Vössing spurs efficient, effective collaboration in major infrastructure projects

Introduction

Engineering standards and regulations can change all the time. To stay up to speed, engineers at Vössing share their knowledge on a collaboration platform based on HCL Connections Cloud—empowering them to exchange information and best practices more effectively and save days on research.

Business benefits:

Days of research replaced by rapid questions and answers, search and find

Rapid adoption demonstrates that employees value the solution 

Avoids up to 15x higher spend on comparable ERP, DRM and HR platforms

Navigating shifting sands

Engineering company Vössing manages thousands of infrastructure projects—including roads, bridges and rail networks—in more than 15 countries worldwide. These construction projects are highly complex, last several years and involve many stakeholders and subcontractors, so keeping the wheels turning smoothly to meet critical deadlines is no easy task.

Bernd Gewehr, Head of IT at Vössing, explains: “Any given project is likely to involve scores of our in-house employees and about a dozen specialist subcontractors. To keep the project running smoothly, we need to inform all relevant parties of updates quickly and efficiently. Similarly, if employees change roles and we have new people involved in a project, we need to be able to bring them up-to-speed rapidly.

“To further complicate matters, construction guidelines, regulations and materials can vary substantially between different countries and change frequently. Engineers cannot assume that what worked a few months ago will be in line with current best practices; instead, they need to check and double-check every last detail. Previously, engineers often had to spend days sifting through long documents to find the precise details they were searching for—only to find that the rules had not changed after all. We wanted to help our highly talented engineers work more productively, so we set out to find a better way to help them share knowledge within their global community.”

Laying the foundations of robust teamwork

To support efficient teamwork, Vössing relies on a sophisticated set of collaboration tools from HCL Connections Cloud, featuring an intranet, instant messaging, virtual meetings, online communities and blogs. To access emails from their desktop clients, employees use HCL Notes. They can also use HCL Verse to work with emails on standard web browsers, and the HCL Verse mobile app to access messages on mobile devices. Vössing’s entire communication and collaboration stack is based on HCL solutions in the cloud.

To catch up on the latest news on a project, or to brush up their knowledge on the latest regulations for a certain type of construction, engineers log into HCL Connections to search the available information, post questions and provide answers to colleagues’ enquiries.

“The collaboration solutions from HCL enable engineers to avoid days of research, and instead gain rapid answers to their questions by tapping into the community’s existing knowledge,” continues Bernd Gewehr. “The vast majority of employees regularly access the collaboration hub. Even people who don’t use social media in their personal lives and don’t like to participate in discussions themselves appreciate the resource, because it helps them work more productively.”

Employees can access the HCL collaboration solutions using personal or company-owned mobile devices, helping them work productively from their home, while traveling, at a construction site, or anywhere else with an internet connection. 

To empower employees to complete a broader range of tasks on-the-go, Vössing has developed an HCL Domino XPages responsive web app that enables them to work on core business processes from the ERP, CRM and HR systems using their mobile devices. The app integrates seamlessly with the company’s enterprise applications, which are predominantly built on the HCL Domino platform. To enhance its agility, Vössing is working to support more of its business processes on mobile devices and via a web interface in the short future.

Thanks to customization of the HCL Connections Cloud user interface, business processes appear right in the central enterprise collaboration front-end, giving employees a single digital workplace that consolidates diverse information, including typical intranet content, operations, processes and transactions. 

Nailing efficient, effective collaboration

By fueling efficient, effective collaboration, the HCL solutions are helping engineers to share knowledge rapidly and save days on research. And to further enhance teamwork, Vössing plans to roll out the solutions to external subcontractors and suppliers in the future.

Bernd Gewehr elaborates: “Our vision is that whenever we win a new contract, we establish a dedicated community in HCL Connections and invite all internal and external participants involved in the project. People will agree timelines and next steps via online discussions, replacing massive volumes of email and giving everyone a clear view of the current status and previous actions. 

Vössing is confident that building its business on the HCL Domino platform has helped it to avoid substantial operational and capital costs. 

“Our analysis of the market showed that the total cost of ownership for a full set of standard ERP, CRM and HR systems would have been at least 15 times higher than developing and running our own specialized applications on HCL Domino.” comments Bernd Gewehr.