BACKGROUND
The Bradford ‘Re-Org’ Project was a £186 million education programme managed by Bovis Lend-Lease. Its aim was to refurbish existing schools and develop new sites within the Bradford area, through which the need for an ICT strategy was highlighted. SICL’s Consultants initially provided the ICT strategy for 4 new school sites, and after a very successful start, the contract was awarded for an additional 26 new and existing schools within the project. The ICT strategy project management was taken on by a dedicated SICL Project Manager.
APPROACH
Each new and existing site required a full site survey and analysis of ICT equipment. As with typical education infrastructures, each school required multimedia dominant functionality whilst running both an Administration and a Curriculum network securely over a common infrastructure. Numbers of users, types of data traffic traversing the network and security were just some of the areas of evaluation required in order to understand the overall requirements. A report was provided to each school giving details of the initial findings together with a recommendation for the network design, encompassing both immediate and future requirements.
IMPLEMENTATION
In addition to ongoing strategy appraisal meetings with Bovis Lend Lease and Bradford education, SICL’s Project Managers maintained frequent contact with all parties including site contractors, sub-contractors and school ICT Managers/ co-ordinators. Project progress was closely monitored to ensure that any issues, technical troubleshooting and additional requirements were quickly identified and addressed ensuring that the project could be quickly re-focused. After successfulre completion of the ICT strategy and implementation SICL continue to work with many of the schools in a support role.
“SICL have proved that they can handle delicate situations and in their dealings with the end customer they are exceptionally good, particularly when translating technical issues to non-technical people. I have no hesitation in recommending them either as a supplier or strategic partner.”
Robert Mothers - Business Manager. Education Bradford.