Coal Services – October 2018

A digital transformation journey

Coal Services: a growing mine of data WRIT TEN BY

ANDRE W WOODS PRODUCED BY

ANDY TURNER

Gillian Kidson, Head of IT at Coal Services, on how she is overseeing the digital transformation of the company to benefit its internal users and extensive stakeholder base

T

he challenge of transforming a business is no easy feat.

When that push for change

requires a shift to a more agile customer focused model, as well as harnessing and renewing technology platforms to not only future proof the business but create a best practice environment, that task can become even more complex.

Coal Services is an Australian industry-owned Specialised Health and Safety Scheme which delivers a suite of services in relation to the NSW coal

mining industry including workers

of the industry, which presents its own

compensation insurance, health

set of challenges in that the status quo

surveillance, occupational hygiene

must be maintained at the same time

monitoring, and training and rescue.

as the organisation builds a new way

Owned by industry for industry,

forward.

through the NSW Minerals Council

Gillian Kidson is Head of IT at Coal

and the Construction, Forestry,

Services and it is her job to oversee

Maritime, Mining and Energy Union

the transformation of the company

(CFMMEU), it has been protecting

from a technological point of view,

workers in one form or another for

to work with leading edge vendors

more than 90 years.

and create a best practice environ-

The company has statutory functions that are critical to the health and safety

ment for IT infrastructure. “I needed to gain an intimate knowlw w w.c o a l se r vi c e s. com . a u

edge of the company strategy and build a roadmap that allowed IT to help enable the key infrastructure required to realise our strategy. There was an appetite for significant efficiencies to be made using new technologies and improved data management; it was a case of building the right IT structure, architecture and infrastructure,” she reveals.

The biggest challenge for Kidson and her team was working through the company’s legacy systems, which represent nearly 100 years of activity with each part of the business also having different requirements and applications, many of which weren’t being utilised.

“Not only was it a bit of a clean-up, but we also looked at how we could utilise these tools across multiple businesses; not just one,” she comments.

“We are upgrading the legacy infrastructure to a level where it will able to provide significant

“ I needed to gain an intimate knowledge of the company strategy and build a roadmap that allowed IT to help enable the key infrastructure required to realise our strategy” — Gillian Kidson, Head of IT, Coal Services

performance improvements in meeting the needs of the new systems that are coming in.

We integrated current technologies, including: AWS, Azure and Office 365 to ensure we have best practice systems in place to allow us to build for the future and enhance performance.

In order to implement changes to legacy systems, particularly within the insurance arm of its operations, Coal Services has, for w w w.c o a l se r vi c e s. com . a u

“ The goal is to provide systems that will give ease of access for our employees to provide better levels of service to customers” — Gillian Kidson, Head of IT, Coal Services

centric approach to injury management and improved experience for the worker.

At a larger level, and because it operates across multiple touch points with its customers, Coal Services has amassed a large store of data surrounding workplaces, mine companies and workers.

“An important part of the architectural design has been geared towards how we share the data that can be shared and lock down the data that can’t. So, we’re just working through that architecture at the moment with a view to implementing some master data sets across the business and

example, partnered with Finity to

a middleware application to enable

develop a tool that blends an individu-

us to transfer and share that core

al’s entire claims history together so

data,” Kidson explains.

case managers and injury management

“The goal is to provide systems that

advisors will have a holistic view of the

will give ease of access for our employ-

person (rather than a single claim or

ees to provide better levels of service

injury view) to enable a more person-

to customers. But at the same time,

these new systems must provide useful

of security they can.

information to help us glean specific

So, how does the system function

insights and improved knowledge to

when facing the client? “We have five

enable better solutions. This will enable

different businesses that will interact

the organisation to be more customer

with the coal miner for various reasons.

centred and in doing so, will allow for

From a health perspective it can be

an increase in customer efficiencies.”

anything from a pre-work placement

With large data assets comes the

medical required under the statutory

need to protect personal information

responsibilities of Coal Services,

and comply with privacy policies too.

to annual medicals for mines rescue

To ensure these requirements are met,

brigadesmen. On the other side,

Coal Services has engaged InfoTrust

you’ve got injury claims and manage-

as its security partner, who are

ment processes as part of the

working with Kidson at each stage of

workers’ compensation component

these projects to ensure that they

of the scheme. In addition, every NSW

apply the best and most trusted form

coal miner will likely come through our w w w.c o a l se r vi c e s. com . a u

www.virtualitservices.com.au | support@virtualitservices.com.au |

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doors for some sort of training, and

can access personal data, see their

we also maintain their qualification

qualifications, and check their

records,” she said.

medical information.”

“The interactions are as varied

The coal industry is undergoing

as the data sets, so we are working

dramatic change and, as a result,

towards giving people access to see

capabilities at Coal Services need to

what training they’ve had and when

be nimble and agile enough to respond

they did it. They will be able to see how

to the evolving industry landscape.

many medicals they’ve had and keep

“While improving internal system

tabs on their claims. They should be

performance and data collection

able to go in through a portal and see

capabilities are important, it’s of greater

all their information. The immediate

significance that we can understand

goal is to give that capability back to

the data and work with industry to recog-

the miner so they have some visibility

nise emerging issues.”

of their own information; it means they

“Changes in technology can have a w w w.c o a l se r vi c e s. com . a u

1921

Year founded

330+

Approximate number of employees

direct impact on that and can aid in the development of solutions. Mine workers are often transient and the industry employs a good deal of contractors, which requires us to respond quickly to provide the best possible services to customers. It’s give and take on any day of the week and adaptability is key.”

Kidson has fostered a number of long term strategic partnerships as a way to not only help deliver on requirements, but to also help improve performance as the organisation develops its own capabilities.

“Virtual IT has been on board since the beginning providing assistance with architectural and network design as well as business intelligence tools. Having them on board has been a learning curve for us all and has provided us with some insights into what we’ve got and how best to reuse what we can.”

One of the first areas Kidson looked at was occupational health who had been running their business across six different applications. The idea is to consolidate as much of that as possible into one application.

“We’ve consolidated the first two applications with the help of Appian, who provide a platform Workflow Tool. We’ve consolidated bookings and health assessments and that’s due to go live in November.”

With data comes responsibility and security and Coal Services looked to Trusted Habitat w w w.c o a l se r vi c e s. com . a u

when it came to data governance.

“We need to be very clear over data flow and ownership. Trusted Habitat has been working with us to help put some of the rules in place and to look at how we manage that flow,” Kidson explains.

Coal Services’ employees also need to make sure that data is available and can be where it needs to be at the right time. As a result, and to ensure best

“ We need to be very clear over data flow and ownership. Trusted Habitat has been working with us to help put some of the rules in place and to look at how we manage that flow” — Gillian Kidson, Head of IT, Coal Services

practice, the company has gone for a new high-speed network, supplied

by Telstra.

Meanwhile, NTT is working with Coal Services on disaster recovery and business continuity planning for the infrastructure and server environment. “We’re currently working our way through what that’s going to look like, with a view to implementing a ‘disaster avoidance’ environment and not the standard ‘disaster recovery’.

“The strategy in place at the moment, has probably got another

two to three years to run. We’re

What these long term strategic

obviously adding to that all the time

partnerships do is allow us to

and it’s constantly under review. It’s an

improve performance and implement

ever-evolving piece of work. If we can

best practice solutions across the

get to the point where we’re delivering

business lifting both our internal and

that well, then we’ll start to see a bit

external customer experiences. The

more of the AI (Artificial Intelligence)

changes to our IT infrastructure will

technology being introduced.”

provide tremendous benefits towards

“First, we will have somebody

improving our stakeholder service

logging into a portal, then we would

provision in a significantly more

like to see that portal being more

effective and efficient manner.

intuitive and intelligent and delivering content to the customer or client based on their actions.” w w w.c o a l se r vi c e s. com . a u

COAL SERVICES PTY LIMITED

Level 21, 44 Market Street, Sydney NSW 2000 T +61 (2) 4286 5499 | www.coalservices.com.au