NSCC International scales news heights with Smartsheet

Founded in 1968, NSCC International is a specialised contractor in the field of foundation engineering, ground improvement, onshore marine works, and horizontal directional drilling. Committed to innovation, NSCC has played a role in numerous iconic projects across the Middle East, including the Abu Dhabi International Airport Midfield Terminal Complex and Etihad Museum. 

Getting a better overview

Engineering in the UAE is a very document-centric business. Safety records must be completed on time and worksite information must be up to date and available. To ensure NSCC was on top of this, it decided to centralise record keeping and tap into instant insights on project progress. It needed information such as the use of materials, wastage, manpower, and other key inputs. 

“Our goal was to effectively digitise the entire reporting engine for the company,” mentions Khalil K Khouri, CEO of NSCC. To do this, NSCC turned to Smartsheet, with the help of technology partner Accienta. “Together with Accienta, we envisioned an extremely sophisticated construction reporting tool that would enable the client to go totally paperless—from handwritten notes to a completely Smartsheet-driven front end that unified information on a single platform. The solution needed to encompass everything from completion rates to materials consumption to project spending,” says Khouri.

Cutting through complexity

The first step was understanding and collating the key data points NSCC needed—a complex task that involved in-depth consultation with experts from across the business, including engineering, project teams and accounts and finance.   
Using Smartsheet Control Center, Accienta’s development team began funneling collected data from across the business into a single unified hub. “We directed data on manpower and equipment from an Oracle module into Smartsheet through Data Shuttle. The Data Shuttle workflow ran twice a day,” explains Nidal N Khoury, CEO of Accienta. 

“Automated by Control Center and powered by Data Shuttle, we now have a live snapshot of the progress of projects available to NSCC project managers at their fingertips,” says Nidal N Khoury. “In fact, we were able to digitise the entirety of the reporting of all daily activities—the amount of people on site, use of materials, wastage, and so on. We were able to automate a function we did manually before, reducing time spent on these tasks by 50%.” 

A more efficient way of working

The Smartsheet solution for NSCC has helped save time at work. “Daily project management has been reduced from six hours to three. Engineers have been freed up to do more site work instead of reports. Thanks to detailed reporting, we’ve improved compliance and can better predict monthly costs and revenue,” says Khouri. "The reports and project site records, coupled with our end of month financials, predict monthly revenue and cost to date—so on any day, we can predict our profits to date."

“Accienta has an excellent grasp of the Smartsheet product and add-ons. Thanks to their deep know-how of construction and project management, they were easily able to decipher what we needed and to work efficiently.” NSCC now has access to dynamic reports that are connected to one another as well as detailed portfolio dashboards. “Accessing live revenue and cost is easier and we can do our completion estimates methodologically,” adds Khouri.

Looking forward, NSCC is planning to integrate its Smartsheet solution with Power BI for even more integrated functionality for portfolio reporting for executive leadership. It is also looking to leverage new Smartsheet modules such as DataTable to tap into true database capabilities.

“Managing construction projects effectively is an extremely difficult and detailed task. Having a clear view into costs, progress and projections can be elusive. However, Smartsheet offers a host of information available to users at the click of a button,” Khouri sums up. “At any time, managers can check the current status of a project automatically. That’s the real value of the solution.”

For more information about this story, please see our case study.