Back in 2015 we were quite proud of having developed our management system from a series of paper-based procedures to being online on our company Intranet. That was a big step for us back then. The key elements of our management system addressed profitability, legal compliance and health and safety performance. We were certified to multiple standards - ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 – because this was a requirement of our main stakeholders. It was a ticket-to-trade for us.
Ten years later, we see that the requirements of BIM (Building Information Modelling) have been a key driver in moving our company to a cloud-based solution and performance monitoring is now real-time and automated. Consolidation of software suppliers within the BIM market has led to further integration of the design and manufacturing process, and the business management system is now defined by our organizational strategy, governing principles, and a collection of discrete but connected software packages.
Effective and efficient data management has become critical to us. The Information Officer is now a full-time role at the top management level. But this also means that continued security and integrity of data is critical to the future of our company and one of the most significant risks to continued success.
We used to dread those ISO audits. But now, wow, assurance activities are largely cloud-based and automated, with onsite audits supported by off-site monitoring of performance dashboards and verification of IT systems, again in real-time.
Independent oversight is now provided through a second party relationship with our assurance provider. For example, we have recently received a “required change notice” because their remote monitoring systems had identified a problem in our process controls for ordering of construction materials.