understanding documents

Málaga, a Spanish city which has more than 1.2 million residents living in its main metropolitan area, is the city in Andalusia which has experienced the greatest rate of population growth in the past decade. That places it alongside cities such as Madrid and Barcelona when it comes to the greatest projections for growth.

This growth also means new needs, among which is the need for a more sustainable public transit system, with lower energy consumption, better coverage and lower rates of pollution.

In 1999, using the Intermodal Transportation Plan for the Málaga Metropolitan area, one of the biggest infrastructure projects that Málaga has undertaken in the past few years was begun: the Málaga Metro.

When finished, the Metro will be more than 16 km long. It will provide service to more than 17 million travellers in its first year, and will represent an investment of more than €600 million.

A mega-project like this requires the coordination of many people: specifically, in the case of the Málaga Metro, more than 1,600 direct and indirect workers, who work in as many as five distinct work centers. One other fundamental aspect in completing a project of this type is guaranteeing exhaustive quality control.

This quality control means having the safety of carrying out work while always using the most up-to-date documentation, especially the most current versions of plans, since any element or correction not included during work could result in spiraling costs for the project. For the Málaga Metro, which generates seven hundred updates per day, it was crucial to have the most recent versions of plans to work with.

Companies who were subcontracted to work on the Málaga Metro (a union of some of Spain’s most prominent construction companies, such as FCC, Sando, Azvi, Comsa and Vera) needed to solve quality-control problems connected to documentation and controlling the versions of plans.

With Athento, once construction plans were approved by the highest levels of management, an e-mail with links to the most recent version of the plans was distributed to all project staff. By clicking on the link, users could access diagrams and drawings directly, without having to navigate through the document management system.

Previous revisions were taken out of circulation once the latest version of the plan was sent out. Additionally, each one of those e-mails came with a delivery number which increased security and control over the versions of the plans.

Making a €600 million-plus construction project a reality

The ChallengeMaintaining control of more than 700 plan changes per dayCentralizing and making documents accessible from 5 control centers

The SolutionUse Athento to control the publication and distribution of more than 40,000 construction plans.

understanding documents

Making a €600 million-plus construction project a reality

Athento also allowed users to download various plans in batches, eliminating the need to download pieces of documentation individually. These downloads of multiple plans were done by exporting files, compressed into *.zip files.

Regarding the revisions of plans, not all of the work plans stored in Athento needed revising. Some pieces of documentation, such as those related to the workshops or calculations, were simply stored.

In contrast, plans which were going to be used in the development of the construction project would go through a revision flow once created, until the point when they received approval from the directors of the project. What’s more, the system had been designed so that the plans would only be submitted for review once they had been included in AutoCAD and PDF formats.

Athento has made it possible to centralize the information that was used in five work centers and has increased accessibility to the documentation – available anywhere, 24/7, and from any electronic device.

Athento is very cost-effective because it helps prevent execution errors in the project which would result in millions in spending and provoke large delays.

Currently, Athento is working with more than 9,000 plans in the latest version, and over 40,000 plans over the life span of the project.

It has been calculated that, without the use of Athento to guarantee the proper organization, control and distribution of the plans, two additional employees would have been needed during the entire life span of the project.

The Málaga Metro project is, at this time, 93% complete. In July of 2013, the first line of the Metro became operational, offering service over 10 kilometers of track. The entire Metro will soon be operational, and will provide service to more than 17 million riders during the first year.

The ResultMore than 40,000 plans managed which were critical in preventing execution errors in a project which, this year, will cost more than €600 million.

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“Always having the latest version of our plans available and accessible to distinct users was of prime importance for the perfect execution and organization of the construction project. Athento let us do that”.

José María LaraChief of Technical PlanningMetro de Málaga