HS2 Main Works C2-C3

Using information management data to digitally transform a multi-billion pound project

Losing confidence in the accuracy of Power BI reports

The EKFB Information Management team relies on a number of datasets and systems to achieve its functional goals, which were siloed and without reliable reporting tools in place. This led to uncertainty in scope, performance issues and time inefficiencies associated with performing day-to-day activities. Our client’s team also didn’t have a clear view of the overall status of the design process due to multiple information systems and fragmentation of their workflows. Reports also relied heavily on offline Excel files that people didn’t regularly update. 

Establishing a roadmap to success

We undertook an initial discovery review to understand and document our requirements and develop a phased delivery roadmap. This initiative enabled the client to understand the complete picture of how they would ultimately connect all their systems. We worked closely with the team to agree on the priorities and the scope of the subsequent phases of work. Key areas identified were:

• the migration of data from SharePoint to Azure SQL 
• rebuild of the Power BI data model and reports across deliverable management, asset management and work packaging

We then performed a detailed review of architecture requirements, data and requirements to provide a deep understanding of the scope and ensure the client was continually involved at each step. Following this, a design phase was performed whereby user experience and backend data architecture was considered. We were also able to build our new solution alongside their existing systems, before performing a full data migration over the weekend, ensuring teams did not experience any loss of service on their day-to-day, mission-critical systems. 

Transforming systems to a scalable solution

The solution we developed provided the teams with a step-change in performance by migrating to a fully scalable solution through Azure. We focused on maximising automation of the data pipeline and minimising the use of offline Excel tables which helped the project team greatly reduce the time they spent gathering and transforming data. With the newly built Power BI dashboards the whole project team has gained visibility of the data contained in the various systems, helping them understand what was happening on the project and focus on the critical parts that needed attention.

We have helped EKFB to instil a true “data culture” within the organization, training members of the client team in best practice reporting and other practical project controls disciplines. Our report quickly became the number 1 ranked Power BI report across the entire programme and is one that the both EKFB and the end client, HS2, can trust with confidence when managing the delivery of this £2.5bn project.