Transport of London

Processes Enabled:

Customer Benefits & Results:

Overview

Transport for London (TFL) is the largest transport services company in Europe. The organisation is responsible for all transportation-related projects - such as the installation of traffic lights, junctions, and pedestrian crossings - in the city of London across 33 local Boroughs.

Challenge

Transport for London refers to all of its traffic light installations as "Schemes." Each Scheme comprises five major phases of work and requires coordination of many sub-processes such as parts procurement, labour management, resource deployment, and contractor management. TFL strives to maintain status communication with each of the 33 London Boroughs it services, each of which might have multiple scheme requests in with TFL at any given time. In addition, TFL works with 12 major suppliers for project delivery, including electric and telecommunications providers.

The organisation had always managed its schemes using a paper-based process for tracking and managing project-related activities and resources. This resulted in several areas of difficulty, including a limited visibility into project status, suboptimal resource allocation, and time-intensive communications requirements with contractors, suppliers and customers. TFL wanted to implement defined, repeatable, automated processes in order to achieve greater openness, efficiency and visibility across the business and to deliver better service to the Borough Partners.

Network Technologies Limited - a leading UK-based systems integrator and partner to Metastorm developed a technology-based solution that would automate key processes and provide greater visibility into project status. The value of applying Business Process Management (BPM) technology to meet a key challenge of Transport for London was recognised, and plans are being developed to use this technology in other areas.

Solution

Using the Metastorm BPM® Suite, NTL developed a management solution for TFL called SchemeWorks.

The BPM-based solution provides automation of all major phases of project planning and delivery, including the many sub-processes involved in each work phase. SchemeWorks eliminated all paper associated with a scheme, and new schemes are now completely managed online. Employees of TFL now perform their work through a web-based dashboard that allows them to manage projects, take action on a work item, and report on status. The dashboard is customized to each employee upon login, so that employees see only the items that are relevant to their role in the business. In addition to all new schemes being managed in the system, TFL are now able to upload historic data and projects enabling immediate benefits to using the BPM processes.

TFL plans to extend access to SchemeWorks by providing a portal to each of the Boroughs, so that its customers can check the status of their open schemes, all from a web-based interface.

TFL are seeking to integrate the Metastorm BPM solution to several applications, including SAP Financials, the Cyclops project archiving system, and Primavera for cross-scheme project management and resource utilisation. These integrations will provide TFL with even greater insight into ways it can generate efficiency, increase productivity, and make better use of its available resources.

The solution is currently being used by approximately 250 users within TFL. And once fully deployed, TFL anticipates it will have many other users on the SchemeWorks system.

Results

Using the SchemeWorks project management solution built on Metastorm BPM, Transport for London has been able to dramatically improve efficiency and productivity throughout its business and better service its customers. By eliminating paper-based processes and increasing visibility into project detail, TFL anticipates being able to lower costs, improve resource and contractor utilisation, and improve customer communications as a key benefit realisation. In addition, the organisation has increased its transparency which in turn improves its relations with the Boroughs.

The ability to analyse each aspect of project delivery will enable TFL to optimise its operations to complete schemes faster, at a lower cost, and with better overall quality.