Union Square Software
Union Square have developed Workspace to provide members of the construction supply chain; architects, engineers, main contractors and sub-contractors with…
Find Articles
Online knowledge portal streamlines business operations
John Laing Partnership, the social housing contractor and developer, has purchased 'Workspace', a web-based information-sharing portal from specialist construction software author, Union Square Software. Over the next six months, Workspace's document and email management functionality will be made fully accessible to all of JLP's 100 employees, with potential to further extending the system's reach to external parties, clients and consultants by the end of 2009. The new software, worth in the region of £100,000, will enable JLP to safely store project-critical data and allow its employees to retrieve information from any location worldwide.
Bernie Hall, Group IT Manager at John Laing Partnership, comments: "As a company, John Laing Partnership have never had any form of document nor company-wide contact management functionality - both key functions that we needed to gain. We have always invested in IT, which has led to a number of good although disparate systems and we were particularly interested in finding a way to draw all of our existing IT operations together in order to increase the visibility of the information stored individually within each one, and to maximise our investment thus far."
Hall continues: "In the past we have had quite a few problems storing project centric information within separate areas of the business. Now that we can store all data within Workspace's central repository, it will make accessing everything much easier for all of our staff, and because it's web-based, they don't even need to be in the office at the time. All employees will now be kept up-to-date with the latest business-critical information, which will not only save us from potentially duplicating documents but will also reduce the time it takes to track down information. Where it could previously take us an entire day to search for and unearth just one email, we will now be able to do this in a matter of minutes. These time and efficiency savings will prove vastly profitable for the business, and with Workspace replacing an existing system, we anticipate seeing an ROI comfortably within three years."
Workspace was designed to help firms within the architectural and construction industries manage information effectively and avoid the problems that occur with traditional storage systems when valuable business documentation and correspondence is lost or misfiled. The software provides construction organisations with a simple method of filing, archiving and retrieving all documents through a central software portal that can be accessed by any employee or external parties with access rights.
Union Square specifically tailor the product to fit in with the needs of each individual organisation. For JLP, Workspace will be adapted so that the company is able to customise and track its recruitment processes more effectively. Hall explains: "A few minor modifications meant that Union Square could effectively create us a separate contact database - or talent pool - that could hold information regarding candidates and vacancies. Using the existing architecture that Workspace is based on and tweaking it minimally, we can establish a cheap and integrated option for recruitment operations, meaning there is now no need to purchase a separate external system."
Established in 1980, JLP is a contractor developer with wide technical expertise spanning the spectrum of design and build, refurbishment and estate regeneration. The company, based in Elstree, London, has been accredited with numerous awards for its developments and business initiatives.
Hall concludes: "Union Square's expertise within the construction industry and impressive product knowledge meant that they could offer us a solution that was tailored especially for our needs. Once roll out is completed, we will have a fully customised system that will not only streamline our operations in the supply chain, but aid us in achieving optimum collaboration and consistency across the business."
Tell us your news:
If you have industry related software news that you would like to have published, please use this submission service to have your news considered for publication
