Like most large asset owners, Sainsbury\u2019s<\/a> need to answer questions easily about their estate every day. This is why one of the UK\u2019s largest retailers has been working with GroupBC<\/a> to create a \u2018Digital Estate\u2019 \u2013 a globally accessible, secure web portal, to manage, update and query spatially-located asset information, supporting those making decisions during the asset lifecycle. That this digital estate is created, not from 3D models but from existing 2D drawings, is what makes this BIM solution<\/a> truly inspiring.<\/p>\n In this webinar<\/a>, our guest speaker Michael Barber, System Development Manager for Sainsbury\u2019s, discussed the challenges Sainsbury\u2019s faced as the retail environment has changed over the past few years, why they needed to digitise their existing estate as their focus moved from new build to \u2018sweating their assets\u2019, how they delivered that and developed their information and systems to support the business challenges, and what\u2019s been put in place for \u2018Business As Usual\u2019 to make sure they protected and maintained the project.<\/p>\n For Sainsbury\u2019s the Digital Estate is an enabler, for colleagues and partners to answer questions, gain insight and find information, while ensuring they could find it quickly, be confident it was accurate and latest information, and that they had access to the complete information.<\/p>\n The main challenge Sainsbury\u2019s faced was managing information as they have expanded with new initiatives such as the acquisition of Argos and Habitat, restructured their refurbishment programme, as well as the explosion of data available from cloud computing and IoT amongst others. How could they track all that information, maintain it and find it again when they needed it?<\/p>\n Michael then described information management challenges familiar to many organisations when data is siloed in multiple systems, so duplicate data is often created, and trust in that information is lost. That, in turn, can result in extra costs, wasted time, increased risk, and lost opportunities.<\/p>\n Sainsbury\u2019s recognised they needed to improve their information management to provide insights about their existing estate and quickly answer questions such as \u201cWhat do we have in our estate?\u201d, \u201cHow many have we got?\u201d, and \u201cWhere are they?\u201d. These insights drive them forward as a business, explore new ideas, and define and develop their investment plans across their stores.<\/p>\n Sainsbury\u2019s also had a stack of legacy systems they didn\u2019t want to replace, so how could they be connected so information wasn\u2019t duplicated, could be easily maintained and provide a single gateway to access that information from.<\/p>\n Michael then discussed various operational challenges his colleagues faced, their work with consultants PCSG<\/a> around developing processes and categorising information, and finally how they worked with GroupBC<\/a> to control and maintain that information.<\/p>\n