utilising Viewpoint For Projects across the business on all new major projects, including recladding work where the Building Safety Act and its golden thread of information requirements apply.
Jack Moore, Digital Success Manager at Trimble concluded: “McConnell is an excellent example of the experience that many of our customers have. The growing need for reliable, compliant document management in construction has meant that many less specialised options are simply no longer adequate. As a common data environment, designed to meet the needs of the industry, Viewpoint For Projects can help businesses ensure reliable, secure, compliant and collaborative document management.
