Australian construction group Lendlease is rolling out a platform to ensure customers receive the same consistent approach to project delivery across each of its 18 cities of operation.
Dubbed the ‘One Lendlease Interactive digital mentor platform’ or ‘OLi’, the tool digitises the project management lifecycle to assist Lendlease staff to follow common processes.
“OLi integrates all traditional project management steps into the process and digitises the full project lifecycle, from business development and origination to delivery, asset management and potentially divestment,” the company said in its annual report this week.
“Its purpose is to help us more consistently deliver projects via an endorsed Lendlease Way so that customers experience the same high quality products and services delivered at scale anywhere in the world.”
Lendlease currently has 21 urbanisation projects in-flight across nine ‘gateway cities’, including London, Sydney, San Francisco, Milan, and Chicago, though it also operates in another nine cities globally.
The company said that, once fully rolled out, the platform will connect staff with a “best practice knowledge gateway”, as well as “pre-populate digital templates”, “systematise the investment committee process” and “automate team task management”.
“Additional future capabilities will include project team collaboration space, project mobilisation and resourcing tools and a dynamic approval system that adjusts to changing project characteristics," it said.
The project bears some resemblance to Woodside Energy’s 2015 'Lesson Learned' program, which pulled together years of engineering data across the business to make it more broadly available.
As part of the program, the gas producer used IBM's Watson cognitive computing system to sift through more than 30 years' worth of knowledge and data to improve decision making.
Lendlease did not say what technology it is using to underpin OLi.
Lendlease also used its annual report to talk up its new Digital Twin Consortium, which was formed with Microsoft, Dell, Ansys and the Object Management Group in May.
The consortium will work to advance global standards and use cases for the technology, which “combines geometry, physics and process to create a digital rehearsal of the built world”.
“While this technology has been around since the early 2000s, its application in the construction and property industry is relatively new and facilitated by advances in the Internet of Things and increased cost effectiveness,” the company said.
“Our goal is to drive disruption in the property and construction industry to deliver better outcomes in safety, cost and time savings, risk management and sustainability.”
Lendlease has also partnered with the NSW government “ to share anonymised data across public and privately owned spaces and building assets”.
