The McKean Group is a construction group with a fascinating history which has made it what is today – a leader in UK construction industry. The company commenced trading in 1918 by founder, John McKean whose descendants are still involved in the business today. During the past 90 years, the company has grown from its humble beginnings in Glasgow to claim some truly great construction and civil engineering achievements: from widening the Oban road, constructing the Firhill Stadium, home of historic Scottish football club, Partick Thistle to constructing the first Scottish nuclear plant at Rosyth and multi award-winning contracts in St Helens and Southport.

Today, this multi-faceted Group is busier than ever with three ever-expanding divisions: McKean & Company (Scotland) Ltd, Mayfield Construction Co. Ltd and the Hudson Group that focuses on computerised security systems, electrical work, street lighting and DDA. This is for equipment to support access for people with disabilities such as disabled access ramps, lifts, signage and monitoring systems for safety.

The McKean Group turned to Easynet Connect for its business broadband solution over 10 years ago. The company had the foresight to know that the advent of the Internet and electronic communication was about to drastically change the construction industry. Also in 1999, the acquisition of Mayfield Construction Co. Ltd into the Group meant that linking communication between its site at Kirkby in Merseyside to the McKean Group headquarters (HQ) in the West End of Glasgow as well as the Hudson’s premises in Govan, south of the river Clyde, was essential to provide clear cut lines of communication - not to mention the Group’s small army of employees out on various locations out on site!

Originally, the McKean Group had been using pay per usage ISDN lines from BT at its HQ in Glasgow for email and Internet access. However, ISDN was very expensive so the McKean Group evaluated broadband, having heard that it was more effective, in terms of functionality at less than half the cost.

So why did McKean Group choose Easynet Connect? “It was for a number of reasons,” explains McKean Group ICT manager, Robert Dickie, “The size and scope of Easynet Connect’s own network was important. He added, “Easynet Connect was the first to pioneer unbundling of the local loop and phone exchanges such as Glasgow to bring better Internet connectivity.

Consequently, the company migrated to broadband with Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) lines linking over 100 employees using laptops and PDAs between the McKean Group HQ in Glasgow to the Mayfield HQ 250 miles away in Kirkby, as well as connecting the larger sites spanning from Aberdeen to a project in Dartford, London. In addition, Symmetric Digital Subscriber lines (SDSL) were installed to support the vital link between the offices and over 80 mobile workers out on site doing the work that clients pay for,” says Robert. “Over the last 10 years, the Internet and broadband have revolutionised the way the construction industry ticks - from the Dark Ages into the 21st century. Now email is used to get an immediate instruction, smashing through the average 3 days of dead time we used to have to wait with the post or for employees to come back from sites to use email. This used to cost the industry millions of pounds in lost time and has increased productivity exponentially.”

The mobile work force ranges from contract and commercial managers, site managers, foremen, engineers and quantity surveyors to accountants and health and safety staff, all of whom are integral in the flow of data for the contract. Previously, projects could be delayed through waiting for written instructions or employees coming back with information from site and using email back at the office. “Now, broadband in conjunction with mobile 3G technology has totally changed the situation where employees can access email and information at any location at any time via their PDAs or laptops which ensures they can get on with what they do best. This has proved to be a giant leap in terms of efficiency and productivity,” says Robert.

The Mayfield division is a great example of broadband and mobile working. It secured a partnering contract as part of a £6 million project to regenerate the town centre of St. Helens in Merseyside. Lasting over three years, the scope of work included: streetscape re-modelling, a suite of modern street furniture and pedestrian signing; feature art work at ‘gateway' points, new surfaces in neutral colours; new high level street lighting with feature lighting to buildings; and restricted seating areas with a mix of formal and informal clusters. As you will appreciate, the project required immense planning of plant and labour resources as well as material coordination and the ability for fast track communication between the site, the client and design team – all of this needed the support of broadband at the site and for mobile workers. “Broadband allowed all of the project plans to be accessible on the St. Helens site and to be communicated back and forth to HQ which was critical to the successful completion of the project on time and within budget.”

Contention ratio has been key for the McKean Group too. Easynet Connect provided a 5:1 ratio compared to competitors’ 20:1 ratio. In practice, this means that fewer businesses and people are using broadband at the same time, providing a faster, better service for McKean Group.

Superior technical support was another factor in selecting Easynet Connect. “When working on over 40 projects at any one time throughout the UK, you do get IT issues, which is why having fast effective support is like having business insurance - you have to have it.” Robert adds, “Easynet Connect’s Technical Support is in a different league – first, you get through to someone within five rings of the phone which is almost unheard of - but more importantly, when you get through issues are fixed within a reasonable time frame.”

McKean Group plans to continue its expansion centred on its values including quality, innovation and ‘building on experience’. Expansion is planned in two areas – both of which will be underpinned by broadband. First, in the area of design and build, allowing the client to place all requirements in to a one stop shop complete package. The Group works closely with clients to provide value engineered solutions that offer best value and guaranteed success. Broadband supports this process by allowing the Group’s experienced engineers to access the right information at the right time and communicate quickly and effectively with the client.

Secondly, the Group is working on larger projects such as the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital, in Birmingham where it has executed one of the UK’s largest single concrete flooring projects. Robert summarises by saying, “With larger projects like this, we just could not entertain bidding for them, let alone winning and delivering them without the very best business broadband, to support us every step of the way.”