Tavastia Education Consortium deposits its documentation in a SokoPro project bank

Tavastia Education Consortium serves the interests of several educational institutes, including Tavastia Vocational College, Vanajavesi Adult Education Centre, and several senior high schools in the Kanta-Häme region around the city of Hämeenlinna. The scope of the Consortium encompasses about 15 buildings totalling some 72,000 square metres of floor space. Alteration and repair work is continually under way in these properties, and there are currently two new buildings on the drawing board as well. A SokoPro project bank keeps the details of each project in a readily accessible archive.

Consortium Property Manager Mika Metsäalho reports that there was previously no dedicated storage location for property documentation.

“We just had endless shelves weighed down with document binders and a huge array of papers. Most of the electronic materials were held in the archives of previous designers. We had to clear out all the former systems and start thinking about how the old drawings could be archived and how new projects could be completed,” Metsäalho explains.

A three-stage system was established for the Consortium in a SokoPro project bank: an archive of old projects, small projects, meaning minor alterations to properties, and larger active projects, referring to ongoing large-scale new construction or renovation projects.

Working with architects and project consultants, a model directory was created for the system that can be copied every time a new project is launched. This model ensures that both ancient and new drawings are held in the much the same form, with plans stored in a cloud service and readily accessible to all concerned.

Project maintenance information is also important for the progress of a project, meaning details of the current state of a site and of how business is processed.

“Building facilities are often modified nowadays, for example as our educational requirements evolve. It is helpful to have details of things like the location of cable conduits. This information must be readily accessible to people who continue with projects and refine the designs of a previous project, Metsäalho explains.

Property documents retained by the developer

The party that orders a project will own the documentation related to the property, so it is also important for this party to retain custody of this documentation. Metsäalho insists that the information must always remain available to the Consortium, with no need to chase it down from various sources.

“Property drawings are the soul of a building, and an important asset of its owner. A property that lacks such drawings is like a car without a service history. Even though the parties working on a project may naturally change for various reasons, SokoPro keeps all drawings and other information available to the developer at the click of a button,” explains SokoPro Key Account Manager Aripekka Härkönen.

SokoPro is not a system but a way of working

The customer can personally manage all access to SokoPro. Users are notified whenever anyone adds new materials to the property bank, and can individually specify the project bank additions for which they require notification, and those for which no notifications are necessary.

“This is not really any kind of change in principle. Before digitisation such matters were managed manually. Nowadays transactions are more transparent, with information securely stored and made immediately available to the people who should have it. SokoPro also provides a channel for submitting bids and other materials electronically,” explains SokoPro Customer Success Manager Janne Vänskä.

Everyone agrees that SokoPro is not so much a system as an entire way of working.

“The overall benefit is achieved when all of the parties to a project commit to work in the system in the same way. This realises considerable savings of time and money,” Härkönen says.

Another benefit is that the customer has no need for AutoCAD or any special model viewer, because SokoPro opens all file formats with no requirement for “extra software”. The system imposes no file size limits, and it accommodates an unlimited number of users at no extra charge.

Digitising old drawings is easy

While transferring old paper archives into a digital system may seem like a major undertaking, it turns out that scanning materials and transferring them to a SokoPro project bank is simplicity itself.

“Digital materials held in some other system can be transferred as files to SokoPro, but even old paper drawings in document binders can be readily digitised and saved to the property bank,” explains Vänskä, who was responsible for transferring the Tavastia Education Consortium materials to SokoPro.

“SokoPro was selected because its use is easy and straightforward, and includes an effective support service. The swift and easy transfer of materials from the old system was one of the best aspects of this,” Metsäalho observes.