Document control and beyond: InEight

Document organisation and control can help diverse stakeholders stay accountable and achieve project goals on large infrastructure projects.

What do some of the biggest infrastructure projects in Australia have in common?

Aside from billions of dollars worth of contracts and equipment, thousands of workers and endless project documents, some major transport infrastructure projects underway in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth share one more critical feature.

These major Australian projects use a document control system, many of which are from leading construction project management software company InEight.

InEight Document’s inherent flexibility caters to the wide variety of project specifics typical to major infrastructure works.

The solution is a specialised construction document repository for capturing, controlling, versioning, analysing and distributing project documents, while also tracking their history.

Rob Bryant, Executive Vice President – Asia-Pacific with InEight, says using document control systems that are not suited to multifaceted large-scale projects can lead to inefficiencies or rework. The risk, he says, is projects can run over time or budget.

InEight Document is a project-centric solution that organises documents and makes them available to teams in real-time through desktop and mobile tools. It helps ensure everyone is working from a single source of document truth and is able to access the most up-to-date version of each document, wherever work finds them.

“We have found on any project that there is an average of seven revisions to each document or drawing, and major projects can have towards one million project documents in total,” Mr. Bryant says.

InEight’s solution uses metadata, the basic information that describes a document, to intelligently manage all documentation.

“The solution helps categorise documents by type, area, status, date and originator,” Mr. Bryant says.

Each project will have its own unique parameters for document management, and InEight Document enables each party to easily customise its work breakdown structure to the needs of each project.

“With a simple system, you might have mail correspondence in one application, documents in another and photos in yet another. There is no connection there and, in reality, these documents are almost always related,” Mr. Bryant says.

“A true system is going to connect the links between documents so people can leverage the connections to find things much faster.”

With InEight Document, the user can create folder structures or use the metadata from each document to automatically create “dynamic” folders to help with search criteria.

“You can define filters and other aspects to help locate the document you’re seeking. InEight Document provides a lot of flexibility that you can’t get when you have mass documents in a raw system,” Mr. Bryant says.

This project-centric solution allows unique searchability. The user can grant document access to the right people and reduce the risk of inefficiencies, rework or other errors.

As many major infrastructure projects are now built through joint ventures or alliances, this means numerous collaborators and stakeholders need to have access to the correct project files.

“When forming an alliance, you could have four or more major contractors, and they need to be able to work together in a neutral environment. Having a set of tools that are hosted on their behalf means there’s no argument about who holds the data,” Mr. Bryant says.

“On a project, you have documents that need to be controlled by different parties. A controlled document is anything you want to use from a reference point of view where version control is important.”

Mr. Bryant says that being able to view a document and its audit history, so that each person on a project knows they are working from the right document, is crucial.

“Project control is the ability to access and manage documents accurately and have a clear audit trail that ensures there’s no question about what the latest version is, so things can’t be overwritten by mistake,”

“Providing each party on a project with clear access in the appropriate ways can be very important to ensure they have an understanding of which information is being referred to,” Mr. Bryant says.

He says that from the project owner’s point of view, the software allows them to hold contracting parties accountable. This helps prevent debates over decisions based on a document’s audit history.

“From a contractor’s point of view, they can demonstrate what they are working to and the information made available to them.”

The audit trail can also be used by contractors to keep subcontractors accountable to contractual requirements.

“All parties using document control on a project can achieve risk mitigation through accountability and avoiding any unnecessary claims. They can also stay ahead with reporting to encourage deliverables.”

With its collaborative framework, InEight Document can help prevent points of tension between contractors and owners, and enable more efficient and harmonious project outcomes.

“Project managers can gain clear visibility into what is outstanding. This means any issues are dealt with ahead of time, which helps reduce project risks and delays,” Mr. Bryant says.

He notes that with major infrastructure projects, it is important to start with the end goal in mind. Accordingly, having a system in place that makes documents easy to locate for years to come is a crucial factor to project turnover.

“The document control system really lends itself to that. You’re able to categorise everything and make it available so you can quickly locate documents, rather than relying on the memory of someone who was involved five years ago,” he adds.

Another risk, he says, is that a major infrastructure contractor has to spend significant money resurveying once an asset is in operation. InEight Document can be used from the outset of any project so the documents can be found right through to the project handover stage and into operation.

In addition to being used across some of the biggest infrastructure projects in Australia, InEight Document is also being employed on some smaller projects delivered by transport departments.

“Our solution is in use on over $100 billion worth of projects across Australia, which means hundreds of thousands of users are employing it with millions of documents,” Mr. Bryant says.

“The ability to track workflows through a project’s entirety is key for project managers.”

To learn more about InEight’s document management and control solutions, click here to visit the InEight website.