The project manager at EDF hydraulic engineering, who is working on the extension of the hydroelectric plant in Kariba, Zambia, has chosen Oodrive's iExtranet solution for sharing large files with all project members in France and abroad.
Optimising the management and sharing of large files with various project team members across borders
André Benetti, Project Manager at the EDF hydraulic engineering centre has been working for several months on the construction for uprating a hydroelectric plant on Lake Kariba situated between Zimbabwe and Zambia. The aim of this extension project is to increase the production of electricity in Southern Africa, which will also benefit bordering countries.
"Various people from all four corners of the world have been involved in this project; the customers are Zambian, the constructors are Chinese, our associates are Indian and the subcontractors are English and South African. We therefore needed a base platform that hosts the latest updated documents so that information can be exchanged efficiently by all multinational members of the project", he explains.
Within the scope of this external project at EDF, André Benetti was not able to use EDF's internal platform for internal security reasons. He was therefore looking for a cost-effective solution that was suitable for a more modestly sized project, with less restrictive and more instinctive access control.
For this reason, he turned his search towards local IT service providers. Akoba Solutions, distributor and integrator of management solutions in SaaS mode for SMEs, and reselling partner of Oodrive solutions, was able to advise him on how to find the most suitable solution for his particular requirements.
Opting for a SaaS solution suitable for medium-sized international projects
This is how André Benetti became interested in iExtranet, Oodrive's large file sharing SaaS mode solution, which he has been using since April 2009. "The first advantage of this solution is its progressive storage space. This project to extend the hydroelectric plant currently requires 2Gb of document storage space, but our requirements could increase to 6 or even 10 Gb during the life of the project. This solution enables us to adapt the capacity, and hence the cost, to suit our requirements perfectly", he explains.
"This solution is user-friendly, intuitive and easy to use for the various project members, who are not all experienced IT users and who do not necessarily have time to read an instruction manual. Providing training for different users in different countries would not have been feasible. The iExtranet solution is very intuitive: the icons for sharing and downloading can be identified quickly and easily", adds André Benetti.
"On these types of projects, e-mail traceability and access control by the administrator are not the only useful functions offered by the iExtranet solution; the option to create temporary users, who are brought into the project for a limited period, is also helpful", he continues.
Approximately 20 people around the world thus have permanent access to the online iExtranet platform thanks to the SaaS mode. This therefore enables them to consult the latest versions of documents essential for the project anytime they want. "Due to the existence of internal confidential documents, the secure EDF network did not allow document sharing on this scale without implementing a complicated access logistic involving the creation of secure access cards. This was why we were so interested in the SaaS model!", declares André Benetti.
"I would say that choosing iExtranet has saved a significant amount of time for me and for the project, because no one comes and asks me for a document or its latest version. This enables everyone to be more productive and every project member is up to speed with the company's activities in real-time. Finally, for me personally, this solution means that I no longer need to connect via the EDF network which is difficult to access from Zambia", he concludes.
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