Helios Terminal (McConnell Dowell) 

• $150 million oil storage terminal
• International supplier network
• Large volume of procurement information
• 400 participants from 70 organizations in six countries
• Improvement in productivity

Streamlining international collaboration and vendor document management

Client

McConnell Dowell (MCD) is a world class engineering, construction and maintenance company with business units in civil and marine, mechanical, electrical, pipelines, tunnelling and underground services. The company employs about 5,000 personnel and operates in South East Asia, the Middle East, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

Project

MCD was the main contractor on the Helios Terminal in Singapore, a project to construct a 450,000 cubic meter oil storage terminal. The bunker is located on Jurong Island’s petroleum hub and comprises 18 oil production tanks. MCD’s section of the development was valued at approximately US$95 million, with the total development valued at US$150 million. 

Challenges

MCD needed to control downstream communication with suppliers and subcontractors, and also communicate effectively with the client’s project management team.

In addition, suppliers for the project were based around the world and MCD anticipated a large volume of information would need to be exchanged between parties particularly during the tendering and procurement processes. 

Solution

MCD selected to use the Aconex online collaboration platform to manage project documents and project correspondence.

Results

Over the project’s 15 months, more than 400 team members from 70 organizations used the system to store and manage more than 70,000 documents and correspondence items.

Managing procurement information

Jonathan Scott, Engineering Manager at McConnell Dowell, said, “The main use of Aconex was during procurement, where we needed to control a huge amount of documentation. About US$55 million was spent purchasing equipment and materials and we had to manage drawings, data sheets, specifications, maintenance manuals, quality documents, certificates and records for each item. Aconex handled this perfectly.”

Linking global network of suppliers

“We primarily used Aconex for collaborating with our subcontractors and suppliers,” said Scott. “If the purchase order was in excess of about US$50,000, we’d insist they use Aconex. We had suppliers in France, Germany, the UK, Korea, Australia and Singapore, so managing this online with Aconex speeds up the submission and approval process by cutting paper transmittals. The result is much less work at our end and, because everything is traceable, it’s fool proof.”

“It’s met all our expectations on our job, and that’s pretty impressive.”

Jonathan Scott, Engineering Manager at McConnell Dowell

Finding and retrieving information

“In the past we’ve had issues losing information and knowing which document is the latest versions. These things always happen, but with Aconex we can be sure that when we look at a document, it’s the latest version.” Scott added, “There’s a big turnover of staff, so it’s a big benefit that everything is easy to find.”

Scott said, “There’s a lot less double up in work. With the old systems, it would take someone to type in all the information then when it was transmitted it would have to be entered again at the other end. With Aconex there is an outright increase in productivity. I’ve been on similar sized jobs and they had twice as many document controllers. Because it’s easy to use, Aconex makes it easy for anyone to find what they need.

“The main benefit of Aconex was the document control, but we also used it for issuing and tracking correspondence. The project management team used it to transmit letters and mail over the system.”

Training and support

Scott said, “The support is really good, and it’s been good in every location we’ve needed it. We’ve got new people coming on all the time so Aconex has run session after session to get everyone up to speed. We also use the weekly open sessions at their office.”

Fantastic product

Summarizing what Aconex has brought to the project, Scott said, “Aconex has been an excellent document control system and is a fantastic product. It’s performed exactly as it was promised to when we evaluated it. It’s very rare that you can say that about something but it’s met all our expectations on our job, and that’s pretty impressive.”