Leveraging the use of Global Design Centres

Can customers rely on remote design centres to produce the same quality designs as those based in their home market? Fresh from a panel discussion at last week's Bentley Year in  Infrastructure conference, Bechtel’s Mike McGarvey discusses the challenge.

Mike McGarvey
11 November 2015

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Increasingly, we are establishing a world where technology enables us to produce well-defined engineering designs, using multiple contributors, located thousands of miles apart from each other, across differing time zones. Coupled with the use of Global Design Centres (GDCs), located in the most cost-effective regions of the world, this has enabled much of our industry to deliver significantly greater value to our customers.

One question that has always been raised in relation to the use of global design centres, is that of quality. Can our customers rely on remote design centres to produce the same quality designs as those based in their home market?

"The technology that we have today at our fingertips enables us to work more collaboratively, more quickly and more holistically. But we must remember to keep communicating with each other."

Bechtel’s first Global Design Centre was established 30 years ago in New Delhi, we now have two additional centres in Tai Pei and Dubai. My view is that in order to manage quality issues, it is important initially to make sure that you only send detailed design work to the low-cost centres. 

Then, as you are able to introduce the teams gradually to the plethora of international codes and standards, it is possible to increase the scope of their work. Now, what we are seeing is that these ‘secondary’ design centres are fast becoming innovation hubs, having moved well beyond their learning curve.

A second important factor is to make sure that your ‘Brains Trust’, or group of primary experts, remain located close to your customer. This is deeply important to strengthening your face-to-face relationship, and ensuring that both parties’ understanding of scope and engineering solutions is fully protected. 

But challenges still remain. 

At Bentley’s recent annual ‘Year in Infrastructure’ conference, I spoke on a panel alongside colleagues from our industry who all strongly agreed on one thing: communication is key. The technology that we have today at our fingertips enables us to work more collaboratively, more quickly and more holistically. But we must remember to keep communicating with each other. This is vital to avoiding misunderstanding of design intent, checking that terminology is understood emphatically and minimising any need for re-work. 

"So-called ‘low-cost’ centres are becoming more expensive as the skill-base and competition in these markets increases,"

A trend we are seeing now is that these so-called ‘low-cost’ centres are becoming more expensive as the skill-base and competition in these markets increases, driving the cost of resources upwards.

So what’s next? Is this the end of the GDCs? 

I don’t believe it is. I think what we will see is that the role of the GDC will become even more important, as they become the ‘go to’ design centres of the future. Our Tai Pei centre is fast becoming the specialist design centre for our rail business and there are of course opportunities for growth within local markets. 

Eighty per cent of Bechtel’s design work is already produced through these centres and I fully expect that figure to increase.

Mike McGarvey is global engineering manager at Bechtel