Today, Business expects the IT industry comes up with new ideas, innovations and changes in the usual work methods. Moreover, Business is ready to change itself, to adopt advanced practices and the most effective technologies. But, of course, a lot depends on personality, experience and, most importantly, on the drive of the IT director himself. For a special issue of “IT Manager” Grigory Rudnitsky talked hereof with Denis Guzanov, Deputy General Director of JSC Mosgiprotrans.
Why did you decide to join Mosgiprotrans?
The fact that I was invited to take part in the development of information technologies in the company which is the first designer of high-speed railway “Moscow-Kazan HSR-2” in Russia. Thus, I started to "raise" IT sphere in "Mosgiprotrans" in all respects, which I am familiar with. "Mosgiprotrans" is a well known organization. One of the seven skyscrapers of Moscow located near the metro station "krasnye Vorota" was designed by the Institute. Moreover, construction of a number of metro stations, renovation of railway stations and a part of the Moscow circular railway, construction of residential buildings, and most importantly, of BAM (Baikal-Amur Mainline) were carried out under the project design of "Mosgiprotrans". If at previous job in ALVIGO we designed areas of the chemical industry, here we are talking mostly about a geographically extensive large objects. I could not refuse such invitation. HSR-2 is an important and interesting project which is divided into 12 stages. We have already received a positive conclusion on the third and fourth stages from the state expertise at the stage P.
What tasks are assigned to IT in this project?
These tasks are classical for any design organization. There are little more requirements to infrastructure and data volumes. Accordingly, special requirements are placed on storage systems, their availability and resiliency. Therefore, due to a huge amount of printed documentation, specific demands are placed on the printing equipment, in particular, more color. For example, we use only color network printers. In short, we have increased demands on IT. In principle, it is the same work as it was in ALVIGO, but much tougher and more serious.
How useful is your previous experience now?
I have learned how to interact with shareholders and business owners when they don’t want to go into detail, and expect effective work from IT, but how to carry out this work you have to decide for yourself. We have formed an IT strategy and defended it at the strategic session. The strategy provides a set of IT projects with an approximate budget estimate. Then together with shareholders and company management we chose those projects that we needed. For each project we calculate ROI. Previously, there was a team which also offered a number of projects, but I had to abandon those that had a sane ROI. Shareholders were offered only the projects which have a calculated time frame of investment return and economic benefit.
What do you have to change in IT system of Mosgiprotarans?
Almost everything. We have reorganized, but actually we have remade the existing data center. A lot of things changed since we defended the IT strategy and proceeded to the process-service approach, committed to implementing the service level agreement. The main thing was that we tried to make sure that IT specialist had an understanding of why they were here in the company. Before I joined the company, the IT specialist had been working fencing themselves off from Business, and said: "Give us a technical task and we will do it." As a result, nobody gave them anything, neither budgets nor technical assignments. We showed clearly how we saw business processes, and it was absolutely understandable. Based on the IT strategy, we made tactical roadmaps which we use as the basis. For half a year we checked the whole IT infrastructure, put new demands on data centers, changed the network routing inside the building with 24 floors.
Today all discuss the topic of digital business transformation. Is there a place for digital transformation in the design Institute?
Definitely! I think that the owners of the project business are interested in classic IT units in a lesser degree. I have not quite usual unit: Automation and Production Department, which uses CAD systems and large format printing. The effect of standardization has become very noticeable because it accumulates expertise and this is very important for such projects as ours. As a result of project work, we have paper or electronic drawings. So, why do we need this Department? Often organizations are not interested in process standardization and systematization of knowledge. If processes and rules are met, you get a very significant effect. Now we create a process-service approach in the production unit. Standardization allows us to replace 24 plotters with two ones, and instead of 15 employees we need only two. We do not aim to dismiss or reduce people. Our goal is to make their work more effective, to give them the opportunity to earn a lot. The more employees earn, the higher the profit of the owner. Last month we released 300% more documentation than a year before, and employees did not work on weekends, everything was done due to the standardization of processes and input forms, systematization of input applications, and due to the fact that employees understand what for they are rewarded. Even designers thanked us.
Now we have a strategy of developing information modeling BIM (Building Information Model). The shareholders understand that they can get classic IT services from system integrators. There are a lot of companies that can configure the network, domain, phones, computers, etc. But shareholders are interested in IT services applicable to their business. Internal projects we usually implement themselves because of their importance for the development of BIM technologies in "Mosgiprotrans". After all, what is BIM? This is a digital asset, and paper documentation is its result. Classic IT projects are the foundation for the next stages. One of these stages is implementation of electronic document management which we are going to do in the near future. But, again, the main thing is BIM. This is what I came here for and started to work. For six months we went from a concept to the BIM prototype, and made a digital model of the station HSR-2 in Noginsk (with the railroad). The following project we are planning to execute in the "figures" with the highest level of detail and without any drawings. Designers understand that object-oriented design is the future. Document flow in the project should be coordinated digitally. Customers also see the effect from digital designing, in the example of sample construction and operation.
Will the digital transformation change consciousness?
Designers are educated persons, they are willing to change their thinking, regardless of age. It often happens that the young employees up to 30 years are not so ready to change consciousness, as the aged employees who have worked for several decades. Thinking is changing, and it's great.
You said that the driver should be IT specialist, but what about top management?
All IT projects and initiatives will be reduced to zero if there is no interest and support from top management. My position also belongs to the top management. Of course the Development Director suggests many ideas but still major innovations are inextricably linked to IT Department. That is why the question what will say IT specialists arises very often during the discussions on the strategic development paths. I believe that among top managers, namely the IT Director still shall be initiator of forth innovative ideas, even if not all of them will be accepted.
Do you have a catalog of IT services?
Yes, we have approved and implemented catalog! It includes a set of service options that IT service provides or is able to provide to the business units. Quality control of such services is performed on the basis of an agreement. It is an open document which is available to all current and potential customers of services of "Mosgiprotrans". There are several levels of support: basic, enhanced, and VIP.
Are there centers of competence in your company?
Definitely. We inform all users about new developments and trends in it by e-mail. We also lead the knowledge base in the system of Naumen, and we have our own internal "Wikipedia" which was originally created to help new employees to be quickly involved in the work, but then it became interesting to designers who also expressed a desire to use it in order to share their knowledge through this service. Earlier they did not have such possibility.
What Service in your company, the Information Security Department is subordinate to: IT or Security Service?
This is a separate service that reporting to the Deputy General Director for Security. We work with them in partnership. We have the Committee on information security which includes deputies of the Director General on Security and Legal Affairs, me, and information security specialists. We also develop regulations for each document. If we are talking about some regulations governing IT work, here we act as initiators, but we always coordinate all changes with the security specialists. They help us with their ties to power structures, with their articles, knowledge and with certain solutions they can offer. They do not try to bust our chops and we appreciate that. By the way, the contacts and ties which have been provided to us by the security specialists, allowed us to learn about the global spread of viruses encoders a lot sooner than others and we could timely inform the users. At the same time we did not forget to do backups, of course, at specified intervals, depending on the importance of a particular service.
Does Mosgiprotrans use ERP system?
We are ready for ERP. Recently I have vindicated and obtained funding for the project on the implementation of "1C: ERP + PM". Is ERP necessary for a design organization? We have many subcontractors. We need to distribute project costs. I talked to the owners of other design organizations which had implemented ERP. They told me that they finally started to understand what was happening in their companies because they had opportunity to see data. Now they think about what you can do about it. Business owners are not interested in IT processes they are intreste in the results of such processes. If a business owner sees results, he is willing to help you and support you. In this case you will receive support not only from the administration, but also from ordinary employees who don’t like any innovations.
So, here is the last question: How to sell innovation in the company?
Digital innovation is a change of technology of work in IT perspective. It concerns any process that should be automated. So a business analyst comes and gathers knowledge, and then gives this knowledge beautiful shape. You get the process as it is. Then you use a system that automates this process. Further the process will undergo changes since a part of what the analyst described cannot be fulfilled because it will be very expensive or will lead to even more confusion. As a result, you get automated chaos and old useless process. Therefore, the business realized already that people are lazy and use minimally labor-intensive ways to achieve the outcome or they may just take best practices “out of the box”. In the end, the whole business adapt to such situations. This is the most effective way. The system does not help us but organization, planning and control do. Due to the process-service approach, IT specialists can successfully sell their work within the company and not be afraid to compare their capabilities with the outsourcers. Then everyone is ready to listen, to help and to change.
About the author
He is a historian. He has been working in IT press paper and online, since 2002: his publications are aimed at both home and corporate users. Favorite topics: gadgets, mobility, cloud services, free software.
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Mastery of selling innovations |
Source: www.allcio.com
