Anthony Hunt Associates

"Enhanced project management processes are achieved by engineering consultancy Anthony Hunt Associates as a result of broadband implementation."


Best practice in: 	Broadband
Sector: 		      Engineering
Size of firm: 		70 employees
Location: 		      Cirencester
Website:		www.anthonyhuntassociates.co.uk

The structural and civil engineering consultancy Anthony Hunt Associates (AHA) was established in 1962.  Its projects include The Eden Project in Cornwall and Waterloo International Terminal in London.  

The ability to manage projects through close liaison with consultants and contractors is fundamental to the success of an engineering consultancy such as AHA.  The company's objective for its implementation of broadband was primarily therefore to harness the technology to further enhance its strength in this area.  

There were two main requirements driving AHA's choice of broadband solution.  Firstly the increase in the number of regional offices had created the need to streamline communications between offices.  The company's network of offices has now expanded to include London, Sheffield, Edinburgh and Manchester, in addition to the HQ in Cirencester.  Project teams are drawn from across the company's network of offices and it was recognised that broadband offered a means of improving joint working across the company.  "All offices share work," says Julian D'Alberti, AHA's IT Systems Manager.  "The only way to run our operations efficiently is to have them connected to the hub area."

Secondly, the work involves close liaison and joint project working with a number of third parties, which again could be handled more effectively through the use of broadband technology.  "For major projects, effective cooperation is often facilitated through a central extranet provided by the company leading the project.  For AHA the loading of large files, such as engineering drawings, up to the project extranet requires high bandwidth Internet connections."

AHA decided to implement a combination of leased lines and ADSL connections at different locations with bandwidths appropriate for the specific requirements of each location.  A 128kbps leased line provides point-to-point connection between the London and Cirencester sites.   A Virtual Private Network (VPN) creates a secure link between the Edinburgh office and the Cirencester network with internet connections being via a 512kbps leased line for Cirencester and a 128kbps line for Edinburgh.  Internet company, VIANET.WORKS, installed combined VPN / firewall systems to ensure security.  Internet access and access to the AHA network from the Sheffield office is by means of a 256kbps leased line and from Manchester by a 512kbps ADSL line.

"With the VPN in place all AHA offices have secure access to centralised services and applications, making collaboration between sites much easier.  The VPN allows us to share work between the offices much more effectively and deploy staff with specific expertise on projects no matter where they are located."  Joint project working with third parties has also become more effective.





Another benefit is the ability to balance workloads across their network of offices.  "If one office is particularly busy it in some cases makes sense to transfer some parts of the work to another office.  Now staff from another office are able to access the work directly and continue the work.  If the offices were not linked via the network in this way then the members of staff would have to travel to the other office to do the work and the opportunities for this type of work sharing would therefore be far less."

Administrative tasks are also streamlined, requiring less administration time.  One example is time-sheets which used to be collated at office level.  "As a result of the network this is now done by just one person in the finance department which is a significant saving in terms of resources and time."

The saving in people's time, whether on project work or the administrative side provides a considerable benefit in terms of the company's operating efficiencies and costs.  Other notable cost savings are from changes in operating procedures such as now being able to access or send documents electronically, rather than having to spend the time and money in arranging for couriers or other methods of delivery.

The always-on connection also provides AHA with the opportunity to schedule tasks during less busy periods.  "With the network operating 24x7 we can also take advantage of low-traffic periods.  We currently run all remote back-ups for our Exchange servers overnight," said Julian.

To minimise the risk of unforeseen problems AHA involved specialist professional companies throughout the planning and implementation stage and was, as a result, successful in avoiding any major problems.

The implementation of broadband has brought major benefits throughout AHA's operations.  "Broadband and the use of the VPN makes our company more dynamic by enabling information to be accessed instantaneously by any part of the company."