“The information Power BI provides us with has set the strategic direction of the business. It allows us to see where we can advance safety and bring improvements and innovation to the projects we deliver.”

Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

The Organisation:

ADCO Constructions is an Australian owned business and one of the oldest and most established construction companies in Australia. Since their beginnings in 1972, ADCO has been guided by family values, trust, and putting people first. These foundations have seen ADCO become one of the top private companies in Australia with a blue-chip client list and an award-winning portfolio of almost 4,000 successfully completed buildings from early work packages to $300+ million projects.

The Need:

ADCO Constructions transitioned to an online Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) management system several years ago as part of a wider business initiative to leverage the use of consolidated data models in conjunction with other areas of the business. With this came the transition to a paperless working environment which resulted in ADCO capturing a significantly increased volume of data. The team had a clear understanding of the data that needed to be surfaced for analysis, but needed an analytics tool that was not only capable of transforming the data, but also of presenting it in a visual manner designed for easy consumption and interpretation.

“We identified a need to interpret this data, and wanted to work with a partner that could do this. We needed the data to be easily readable, the system to be user friendly, and for the project and outcomes to be tailored to our business needs.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

These needs included:

• Accessibility of their data from across Australia in one location.
• Meeting different requirements and producing varied insights depending on the project.
• Advancing to the next level of reporting with visually rich components to help identify trends and patterns and provide better insights.
• Integrating the data from the new HSE system into other reporting dashboards across the business, such as project reporting, and providing insights to support operational efficiencies.
• A scalable system that would grow as the business—and the level of data—grows, supporting ADCO’s leadership vision of an organisation-wide data analytics platform.

The Solution:

Microsoft Power BI is an interactive data visualisation software providing analytics, reporting, and dashboarding for data analysis requirements, with a primary focus on business intelligence. It was a system already known by the Chief Information Officer at ADCO Constructions, who subsequently brought the solution to the wider team. The CIO was also responsible for introducing Professional Advantage (PA) as the partner of choice.

“Power BI is user friendly and presents information in a way that is easy to understand.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

The team initially intended Power BI to be used to present trends, allowing the organisation to see their overall health, safety, and environmental performance. They began the project by working with PA in mapping and designing their source data and coordinating the end result in line with the needs of the organisation.

“We worked with PA to tailor a system that can report on everything on a national, state, and project level. This was hugely beneficial.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

In actively using the solution, the team realised that Power BI offered far more capabilities than they had initially planned for.

“PA opened our eyes to what could be done with Power BI; it was a really pleasant surprise. The continuous improvement ideas of the HSE steering committee and the requirements from the wider business meant that we kept coming to PA with new ideas and challenges, and they always found a way to make it work. Power BI is limitless in terms of what can be achieved.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

The Results:

The design and development of the dashboards within Power BI is integral to the effectiveness and value of the solution. ADCO Constructions and PA worked together in a joint effort to reach the desired outcomes.

“We discussed the dashboards with PA, explaining what we wanted to accomplish, and they would provide options for how this could be achieved. The process was very collaborative.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

This collaborative approach ensured that the whole solution was planned around ADCO Constructions and their existing systems and processes.

“The integration between Power BI and our HSE management system is seamless, and our established processes are continually being enhanced by using Power BI.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

This integration between systems has meant that ADCO was able to track reportable fields within their HSE management system and bring them into their Power BI reports. As more of these fields become accessible and grow, the team can simply update the Power BI reports to capture the new information.

Power BI has brought significant and quantifiable benefits to the ADCO Constructions team, including:

• Time savings for the project team.
• Providing information to clients, trade partners, and on-site workers in minutes.

“The first place the team goes to is Power BI. The information from dashboards is instant, and being able to provide this to key stakeholders is invaluable.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

• Readily available dashboards and insights.
• Ability to develop specific graphs and charts.
• Improvement in the overall health, safety, and environmental performance for all staff and construction workers.

“The information we see within Power BI determines the next process improvement or target area. Indirectly this has really improved our HSE performance.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

Power BI has also brought unexpected benefits to the organisation in the form of their project reportable data and how it can be used. ADCO Constructions works with an array of clients—state government, federal government, private clients, etc—who are all motivated differently in terms of the information they need for their specific project. For example, governments have targets like participation rate for indigenous workers, apprentices, trainees, and gender, to name a few.

“We can tailor our system to align with the specific data needs of each client, reporting on a national, state, and project level. We knew this had to be done; discovering this could be done with Power BI was unexpected, and continues to be of significant value.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

The initial plans for Power BI were to have the dashboards only available to senior leadership and the corporate team. However, they soon realised how valuable the data and insights were, subsequently updating the dashboards to include project specific data, and increasing access within the organisation. This included their project managers who are leading teams across Australia.

“Project managers can immediately and in real-time see how their project is tracking against their health, safety, and environmental objectives and targets. This data is now vital to their roles.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

Power BI is now a staple part of working life, with users accessing it multiple times a week.

“The dashboards we have created are specific to our operations, so it is always more efficient to go directly to a dashboard to review data.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

For project managers, “it is the project reporting that has been the huge benefit”, and the role of the HSE advisers has also changed.

“The project managers can liaise with clients, capture the information they need, and present it in a timely manner, and the HSE team have full visibility over a project. All the information is readily available.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

Their Power BI solution is set up to capture the source data and allows users to drill-down through the information.

Implementing Power BI to all the relevant teams and users was a straightforward process, and user adoption has not experienced any push-back.

“Power BI is very intuitive, and users have quickly become adept at utilising the many functions available. It is an adaptable, responsive, and collaborative system that our team appreciates and enjoys. ”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

This positive reaction is further evident when users bring suggestions and requests for new data and dashboards that they would like represented. It is a system that they want to keep using.

The culture within the organisation has also been positively impacted by Power BI, the data it utilises, and the information made available. ADCO Constructions are consistently investing in their HSE processes, and their dashboards are offering previously unseen insights into this.

“We knew we had a lot of data, but Power BI has shown us just how much is available. Now that we can tap into all of this information, we have a better overview of where to invest to bring positive outcomes to our clients, our employees, and the whole organisation.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

The positive reaction and the influence on culture only support ADCO Constructions’ further investments into Power BI.

“Using Power BI aligns with what we want to achieve. We keep investing, upgrading, implementing new dashboards, and building on the current setup because we know it is giving us the results we need.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

Overall, ADCO Constructions recognises the significance of the Power BI solution and how beneficial it has been to them.

“We have truly welcomed the system with PA by our side. We have a system that works and is tailored to our business.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

The Future:

ADCO Constructions continues to grow, and with that so does their Power BI solution.

“Power BI is very scalable. As our system, internal processes, and data grows, Power BI will grow with them.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

The team already have plans for where this growth may go, and how Power BI can support this.

“Nationally, there is a strong focus on sustainability and sustainable construction. With Power BI, we want to input the tracking of our energy usage and waste data, and then make decisions on our sustainability on a national, state, and project level.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.

They will open discussions with PA about how best to capture this data within Power BI to align with new objectives and targets.

“Thank you to PA for this journey. The benefits that we have seen, continue to experience, and the development and growth that we can facilitate continue to be an awesome experience.”
Andrew Pachioli, HSE manager, ADCO Constructions.