Thomas Armstrong Invests in a Centralised Future

Nottingham, United Kingdom, March 20, 2013 --(PR.com)-- Leading construction group Thomas Armstrong (Construction) Ltd is integrating its business operations using Union Square for Construction, the centralised knowledge management system for contractors and specialist sub-contractors. Based in the north of England, Thomas Armstrong has a 180 year history and boasts a large portfolio of work across the construction, concrete, aggregates, M&E and renewable energy sectors.

Thomas Armstrong operates across multiple offices and site locations, with a predominantly paper-based system for managing information. Administration Manager, Sonia McGraffin explains the inefficiencies that were becoming increasingly apparent as a result of working in this way: “All of the hard-copy documentation was proving difficult to store, archiving was a time-consuming task and the flow of information to and from sites wasn’t as simple as it could be.” Business Development Manager John Smith continues: “We also found that different departments were working in their own way, creating silos of data and duplication issues.”

A working group, which included various business stakeholders, recognised there was a need for improvement. The requirement for change was great, so the business set about searching for a solution; Union Square for Construction was one of three systems considered. Site visits to existing Union Square users allowed Thomas Armstrong to see the product in use, which boosted confidence amongst the team and demonstrated the business benefits.

“We could see that numerous benefits would be realised by implementing Union Square,” John continues. “We anticipate there will be large financial savings on print and stationery costs, as well as the decreased environmental impact of our activities. By removing these data silos we remove the duplication of tasks, and the time our teams save can be better spent elsewhere. Having one unified system for all information will increase our efficiency, allowing data to be shared by internal project teams and externally by our sub-contractors. The centralisation of contact data will make for better CRM, hopefully meaning we win more work, and the structured email storage will eliminate the disparate filing methods which currently exist.”

Thomas Armstrong is in the initial stages of the project and is working towards full implementation of the system in September 2013.

The issues described above are shared by many construction organisations. If you’d like to gain tighter control of your business information then contact us at enquiries@unionsquaresoftware.com to see how we can help.