Port City Construction: A Best-Practices Approach

A story about selecting and implementing software, based on a true story.

“No one was ever fired for purchasing IBM.” America is the innovation incubation nation … it will be our innovation and technological revolution that resurrects the current economic environment, re-establishing the country as the global technological and economic pioneer that it is. In the 1970s IBM may have been the only game in town; however the vendor landscape has drastically changed since.  America is the breeding ground for innovators who aim to solve problems more efficiently using technology. Choosing the right technology is more difficult than ever. 

Port City Construction (PCC)* always seemed to misfire on technology purchase and implementation. Information technology, ownership, and management knew there must be a best-practices approach to selection and implementation. It decided to take an analytical, proactive approach to vendor selection and implementation by following a four-step plan: assess, plan, implement, and renew. 

Following these basic steps, PCC was able to implement a five-year strategic plan for managing content within the organization. Its goal was to reduce the overall systems, overhead, and resources required to support its systems and processes. Specifically, the decisionmakers within the company were most interested in integrating ERP (enterprise resource planning) and accounting systems with an ECM (enterprise content management) solution. Prior to this initiative PCC owned and maintained 12 major business applications throughout its departments. Each system was independently implemented and lacked integration to the collective business planning and management. Information was isolated, access was restricted, and IT spent entirely too much time supporting desktops rather than implementing strategic technology to better manage the business. It was time for a change; not only in the information systems environment, but the approach to which they were implemented. 

ASSESS
PCC decided to form a strategic planning committee. The committee decided to implement a proactive approach to the overall management and outlook of the business. Specifically regarding IS (information systems) purchasing and implementation, PCC was going to follow the assess, plan, implement, and renew strategy. The first step was the assessment of the current business environment. Assessment included identifying the problems at hand, defining the needs of the organization, determining the business drivers, and devising a presentation to clearly communicate the plan. 

The IT director of PCC performed the business assessment for ECM. In order to identify and document the problems with managing paper and electronic information along with corresponding business processes, he documented the current business processes and archiving methodologies. By interviewing knowledge workers and shadowing key personnel, the IT director was able to successfully map out the workflow processes within operations, AP (accounts payable), HR (human resources), AR (accounts receivable), and maintenance. Processes documented and uncovered ranged from the payroll data collection and check distribution to subcontract prequalification. A needs analysis was then developed to communicate the business requirements for process improvement. The needs analysis allowed the IT director to gain buy in from the president, CFO, and vice president of operations as well as the knowledge workers. The needs analysis clearly communicated the business processes and relative gaps within each department. For example, operations was unable to integrate email correspondence with project documentation and archiving. Information was segregated, hard to find, and discovery response was a nightmare. Therefore, a requirement for the ECM system included automated email correspondence and document management. 

Following the needs analysis, the IT director created a presentation for the strategic planning committee, which included the business drivers for the decision-making process. The business drivers for the selection process included: reduced staff, overhead, quicker processing of information, reduced errors, reduced risk, discovery preparedness, reduced IT support requirements, reduced duplication, increased visibility for processes, and improved customer service. The presentation consisted of a summary, problem description, vendor evaluation criteria, benefits, cost, assumptions, impact, risk management, and the conclusion. The presentation was well received, as it showed due diligence and fortitude on the behalf of the director. The assessment and planning phases were crucial to the new-found approach. 

The call to action was to produce a plan for the project. The project would affect many members of the organization throughout its lifecycle. Who are the stakeholders for this project? The stakeholders were the executives, management, project champions, and end users. The IT director defined the stakeholders to provide focus and clarity for the project owners. The executives were needed to ultimately fund the project and support it from top down. Management was on board in order to facilitate more efficient departments.  Champions were recruited to energize the user base, and ultimately the end users are the clients, whereby, ultimate satisfaction, adoption, and buy in must be achieved. Port City was thorough in assuring buy-in from all parties at this particular stage. The president later commented that this was a crucial success factor.  

PLAN
The successive planning steps included vendor/solution selection, cost analysis, and implementation. In order to fully educate the team, PCC submitted an RFI (request for information) to all vendors it had previously researched. This allowed PCC to collect valuable information in regard to functionality, best practices, and cost. Next, it collated the RFI information to create an RFP (request for proposal). The RFP was only submitted to a handful of qualified vendors. The goal at this point was to narrow the vendor list down to less than three for a complete vendor demonstration and evaluation. Port City narrowed its ECM vendor participants down to two eligible vendors, which met all of its business and systems integrations requirements. It then scheduled product demonstrations and reference checks. At the end of the selection process both vendors were able to present their best pricing and licensing structure based on their existing knowledge of Port City. Cost was considered and calculated as the following: licensing, integration, development, consulting, training, and annual maintenance. 

The strategic planning committee was prepared to select a vendor. Based on the licensing and cost structure PCC moved forward with the most viable solution in accordance with its initiatives for the next five years. The three methodologies it considered were pilot/proof of concept, phased/evolutionary, or Big Bang/all at once.  

Look for the rest of the documentary at http://construction-imaging.com/portcity.

*Company name was changed

 

 

 

Construction Imaging
3993 Sunset Ave.
Rocky Mount, N.C. 27804
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ecm@construction-imaging.com
www.construction-imaging.com

Construction Imaging is the leading provider of enterprise content management and workflow solutions for the construction industry.