How Digital Document Management Helped KTC Reduce RFI Handling Time by 65%

Faced with cumbersome RFI processes which delayed submissions and approvals, Singaporean engineering giant KTC embraced digital document management to streamline workflows and underpin data-driven decision making. 

Starting off as an earth-moving subcontractor in 1988, KTC has grown into one of Singapore's most robust civil engineering and infrastructure companies. The name KTC is synonymous with reliability and top-quality services in the areas of civil and infrastructure works and earthworks. 

While earthwork services remain its mainstay in Singapore, KTC's teams have proven capabilities in the construction industry. KTC has contributed to the successful completion of major iconic projects such as Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World at Sentosa Integrated Resort, located off the southern coast of Singapore. 

Manual processes reduce productivity 

While working on such world-class projects, KTC was hampered by manual workflows for processing RFIs, as well as document management in general. While it undertook comprehensive processes which enabled all parties to complete their work, the processes were very time-consuming. This slowed down submissions and approvals, as well as limited the business' ability to quickly make informed data-driven decisions. 

When working on RFIs, consultants, document managers, and engineers all shared PDFs and Excel files via email, with the documents collated by an in-house document controller. This created a lot of time-consuming work for the document controller, while presenting significant issues with version control and revision tracking. 

The challenge was exacerbated by the fact that stakeholders did not always follow the correct procedures for completing the documentation and providing their input, says KTC digital engineering manager Jerry Law. 

"Sharing all that documentation via email, and hoping people complete it correctly, caused a lot of delays and made it very difficult to keep track of everyone's input," Jerry says. 

"As all these document versions kept circulating, with duplicates saved into a shared drive, we could not be sure that everyone was working with the latest information." 

"We needed a way to quickly bring new people up to speed on projects and offer them accurate historical records." 

– Jerry Law, Digital Engineering Manager 

Total digitisation of processes 

KTC required a document management and workflow solution which digitised processes while providing total control over the flow of information, including the approvals process. Even simple improvements in administrative processes can have significant impacts on overall project performance. 

Along with speeding up processes and creating an audit trail, the solution needed to maintain a single source of truth to ensure that everyone working on a project was on the same page. 

"We also needed a way to quickly bring new people up to speed on projects and offer them accurate historical records to easily understand the decision-making process along the way," Law says. 

"It is difficult for newcomers to gain this kind of insight if it is dispersed across vast email chains." 

A leap in productivity 

KTC turned to Autodesk Construction Cloud to create standardised workflows, which have slashed the time taken for digital submissions and submissions by more than 70%, and time taken to complete RFIs by around 65%.  

The time savings came in part though eliminating the need for all stakeholders to continually print, markup, sign, scan, and email documents, as well as dropping the requirement for them to manually update project management spreadsheets after providing their submissions. 

Other key benefits came from the ability to ensure that all stakeholders in an RFI or digital submission follow the set workflow, guaranteeing that accurate data is reliably captured in a standardised format. 

Along with ensuring accurate and consistent records, this allows project managers to extract data more easily to generate up-to-date reports and dashboards. Data-driven decision making is vital for successful projects, but it relies on the data being available in formats that are accessible and reliable.  

"It's not just about getting things done faster and more efficiently at all levels of the business—we’re unlocking the full potential of all that business data." 

– Jerry Law, Digital Engineering Manager 

Real-time information for all 

With the adoption of Autodesk Construction Cloud, information sharing within KTC and with its partners has become much more streamlined, saving hours each month on unnecessary administrative work.  

Consultants now spend 70% less time on administrative tasks, while the document controller has also been freed to work on more meaningful tasks, resulting in a significant productivity boost. 

At the same time, KTC can now use all that data in a more meaningful, proactive way, Jerry says. 

"The status of projects can now be discerned in real time, and managers are kept in the loop more than they ever have been before," he says. 

"It has created a self-service model where managers can easily access all the information they require in real-time, rather than relying on others to manually handle those requests." 

Saving time and money on every project  

Thanks to Autodesk Construction Cloud, KTC has embraced digitisation and is now able to automate processes to save time and money on every aspect of its operation. 

"It's not just about getting things done faster and more efficiently at all levels of the business—we’re unlocking the full potential of all that business data," Jerry says.  

"Autodesk Construction Cloud's automated dashboards and other tools offer a new level of data-driven decision making, by ensuring that our executives can easily remain in touch with what's happening on the ground."