Fugro

We were delighted when Terry Giles, a quality engineer at Fugro who has been working on this project, took the time to share with us the success of the first phase and the next steps planned for this group-wide improvement project.

The Challenge: Creating a Standardised Enterprise Operational Framework

In January 2017, Fugro began a process to become a business that is more customer-focused, changing its structure to align with the services it provides.  This new model highlighted the need for operational consistency and standardised ways of working across multiple countries and business units.

Fugro undertook a project to identify operational best practices and establish a common enterprise operational framework across its Europe and Africa region. The objective was to create a consistent operational governance environment supporting standardisation, visibility and common certification across the business. Starting with QHSSE and project management operations, a pan-European project team was formed to drive this alignment.

Terry Giles was able to exploit his expertise with the Triaster platform, which some parts of Fugro in the UK had been successfully using for several years (and had been selected as the platform for this project), to help move the process improvement project forward.  His remit aligned with the first phase of the project: to establish a single enterprise operational framework for Fugro’s Europe and Africa region and promote its adoption across the wider organisation.

The Project: Establishing a Common Enterprise Operational Framework

The project focused on creating a shared operational governance framework bringing together common operational processes, standards and organisational knowledge across Fugro businesses providing marine site characterisation services in Europe and Africa.

One of the project’s key challenges was determining how to balance enterprise operational consistency with the flexibility required to support local operational conditions. The concept of tailoring described in the CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) was taken as a guide.

Because project management operations were strategically important to Fugro, they became a focal point of the initiative. Standardising end-to-end project management operations together with associated operational knowledge within the Triaster enterprise framework became the first major step. The next phase focused on aligning operational practices across each country entity starting with Fugro GB Marine Ltd (FGBML) with offices in Wallingford, Portchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow. This entity was chosen primarily because it had some experience with working with Triaster and key personnel were based in Wallingford with Terry.

Originally, the project team had been using SharePoint to manage operational content supporting centralised project management activities, accessed through the Triaster operational framework. However, issues had arisen around the need to constantly sign-in to the SharePoint site every time a map or document was accessed, so it was decided to migrate all the maps and documents in use to the local Wallingford Triaster server.

The wheels were set in motion: operational processes and supporting operational knowledge were consolidated within the enterprise framework, a home page was designed and agreed, and the library set up. This design was intended to become the standard operational framework template across the Europe and Africa region. Two key design requirements were that:

• The operational framework environment should have the same look and feel as the company intranet (Insite)
• The operational framework should be mobile-friendly for field-based users operating from tablets and smartphones

The FGBML home page was launched at the end of August 2017, generating a very positive response. As a back up to the launch, an operational onboarding and governance support package was developed for local library administrators in each local service line, to handle updates to maps and documents held in their sections of the library.

Following the successful pilot deployment, the operational framework was rolled out across additional European entities. This resulted in a decision to move the process libraries from their base on a server in Wallingford to one in the Netherlands, where Fugro is headquartered, thus providing easier access to other European locations.

Several additional Fugro entities began adopting the enterprise operational framework and integrating operational knowledge into the shared environment.

Operational Benefits Achieved

One of the key drivers was to create a unified operational environment enabling Fugro to operate consistently as one consolidated enterprise, [Terry explained.] The first phase in this project has now been successfully delivered, with firm foundations in place for the next phase.
Terry Giles, Fugro

While the monetary benefits are still being quantified, Fugro expects significant operational efficiencies through the standardisation of project management operations, shared operational governance and consistent customer delivery practices. In addition, operationally aligned and mobile-friendly access is now being provided to Fugro personnel working across field operations.

Next Phase of Operational Alignment

The enterprise operational framework will next be expanded across the remaining MSC businesses in the Europe and Africa region to ensure that all entities have their IMS published in libraries that are accessible by all locations. The next steps will be twofold:

• To identify operational best practices and standardise them across the wider organisation
• To reduce operational duplication and improve enterprise-wide operational consistency

This initiative also supports the creation of a unified operational governance environment across Fugro’s MSC business in Europe and Africa, supporting common certification, operational consistency and reduced audit overhead.

Triaster is delighted to support Fugro in establishing a scalable enterprise operational framework supporting governance, operational alignment and continuous improvement across the organisation.

Published June 2018