PCT Engineers Spends More Time on Business Initiatives, Less on Searching for Company Information By implementing ISYS:web and ISYS:desktop, PCT Engineers has greatly improved employee productivity and has refocused on client service – the most essential part of its business About PCT Engineers Formed in 1987, PCT Engineers (PCT) delivers multi-discipline engineering services on a global basis to companies that develop, manage, operate and maintain assets in the resource and infrastructure industries.
Originally focused in Western Australia, PCT has now expanded its presence across Australia, with three offices in Western Australia and Queensland, as well as onsite services at client locations throughout Australia and overseas. The Challenge PCT employees were quickly becoming frustrated with the ever-increasing number of documents stored in the company’s internal system. To access information regarding a previous project, it was necessary to remember the client name, the project number and other pertinent details to pinpoint a specific document. PCT developed a structured folder setup to help alleviate this problem, but it still meant users were required to know enough details to successfully navigate the files and locate where the document was stored. IT managers contemplated introducing a document management system (DMS). However, they quickly determined a DMS would require higher levels of IT administration, with no guarantee of providing a quick result when searching for a specific document.
Ultimately, PCT decided to implement a comprehensive search tool that not only provided simple search techniques but could also be tailored to help users with more sophisticated search and intelligence-gathering options. The decision to implement a search engine was also part of a larger, company-wide strategy to elevate PCT’s IT environment to a higher maturity level and prepare the company for future growth as it sought to strengthen its position as a highly skilled and independent engineering company. Selecting the Right Tool PCT was looking for a search tool that was relatively simple to implement, easy for users to learn and sold at a reasonable price. The company evaluated a number of search tools, including those offered free of charge. Each solution was measured against a specific list of criteria.
After an exhaustive trial period, PCT chose ISYS Search Software to solve its knowledge management issues. “One of the criteria we weighed heavily in selecting the right tool was the level of support and customer assistance,” said Chris Marshall, IT manager, PCT Engineers. “The ability to have a trial version installed very quickly was also key. ISYS achieved both of these very well.” ISYS in Action With a simple implementation plan provided by ISYS and IT services partner, Hewlett-Packard (HP), PCT was able to install the search tool quickly and start searching almost immediately. ISYS:web was implemented in December 2006, quickly followed by the implementation of ISYS:desktop in January 2007.
“The Australian support team from ISYS has been exemplary,” said Marshall. “They have been quick to respond to problems, provide implementation advice, and support HP in establishing the ISYS environment for our company. HP was able to quickly learn to plan, implement and support ISYS without any major delays or technical difficulties.” ISYS:web provides a search facility across the company’s intranet, which includes PCT’s comprehensive business management system (BMS). The BMS contains a large collection of work instructions, forms, procedures and manuals essential to PCT’s business. Access to these documents is directly correlated to the quality of engineering services delivered to PCT’s clients and to its internal corporate services.
ISYS:desktop is used to enable search across more than a million project documents, including Microsoft Office files, computer-aided design(CAD) files, PDF files and web pages stored on the company’s internal server. In addition, it provides individual users with the ability to index their email and personal files. ISYS:desktop completely removes the need for complex folder structures and document management rules. PCT has started to extend its use of ISYS to take advantage of some of its unique features. The immediate use of features such as ISYS’ Best Bets, which enables Web administrators to assign a specific document to appear as the first result within a given query, has proven to be extremely useful. PCT also utilizes ISYS’ Categories feature, which automatically generates clusters of related documents in each results set.
In addition, PCT plans to implement ISYS’ Concept Taxonomy feature, which enables users to navigate document collections via a taxonomic tree. This will allow the company to offer a more structured approach to finding documents in PCT’s BMS, in addition to standard search capabilities. Results By implementing ISYS, PCT has returned the focus to its clients and to growing its business. The company has been able to greatly reduce the time it takes its engineers and project managers to find documents, allowing more time to complete projects and to work together with its clients.
In addition, ISYS enables PCT to implement a better archiving mechanism, thereby reducing the amount of ‘live production’ storage and reducing time needed for nightly backups. Financially, the return on investment for PCT is estimated between eight and 10 months, taking into account productivity gains versus the software cost and time taken to implement. Going forward, PCT expects long-term benefits such as: cost reduction in business overhead; increased productivity of PCT employees through faster and easier access to the BMS and client project files, including historical engineering data; boosted morale among staff; and enhanced organizational culture due to secure, easy-to-access internal systems. “Without search, finding documents was long, tiresome, frustrating and hit-and-miss,” said Marshall. “With ISYS, it is now quicker and easier, and enables users to perform intelligent searches with ISYS’ enhanced features.” # # #
