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CASE STUDY
Business Value Case Study of WRENCH Enterprise Deployment at Khatib & Alami:
Integrated I.T. infrastructure across multiple design centers.
Sponsored by: WRENCH Solutions
August 2007
INTRODUCTION
Khatib & Alami (K&A) is one of the
Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Iraq,
biggest architectural engineering and
Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Libya,
project management companies in
Tunisia, Sudan, Kazakhstan,
the middle east region. In recent
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Belgium
years, K&A has earned a reputation
and USA.
for building some of the largest and
OVERVIEW
Cust
omer
Customer
omer: Khatib & Alami, UAE
Industr
y: Architecture
Industry:
Engineering and Infrastructure
projects.
Business Need:
Need To manage
projects and project information
across multiple locations.
Solution: WRENCH Enterprise.
Benef
its: Online data sharing/
Benefits:
exchange between all projects
shareholders, real-time project
most unique buildings in the world,
K&A undertakes projects in the field
including the very prestigious Jeballi
of infrastructure, district and city
Airport (one of the largest cargo
waste management system, trans
airports), the third and fourth tallest
portation (roads, bridges, airports),
towers, and many more.
oil and gas engineering in
collaboration with ARAMCO (Saudi
K&A is a true ‘global’ project
Arabia), and GIS.
management company, with offices
“For the past 15 years, we have been looking
for a solution that could monitor our projects,
ensure compliance, manage engineering and
other data and keep all project stake holders
on the same page. WRENCH was the only
solution that offered all the above”.
Mr. .Ala Hasooun Head – IT department, Khatib & Alami
monitoring across locations and
time-zones, 100% data security,
in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, United
K&A has greatly expanded its
quality process enforced
Arab Emirates, Sultanate of Oman,
operations over the past few years,
automatically, design cycle time
State of Qatar, State of Kuwait,
and today has a very strong
reduced by 40%.
Kingdom of Bahrain, Yemen,
presence all over South East Asia.
BACKGROUND
The ‘time’ factor: ‘manual’ working
Example: An architectural drawing
In recent years, the middle-east has
culture cause of major delays
goes to the ‘checker’ in the
become the world’s largest
K&A had set up large multi-
architecture department, then to the
construction market. Multi-billion
disciplinary engineering and project
checker in the civil department,
dollar investments have flooded in to
management teams in several
then to the structural department
develop cutting-edge infrastructure
countries which could use local
and only after being cleared by all
and futuristic architecture, which in
talent and thus provide faster service
three is it sent to the project
turn has resulted in the rapid growth
and on-the-ground support to local
manager. The project manager, if
of EPC and turnkey projects
clients. However:
satisfied, submits it to the client (or
companies like Khatib & Alami, who
municipality) for approval. A
design and construct mega-projects
K&A’s overall working
change/comment means the whole
for international clients.
methodology was manually
process is repeated again.
driven and manually enforced,
Bottom line: A typical project
Apart from having a reputation
and therefore had many
involves 500 to 700 documents/
for turning out architectural
inherent problems and
drawings. K&A generally has
marvels, K&A is also known for
bottlenecks.
around 50 projects running
its ability to complete projects
Example: K&A relied on on their
simultaneously – plus 100 ‘old’
on time – a much-valued ability
‘document controllers’ for sharing
projects i.e. in different stages
in this time-driven market. In
and updating files - that is,
of lifecycle. Keeping track of this
fact, due to this, K&A today has the
uploading and downloading files
volume of tasks and activities
distinction of being the ‘preferred
from a common FTP server. A
manually was a VERY big
company’ of its international
manual and effort-intensive process,
challenge for the organization.
clientele.
this was a very unreliable and
THE SITUATION
Competition = Deadlines vs. quality.
unsatisfactory arrangement,
Summary:K&A’s business growth
especially for project managers who
was impeded by the lack of a system
could not be sure of getting
to manage each project’s processes,
deliverables (from designers), could
documents, resources and
not easily trace the status of a
information.
The construction boom brought in
deliverable – whether it was
large multinational firms (from USA,
pending, and if pending, where in
UK, China, Korea, Japan) who set up
the system it was stuck, who was
THE CHALLENGE
shop locally and began bidding
the concerned party and so on.
Project teams relied entirely on FTP,
aggressively for projects. This
Bottom line: Lot of time wasted
courier or email to communicate and
intensified the competition and
in manual followup, firefighting,
share data. This system, or rather
encouraged clients to bargain for
double-checking etc.
lack of a system, was extremely
ever-shorter cycle times - but of
inefficent, resulting in large wastage
course without compromising on
Quality: how to monitor project
quality or budget. Today, project
deliverables and documentation?
completion time is the main
Each deliverable goes through
differentiator while bidding for a
multiple departments before being
documents on a central server, which
project.
approved.
required a very high internet
of time and resources.
K&A was maintaining all its files and
bandwidth. With the high cost of
Copyright WRENCH Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 2007. All Rights Reserved.
Easy to use – WRENCH Enterprise
bandwidth in the middle-east, the
one live project. However, results
only viable bandwidth available was
were less than satisfactory, with
is designed exclusively for
512 Kbps, which was not enough for
users reporting a time-spend of 10-
engineering/construction
smooth and fast file uploads/
15 minutes per drawing upload
organizations, and mimics the
downloads. Also project design
(average size 10mb). Designers also
typical day-to-day work routine
functions were generally assigned to
had to spend similar amounts of
of each level of user. Thus it
whichever engineering office
time to access the files for editing
was very easy to use even for
happened to be closest to the
(each file had to be downloaded
non I.T-savvy users at K&A.
worksite, rather than the one was
from the server every time.)
•
Manpower-shortage problem
best equipped. This overloaded
some of K&A’s engineering offices,
A second round of evaluation began,
solved! Another major benefit was
while in others there was spare
where WRENCH Enterprise was
that the new system also eased the
finally chosen over brands like
perennial skilled-manpower shortage
Documentum (+Mcclaren) and
that plagues the EPC industry. K&A,
BuildACT.
due to its growth spurt, was very
capacity going to waste.
THE SOLUTION
seriously implicated by the severe
I.T. solutions – value vs. hype
shortage of experienced project
THE RESULTS
K&A’s I.T. department was
commissioned to either find a
User feedback after WRENCH
suitable I.T. solution, or to develop
Enterprise™ implementation:
such a system inhouse. This system
•
managers and engineers.
Overall, the K&A project team
Time to upload/download files
reported a 40% faster
would need to handle a rapidly
dropped to less than 30 seconds
engineering cycle time, plus a
increasing number of projects, and
(even for files of 20-30Mb).
new-found confidence in their
help senior managers balance the
(WRENCH Enterprise EPC uses
ability to ensure compliance.
need for shorter cycle time against
a satellite server architecture
the need to meet stringent quality
where the file is maintained
standards and budgetary
locally and the then replicated
considerations.
during non-peak hours (i.e.
nighttime) to the central server.)
K&A I.T. inrastructure at the time
•
Easy and efficient project/work
included: MsExchange-based
monitoring:. Due to automated
integrated mailing system, AutoCAD,
updates and progress data.Eg.
Microstation, 3D software,
when the project schedule was
Primavera, Microsoft Project, a time-
released by the project
sheet system, and HRM software
manager, each user was notified
automatically, and a task list
“Trial and Error”: K&A’s IT
was sent to his desktop by the
department first opted for a solution
system.
•
called Project Wise™ (after
Round the clock access to latest
evaluating major EDMS like
information: Managers said they
Documentum™, Laserfiche™) and a
were able to monitor project
Project Wise™pilot was deployed on
deliverables in realtime, 24X7.
“WRENCH Enterprise
has revolutionized the
way we work. We
can now easily
manage even the
biggest projects
remotely without
delay or
confusion.” .
Mr. .Ala Hasooun Head – IT department,
Khatib & Alami
Copyright WRENCH Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 2007. All Rights Reserved.
THE BENEFITS
it on the server, because the
-
Fast and efficient
WRENCH system automatically
information sharing:
does this after every change.
Visit www.wrenchepc.com or
www.wrenchsolutions.com for more
details on how this product can
benefit YOUR organization.
Communicating and sharing
-
project data is now much
Efficient and error-free
much faster and practically
change management: When
effortless - even though the
a change is made in the master
size of the data is very large (5-
data, WRENCH ensures that it
10 Mb). Files are copied to a
is automatically replicated to all
local server and replicated to
locations. An automatic
the central server and site
watermark on the printed
server on demand during low-
document\drawing ensures that
traffic hours and are thus made
the end user is using only the
available at the point of use
latest revision. This ensured
without any human
that there is no confusion about
intervention.
which is the latest version, no
unnecessary duplication, and
-
Online monitoring: Project
schedules and projects task can
be scheduled and monitored
online, which has enabled K&A’s
project managers to have total
control of all project resources
and monitor work accurately
without depending on reports
or followups.
-
A seamless ‘virtual’ project
team that works a single
unit - from anywhere in the
world: Distributed Project
teams from various locations
can now work as a single online
team in real-time. They all have
access to latest data without
depending on various
individuals…for example, a
consultant in London need not
wait for an engineer working in
India to update a file and save
no error i.e. 100% quality.
For a complete list of WRENCH benefits or
WRENCH functionality, mail us at
[email protected]
NEXT STEPS
K&A plans to implement WRENCH
Enterprise across all its projects as
soon as possible.
At the time of writing, WRENCH
Enterprise is being rolled out across
all the ther office locations and all
projects handled by K&A. WRENCH
Enterprise is also being implemented
in all K&A business units, including
Infrastructure, Oil and Gas,
Transportation and GIS.
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trademarks of WRENCH Solutions Private
Limited. All other product and service names
mentioned are the trademarks of their
respective companies. Data contained in this
document serves informational purposes only
and is subject to change without notice. Every
care has been taken to ensure the accuracy
and validity of the information herein, but
WRENCH is not liable for any damages due
to misinformation or inaccurate data
Copyright WRENCH Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 2007. All Rights Reserved.