Organisation

Red Eye Constructions & Interiors

Industry

PA Product

KEY POINTS

  • Red Eye used multiple disparate systems that made it difficult to share and manage project-level information. They also used manual forms for issuing field safety and quality actions that were time-consuming to complete and difficult to monitor.
  • Professional Advantage implemented a SharePoint Intranet for Red Eye within 5 weeks, including Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways to assist in their users’ adoption.

  • Red Eye replaced 4 of its disparate systems with a single content repository using Microsoft SharePoint Online, allowing them to reduce project risks, streamline communications, improve productivity, and save on costs.

  • Red Eye was able to successfully onboard and seamlessly manage three multi-million construction projects using their new SharePoint Intranet solution.

"Our users really embraced SharePoint! Everything is in one location rather than on different spreadsheets or platforms, we have easy access to information, and the ability to securely share it externally has been really helpful."

Michael Robertson, General Manager, Red Eye Constructions & Interiors

Over the past 16 years, Red Eye Constructions & Interiors have worked hard at developing a positive industry reputation for delivering construction and interior fit-out projects for the health, commercial, and educational sectors. With a lean team of 25 full-time staff and $50 million annual turnover, they have successfully delivered major building and fit-out projects across Australia. To keep that excellent industry reputation and to provide quality projects, their site teams, contractors, clients, and consultants must have secure access to the latest project documentation wherever they are.

Watch the video below to find out how Red Eye Constructions improved field productivity and collaboration with Microsoft SharePoint. 


DOWNLOAD THE SUMMARISED COPY OF THIS STORY.


Disparate file sharing and work site systems

Red Eye used two systems for managing their projects and documents. Work-Bench was used for project management and Work Metrics for managing work health and safety quality documents. Their file shares and Dropbox complemented these for sharing files to third parties. Red Eye, however, experienced file synchronisation issues that would be risky if their people were using wrong or outdated drawings, procedures, standards, or best practices.

“People working off old drawings or referring to wrong or outdated information could create risks and costly errors for our projects”, says Michael Robertson, General Manager, Red Eye Constructions & Interiors.   

Their field safety, quality, and design actions used Excel-based printed forms that Red Eye’s engineers would have to issue or fill out manually. The completed forms would then have to be submitted via email or handed over physically. This process was inefficient, cumbersome, and challenging to monitor and ensure that actions were taken. It also prohibited the ability to communicate and collaborate with third parties using multiple disparate file sharing and work management systems.

“We wanted to migrate off those other platforms and enable our site teams, contractors, clients, and consultants to be able to interact and share information at a project level”, says Robertson. “We wanted the ability to communicate or issue out actions to external parties and for them to also share information back and have it all in one spot”.

 

From 4 to 1 source of truth

Because Red Eye was already using Microsoft 365, it made sense to utilise SharePoint Online that was included within their subscription. Robertson had had a positive experience using SharePoint to manage construction projects at a previous company, so it made the decision for him to use it at Red Eye easy.

“With the development of SharePoint in the last five years, it has become a lot more user friendly, and you can get super users within the business to create their own forms or lists. It’s just a simple tool to use, and the fact that you can share files and create your lists easily and have them all in one spot is a huge benefit”, said Robertson happily.

Professional Advantage was referred to Red Eye by its services provider for its proven SharePoint implementation expertise in the construction industry. After several deep-dive workshops, Professional Advantage took a rapid but methodical approach in designing and implementing Red Eye’s content and collaboration requirements.

“Professional Advantage immediately understood what we were trying to get out of SharePoint. We articulated our requirements in a way that they related to, on a topic that they are experts at, and therefore the implementation was pretty seamless”, said Robertson.

Within five weeks, SharePoint replaced four of Red Eye’s disparate systems with one source of truth. Red Eye’s staff can now:

  1. Access a single content repository for all their project-related, work health and safety documents, CAD drawings, and other important information for the team—anytime, anywhere, on any device.
  2. Stay confident that their site teams, contractors, clients, and consultants are using the latest documents for their projects with in-built version control.
  3. Communicate and collaborate more effectively within, and across, their four separate departments, namely Construction, Interiors, Joinery Services, and Support Services that normally combine to bid, win, and deliver projects.
  4. Rapidly find project-specific information and actions needed within dedicated project team sites.
  5. Quickly retrieve essential policies, forms, and procedures with SharePoint’s enterprise search and structured metadata.
  6. Stay connected and updated with the latest company news, events, and announcements.
  7. Provide appropriate access to either read-only or edit forms and procedures based on a user’s permission settings.

Professional Advantage created project registers in custom SharePoint Lists that are now accessible on the go, on any mobile device. Users get notified of actions needed regarding field safety, design, or quality through an automated workflow. They can now share files and collaborate with external parties securely without logging in to different platforms.

“Our users have really embraced SharePoint!” says Robertson. “Everything is in one location rather than on different spreadsheets or platforms, we have easy access to information, and the ability to securely share it externally has been really helpful, especially for our project management team”.

Since going live in late 2020, Red Eye has been able to successfully onboard and seamlessly manage three multi-million construction projects using their new SharePoint Intranet solution.

 

Guiding users' adoption with Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways

To ensure the continued success of their new SharePoint Intranet, Red Eye recognised the need to help its users adapt to the latest workplace productivity technology, with training content specific to their roles and needs.

Professional Advantage implemented Learning Pathways, Microsoft’s curated training content that provides organisations implementing Microsoft 365 with the right guidance in using the technology without starting from scratch. Microsoft updates its on-demand learning solution quarterly to ensure organisations get the latest training content. Red Eye’s job-specific proprietary training and accreditation learning models from its legacy Learning Management System was also migrated to Learning Pathways.  

Red Eye’s users access their custom training playlists on their SharePoint Intranet, along with a quiz that helps validate their knowledge and skills in using the application. SharePoint also keeps track of all the courses that a user completes.

Future Development

Robertson’s platform roadmap sees enhancing its SharePoint Intranet further with additional work health and safety features, and implementing advanced analytics and dashboard reports on Power BI for key roles within the business.