Stewart Milne Group, Case Study

1. CASE STUDY
CREATIVE • PROACTIVE • DEPENDABLE
Portal project proves positive
“On face value this may have looked like a SharePoint project
MICROSOFT® APPLICATION
SOLUTIONS but in reality it was much more, we wanted a supplier that
Microsoft Office SharePoint
would support us in what we were doing and also develop
2007
an ongoing relationship with us. I feel the way in which
Waterstons managed this project was exemplary.”
Maggie Scullion, Director of Business Technology,
Stewart Milne Group
CUSTOMER PROFILE THE CHALLENGE red-lined. The solution that was found to best
meet the Stewart Milne’s needs in terms of
The Stewart Milne group comprises As a rapidly growing organisation, the Stewart functionality and cost was Brava! Enterprise for
Stewart Milne Homes, Timber Systems, Milne group were increasingly facing issues in SharePoint, which was fully integrated into the
Construction and Commercial the areas of document management and control, SharePoint platform.
Developments. Stewart Milne Homes and efficiency of working as the result of paper-
was founded in Aberdeen in 1975 and based working practices. • A project template was designed with the
is one of the UK’s leading privately required document libraries, workflow and
The group needed a solution which would
owned house builders. security, and a wizard was developed to
ensure: enable new projects and the relevant security
Stewart Milne Timber Systems is the groups to be created.
• The suppliers had access to the correct
UK’s leading supplier of timber systems
versions of specifications, so the right • SharePoint was customised to mirror the
solutions to the house building and
materials are delivered to site. “Look and Feel” and branding of Stewart
commercial sectors, and was also
Milne’s website.
established in 1975. • The correct drawings were made available
to builders, ensuring accurate building
Construction deliver commercial and POTENTIAL REALISED
work.
residential projects to the public and
As a result of implementing and customising this
private sectors, and have extensive • Drawings could be easily tracked and
portal solution, Stewart Milne has experienced
expertise in business sectors such as the risk of loss reduced. (Drawings were
the following benefits:
healthcare, office accommodation, traditionally ‘red-lined’ by third parties and
leisure facilities, commercial buildings sent back as hard copies in the post).
• The latest versions of documents are always
and residential housing. visible, reducing confusion, errors and time
• Drawings and documents could be easily
in locating the correct document. The
found.
well-structured project sub-sites also enable
Stewart Milne required a solution incorporating documents to be readily found.
document management and control that would
• The project template has hugely simplified
allow internal and third party users to access the
SharePoint administration for Stewart Milne
latest documents, and to “redline” documents
compared with manually setting up the
electronically.
projects.
IMPLEMENTATION • External users can log into the system, view
the latest documents and red-line drawings
• Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) was and documents. This saves time in sending
selected as the platform for the solution, to hard copies of documents by post, greatly
provide a portal for both internal and external improves traceability and saves time in storing
users. and then finding hard copies.
• Waterstons spent time gathering requirements • Security within SharePoint ensures that
from a number of users from across the the correct groups of people have access
Stewart Milne group of companies to give a to the correct documents. For example,
broad range of input. third parties are not able to view all internal
documentation.
• A number of options and potential software
packages were considered to enable
documents and drawings to be electronically
• telephone: 0845 094 094 5 • website: www.waterstons.com
e-mail: info@waterstons.com

2. CREATIVE • PROACTIVE • DEPENDABLE
More Information
MICROSOFT OFFICE SHAREPOINT 2007 PROJECT MANAGEMENT
MOSS 2007 is a Communication and The project was managed such that key
Collaboration platform that offers the following: Stewart Milne stakeholders were regularly
informed of progress and issues. A preliminary
• Data can be shared across sites and with demonstration was performed part-way
selected 3rd parties. through the project to ensure that Waterstons
were on target for meeting expectations
• Fully configurable to the client’s
regarding the project and so that changes
requirements, including customization of the
could be incorporated at an early stage.
“Look and Feel”.
• Document management and control
functionality (version control and version
history).
“More and more the building industry is coming round to seeing that
• Workflow is provided out-of-the-box – in this
technology can add value to their operations by helping companies
case Approval workflow was used to approve
become innovative and provide continuous improvement.
certain categories of document.
Waterstons have helped us provide a better service to both internal
• Complex security can be defined to
and external customers by allowing us to be more responsive to their
give particular groups access to specific
requirements. ”
components of the site or site functionality.
• Wizards can be defined to automatically Maggie Scullion, Director of Business Technology,
create a new sub-area. Stewart Milne Group
Users can share documents which have been redlined and see the
history of every version of the document.
Users work through a single portal rather than in a mixture of applications.
• telephone: 0845 094 094 5 • website: www.waterstons.com
e-mail: info@waterstons.com