Sir Robert McAlpine - scaling information management

Sir Robert McAlpine made information delivery planning part of its rollout for all new projects in summer 2025. Taking it beyond a project trial required a configurable template, four review gates and a package of procedures, training and local support.

Watch Mark and Josh's presentation, published 3 December 2025.

Executive summary

Sir Robert McAlpine (SRM) began exploring Morta with five licences in October 2023. By its 2025 community presentation, the contractor had 78 hubs and 116 active users, with information delivery planning rolling out to all new projects. Mark Harrison's team paired shared data and configurable templates with sponsor reviews, company procedures and project support. Their process allowed stakeholders to choose another tool or keep a useful build specific to one project. On Josh Barnsley's project, delivery plans and 4Projects issue data fed Power BI comparisons for design managers. The team also recorded model QA findings, reviewed sustainability proposals and assembled monthly client reports from discipline contributions. Model checks happened in external software. The planner's reporting data still passed through Excel, while direct Asta integration and cross-organisation TIDP imports remained planned.

Scale at Community Day 2025

SRM reported 78 hubs and 116 active users at its 2025 presentation.

The results

Information delivery planning had completed SRM's development process. The rollout package combined quality and tracking tables, Power BI dashboards and connections to common data environments with formal procedures, training, project sponsors and super users. Project teams received both the workflow and the resources to operate it.

On Josh's project, design managers could compare delivery commitments with actual issues and narrow the comparison to an originator or building. The digital construction team could see models awaiting review and retain their findings. External teams could submit sustainability proposals for SRM to assess, while the client could read discipline reports for the current or a previous month.

The challenge

SRM had managed task and master information delivery plans through multiple Excel files in different formats. Monthly reporting relied on Word documents, which Josh's project team found difficult to coordinate in a central place.

A database and a text document serve different purposes. Mark's early trials led him to keep primarily text-based documents in their usual processes and focus Morta development on database work. Access also needed deliberate planning, including how permissions through tags interacted with permissions through roles.

Shared data needs planning before more workflows depend on it. Mark's team considered tables that could serve several functions and the information they might need later. They also had to choose between a project hub containing several workstreams and a workstream hub containing several projects.

The solution

Review an idea before committing to wider rollout

SRM's three development stages contained four review gates. At Gate 1, stakeholders considered the project problem and decided whether Morta was the right tool. They could choose an alternative. Stage one developed the approved idea into a build, which stakeholders reviewed at Gate 2 against its objectives. Their feedback could send the build through another iteration.

Stage two put the build on a project and introduced a company sponsor. At Gate 3, the sponsor used the project trial to decide whether the workstream suited wider rollout. A useful build could remain specific to that project. Stage three prepared the template and supporting information, followed by the sponsor's final acceptance at Gate 4 before company launch.

Give related workflows a shared structure

SRM aligned its hub layout with its company management system and document naming conventions. Project teams could recognise the structure when they arrived. An admin section held resources used across functions, including one categorised validation table that replaced separate tables for each workstream. The shared table reduced repeated information and kept those lists consistent.

A project directory supplied information for responsibilities, definitions, permission settings and organisational task alignment. Keeping that information available to several resources gave the team a shared basis for those functions as the hub expanded.

Connect delivery plans to actual issues

Josh began subcontractor onboarding with the purpose of a task information delivery plan, or TIDP, before introducing the platform. Subcontractors listed their deliverables, grouped them into information packages and set planned dates for first issue and construction issue. Those dates gave the project team a baseline for comparing commitments with information issued through 4Projects.

Subcontractors could prepare their TIDP directly in Morta or use Excel in an agreed format and import it. The TIDPs fed the master information delivery plan, or MIDP, where the project team could inspect delivery commitments across the contributing organisations.

Power BI brought the planned dates together with actual issue data from 4Projects, SRM's common data environment. Design managers could compare first-issue and construction-issue progress, see status and organisation data, then filter by originator, building or other filename metadata. They used those views to focus project decisions on the relevant part of delivery.

The comparison depends on what the plan contains. If information in the common data environment is missing from the MIDP, the planned side omits part of what was issued. SRM therefore tracked MIDP coverage against the common data environment to check the completeness of the comparison used by design managers.

Keep the model review history

The model tracker listed current models, revisions and the dates they were last received in 4Projects. Josh's project expected a new upload every two weeks. When an upload was missing, the team could identify the responsible company and ask why. The overview brought those dates together without requiring the team to open each model individually.

Document control moved models through a workflow to the digital construction team, whose Morta view listed the models awaiting review. The team performed the checks in external software and entered its findings in Morta. The checklist covered standard SRM requirements such as file format and model integrity, with additional checks where the project required them.

When a model failed, the reviewer recorded the reason in 4Projects. Synchronisation updated Morta's rejected-model view, where subcontractors and the design team could inspect the rejection information. A separate view listed withdrawn models. The recorded findings also created a history that Josh hoped the business could use to investigate recurring issues across jobs.

Bring sustainability proposals into review

SRM built a library of sustainability opportunities grouped around its business initiatives. External contributors could identify their work package, choose a risk or opportunity, select a category and project phase, and explain the proposal in a form. Josh's example used an environmental-waste opportunity during construction.

Submissions entered SRM's internal review table. The team could accept or reject an item, or discuss why the contributor considered it valuable to the project. Categorising the proposal and linking it to a package and phase gave reviewers that project context. The form was labelled Social Value R&O.

Assemble monthly reporting from discipline contributions

Discipline leads updated their monthly report sections in Morta. Planning contributors supplied headings and the text beneath them, while other tables held dates and further reporting data. Those contributions fed the corresponding sections of the client's Power BI report, so the narrative followed the discipline and topic structure used for entry.

The client could also select a previous month and read the contributions stored for that period. This gave the report a history alongside its current monthly narrative.

The planner's burndown reporting used a separate data input. To support project decisions, the planner still exported Asta data to Excel before it was brought into Morta. Removing that manual transfer required further integration work.

The implementation

Make the template fit different projects

SRM's first project hubs followed its initial trials in October 2024, supporting handover information management and sustainability risk and opportunity work. Its first information delivery planning project followed in December 2024. A focus group began developing training and support in January 2025, ahead of the master-template rollout that July. SRM purchased the scale-up plan with 50 licences in September 2025.

At the 2025 presentation, SRM had 12 resource types in initial development, five in project development and three at stage three, the combined template-development and business-as-usual category. Mark found stage three particularly demanding because the template had to accommodate different project requirements.

SRM built naming and common data environment options into its resources. During hub mobilisation, the team could configure those options for the project. Preparing a company template therefore included the work of accommodating local requirements as well as building the workflow.

The supporting material took time too. For information delivery planning, the sponsor co-authored and owned a procedure covering mobilisation, operation and responsibilities at group and project level. Mark described its alignment with the principles of ISO 19650-2. How-to guides and training videos helped project teams use the workflow alongside that procedure.

Put support on the project

The governance model gave the group sponsor and technology owner a role in development-gate decisions. Group administrators had weekly technical discussions with Morta about development problems, features and training. Project administrators worked with discipline leads and supported users locally.

Project support remains necessary when central help is available. Mark treated the relationships between project administrators, discipline leads and users as critical to implementation. Project sponsors and super users were therefore part of SRM's delivery package, giving teams support on the project as well as at group level.

Measure deployment and participation

SRM used audit and settings data in Power BI to track five adoption themes. These were hub deployment and user onboarding duration, records tracked, initiatives at each development stage, resources and hubs deployed from the master template, and hub traffic. For workflows that depended on project participation, traffic by role let the team examine who was using the resources.

Alongside these adoption themes, SRM tracked MIDP coverage against the common data environment. The team also set a target to track and record 20,000 model file reviews by the end of 2026.

Before and after

About Sir Robert McAlpine

Sir Robert McAlpine is a family-owned building and civil engineering company working across the UK. Mark worked as a national resource within its digital construction team, while Josh led a team on a large Somerset project.

What's next

Josh planned a direct API connection from Asta Powerproject to Morta, followed by data preparation for Power BI. That connection would remove the planner's Excel export step from the reporting process.

Mark's next steps extended collaboration with organisations already using Morta. SRM wanted to automate the pull of trade contractors' and consultants' TIDPs into its MIDP. It had also been invited into a client's enterprise to build resources for their shared projects.

Further plans included forms in public hubs feeding information into private hubs, work with more discipline leads, and API connections to platforms for progress tracking, quality control and digital handover.

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