Arup Unchains Engineers From Their Desk
CUSTOMER PROFILE
Founded in 1946 as a structural engineering firm, Arup first came to the world’s attention when it performed the structural design of the Sydney Opera House. Arup has since grown into a truly multidisciplinary organisation. The firm’s work for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing reaffirmed its reputation for delivering innovative and sustainable designs that reinvent the built environment. Arup has 11,000 employees across 90 offices in 38 countries, and reported revenues of £1 billion for the year ended March 31, 2013.
PURPOSE OF IMPLEMENTATION
- Develop and deliver apps that save countless hours for employees worldwide
- Increase efficiency by continuously moving corporate processes and content onto mobile platforms
- Manage corporate issued and BYOD devices on a single platform
- Launch and run a corporate mobility program using only existing IT staff, with minimal need for specialised training
From a support point of view, things have been streamlines. If anything, mobile devices actually generate fewer support tickets than PCs. We’re supporting our entire global mobile program with existing IT staff.
Luis Madrigal, Systems Engineer, Arup
Case Study
Arup Unchains Engineers from the Desk with MobileIron Solutions
To manage and secure thousands of company-issued and employee owned devices around the globe, Arup worked with Mobliciti to implement a MobileIron enterprise mobility management (EMM) platform. Arup uses MobileIron to manage a wide range of iOS, Android, and Windows devices on a single platform. With this, they are developing mobile apps that increase employee productivity and supporting its entire global mobility program using only existing IT staff.
Turning Engineers Loose to Change the World
Arup’s designers, planners, engineers, consultants, and technical specialists can do much more to make the world a better place when they’re not tied down to desktop computers.
Many of the firm’s employees were using mobile devices to enhance their work activities, and connected to the firm’s network through an Active Sync gateway. But once the device count reached several thousand, the firm wanted to enable better management of these devices.
Luis Madrigal, a Systems Engineer at Arup, consulted the Gartner Magic Quadrant and selected 10 leading EMM vendors for consideration. After narrowing the field, Madrigal and his team performed cloud trials of five products, and then chose two vendor s for on-premise trials: AirWatch and MobileIron.
Madrigal invited the two remaining vendors to perform global proofs of concept. MobileIron then engaged channel partner Mobliciti to help support an implementation that satisfied all of Madrigal’s requirements.
MobileIron and Mobliciti were outstanding in getting the job done. At the end of the proof of concept, all the questionnaires came back indicating that the MobileIron solution delivered outstanding performance on a global scale.
But for Arup, selecting MobileIron was about more than just functionality and reliability—it was also about trust.
Boosting Mobile Productivity Without Increasing the IT Burden
After going live on MobileIron, Arup began encouraging employees to enrol their devices, by highlighting a growing list of in-house productivity apps, and the capability to support BYOD. The firm’s mobile policies vary by region depending on employee needs. In the Americas, many employees receive corporate purchased mobile devices, but they can also enrol personal devices through the self-service portal. Similar policies support users in Europe. Meanwhile, employees in Asia can select their mobile devices from a company-approved list. Among the thousands of devices on Arup’s network, about 65% are iOS, with 30% Android and a small number of Windows and other devices.
To manage and control its broad range of devices, Arup configured its MobileIron platform to enforce basic security and privacy policies worldwide. The firm formed mobile help desk staffs for each region and provided them the core training they needed to support user needs.
Mobile Apps Save Time, Boost Effectiveness
After launching its mobile program with the intention of helping employees stay connected on the go, Arup is now seeing the advantages of developing and delivering a wide range of mobile apps. The firm uses MobileIron Apps@Work to make internally developed apps readily available to employees in a branded app storefront.
Many of the company’s apps are designed for the iPad. For example, Arup’s Projects on the Go app allows marketing staff to review a collection of the firm’s most common projects and tap pictures to see descriptions of the services the firm can provide.
A similar app called Arup World lets employees tap points on the globe to learn about important projects Arup has completed in each region.
The Arup Inspect app allows inspectors to take pictures of a building site with an iPad and drop points of interest onto each picture. The app also tracks the user’s exact location and incorporates this data into the picture.
With an easy, reliable way to host and deploy internally developed apps, Arup now encourages its engineers to design and build their own time-saving apps.
Global Firm Thinks “Mobile First”
What’s next for Arup’s mobile program? The firm is exploring ways to move more business processes and content to the mobile realm. For example, company news bulletins that have long been delivered as PDF attachments have now been redesigned for interactive mobile consumption. And Arup wants to give engineers a way to fill out time sheets on their mobile devices so that they’re not tied to the office during this weekly task.
With the support of MobileIron and Mobliciti, we’re taking a ‘Mobile First’ attitude towards giving our employees the tools and information they need to do their jobs. We expect these partners to play a key global role in delivering the technology and assistance we need to get the most out of mobile innovation around the globe.
About Us
About Mobliciti
Mobliciti are at the very forefront of the Mobile IT evolution, enabling organisations to connect, enable, manage and secure mobile devices as they strive to become ‘Mobile First’. As an experienced Mobile IT System’s Integrator they deliver a comprehensive range of domestic and global services to Enterprise customers, including some of the UK’s largest organisations. Mobliciti only work with best in breed technology partners, delivering these solutions to customers through one contract, one help desk and one company allowing complete ownership and accountability.
About MobileIron
MobileIron stands out from other MDM vendors by providing expanded EMM capabilities to IT organisations that need to secure mobile devices, applications and content. The MobileIron Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solution is a mobile security platform that secures data-at-rest on mobile devices, in applications, and in cloud storage, as well as data-in-motion as it moves between corporate networks, devices, and storage repositories.
