Business Info
	Software Information
	Key Quote
	Introduction
	The Issues
	Identifying A Replacement
	Significant Benefits To Date

Business Info

Software Information

Key Quote

"Since introducing the Coretime solution, we've noticed a culture shift at Tobin. Manual time recording used to be a chore for the user and extracting useful management information was difficult and tedious. It is now an uncomplicated task that can be done in real time, whether from within the office or while out on site via the Internet, with the minimum of hassle. It has actually altered our staffs' workload and allows them to work on chargeable projects rather than spending hours on administration duties".

Eamonn Harrigan
Financial Controller

Introduction

Founded in 1952, and now with over 100 staff in offices throughout Ireland, Tobin Consulting Engineers has become one of the most successful multi disciplinary consulting engineering firms in the country. In its 50-year history the firm has carried out work for a cross section of Irish business - from Local Authorities to industrial clients, in areas such as public works, transportation, planning, environmental engineering, mechanical and electrical services.

In 1999 as the company's client base and staff levels continued to grow, Tobin became increasingly aware of the need for a software system that would allow them to monitor and calculate accurate timesheets for their burgeoning number of projects. To help, they contacted Coretime, Ireland's premiere project management solution provider.

The Issues

In its 50-year history Tobin Consulting Engineers has seen excellent growth and success in the Irish engineering market. With offices in Galway, Castlebar, Dundalk, and Limerick and a subsidiary Environmental Consulting company in Dublin the company has worked in a variety of business sectors from Local Authorities, and Semi-State bodies to industrial clients. It is a true Multi Disciplinary Consulting Engineering firm and services include initial studies, structural services, environmental engineering, development projects, planning, harbour and marine works, solid waste management and project management. With such a varied client base, Tobin Consulting's staff are, at any one time, working across the length and breadth of the country on projects as diverse as water supply systems to environmental impact assessments.

In recent years, Tobin Consulting has experienced significant growth in their business. Although this success is excellent news for Tobin Consulting as a whole, it has brought with it a very real problem in that as the Company grew, detailed and timely project information was proving difficult to obtain. In order for its projects to be run efficiently, Project Managers needed detailed and timely project information. In simple terms, what projects were being worked upon and when, where and by whom and for how long. "Accurate recording of exactly what projects our employees were working on was a fundamental requirement to ensure the on-going success of our business", commented Eamonn Harrigan, Financial Controller at Tobin.

"Any business that wishes to succeed and expand has to have absolute confidence that their billing practices were totally accurate - clients must have confidence in the accuracy of billing, and no company wants to be losing billable hours through poor time recording methods," he added. "As Tobin continued to grow we were quick to realise that we needed new systems to meet this end, and fast. With an increasingly large workforce and an ever increasing client base we needed a software solution that would be simple, comprehensive and reliable" Harrigan added.

Identifying A Replacement

"We spent the next 6 months reviewing a significant number of software solutions and were dismayed at the very poor levels of user-friendliness. The available solutions seemed to be both expensive, and written more for accountants or solicitors - the esoteric needs of an engineering firm such as ours were not catered for. We ended up choosing Coretime's solution, Tempus Pro, which proved to match our needs perfectly. Added to this, when we spoke to their reference sites, all of the customers were extremely complementary of their client services, including product support. We were confident that we had made a good choice, and our subsequent experience endorsed this view" said Harrigan.

"When Tobin came to us their story was not unfamiliar," commented Derek Vard, General Manager, Coretime. "The range of project management and time management software on the market tends to cater for either the very basic needs of an Engineering practise or provide a ERP solution that is outside the budget of all but the largest practices. Finding a system that is both user friendly and flexible can be surprisingly difficult. At Coretime, we pride ourselves on having developed our Tempus Pro solution with our customers in mind. We listen to what our customers have to say and as a result, we were confident that on meeting with Tobin Consulting to demonstrate our solution, we would meet their specific requirements. Time and expense entry could not be simpler with an intuitive and familiar Outlook™ style interface and with data being recorded in real time, Project Managers would have relevant and timely project information to hand at all times" Vard added.

Tobin rolled out the Tempus Pro system across their 100-strong workforce without any difficulty. "The Coretime system appealed to us both for ease of use and for its flexibility. We also found Coretime to be extremely co-operative and genuinely interested in our Company throughout the entire implementation process" Harrigan commented. "We found the Tempus Pro system easily configured to reflect individual user needs, with functionality being turned off where it was not required. We also found it enormously useful to be able to identify bite size of information on a project easily" Harrigan added.

Significant Benefits To Date

"Since introducing the Coretime solution, we've noticed a culture shift at Tobin. Manual time recording used to be a chore for the user and extracting useful management information was difficult and tedious. It is now an uncomplicated task that can be done in real time, whether from within the office or while out on site via the Internet, with the minimum of hassle. It has actually altered our staffs' workload and allows them to work on chargeable projects rather than spending hours on administration duties".

Crucially for Tobin, there have seen definite increases in both time and financial efficiency. Harrigan explains; "Financially there is an improvement in the collection of our time fees - fees for our business breakdown into three types: scale of fee which follows agreed percentages for the value of the works; lump sum which is an agreed figure for completing the brief; and time fees which are charged by the hour. Most briefs change over time and thus the fee is usually made up of a combination of scale and time fees or lump sum plus time fees! Collecting these additional time fees has always been a bugbear due to the difficulty of identifying them - the Coretime system has been of considerable assistance in this area enabling us to identify all billable time and to get our fees out on time. And looking ahead, we're sure that we'll see even more efficiencies introduced as we implement more features of Tempus Pro presently not being used" Harrigan concluded.