Setting up a secure digital modern office

The challenge

As the provider of digital services for a high profile National Highways’ road project MindCraft is part of the project team preparing for the preliminary works phase. The new phase required the integrated project team to set up and move to a new office.

The chosen site had been empty for some time, needed a major refurbishment and an IT infrastructure to meet the highest standards and a design to maximise collaborative, digital ways of working across multiple organisations.

Cyber security needed to be at the core of the solution.

Our solution

The office had to undergo a full refurbishment to bring it up to modern safety standards and make it fit for purpose for years to come. Key to that and to MindCraft was a focus on cyber security and collaborative ways of working.

Working with a global specialist office system supplier, the team installed a secure entry system to carefully monitor access.

MindCraft’s cyber security consultant Cool Waters Cyber were also on hand to interrogate the configuration of all systems and ensure compliance with industry leading security standards.

The MindCraft team introduced everything from desk hardware to some of the first Microsoft new Surface Hubs 3s in the UK, designed for optimal collaborative working. Using Whiteboards and Teams, hubs, both mobile and integrated in meeting rooms, allow all suppliers working on the project to co-ordinate and collaborate, across organisational boundaries and in multiple countries and languages, from within a single project tenant.

Desk and room booking apps followed, alongside digital signage providing a range of flexible communications channels.

For the first time MindCraft overcame a problem which had dogged complex joint ventures on construction projects – the ability to print. Now this was possible, regardless of parent company.

The benefits

The MindCraft strategy overcame a recurring challenge on a major infrastructure project which has multiple different supply chain companies, who are normally prevented from accessing the everyday functions they need such as printing and booking systems.

Using a single IT systems provider MindCraft minimised the risk of a fractured approach, with the risk for information leak and incompatibility across systems.

MindCraft’s single project O365 tenant strategy enables maximum access by all suppliers to systems which can be centrally security checked and controlled.

The technology is not only functional – it’s driving engagement, sending project messages to all colleagues, updating, informing and supporting a fully integrated team.

The use of the mobile and fixed Surface Hub 3s are already delivering value to the team – with efficiencies of collaborative digital working already identified by both MindCraft and our client. Over the lifetime of the project these are looking likely to amount to savings in the hundreds of thousands of pounds through collaboration, real-time translation, and improved accessibility options.