OHL chooses IBM Cloud to Support its Digital Transformation Process

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and OHL announced today a ten year agreement to transform and manage OHL’s IT global infrastructure. OHL will use IBM Cloud to help boost innovation across its businesses and reduce costs, while quickly adapting to the constant market changes. OHL is a concessions and construction group headquartered in Spain with presence in 30 countries across five continents.

This initiative supports OHL´s Strategic Plan 2020, and support its Systems Plan 2016-2020, which is designed to foster digitalization across the company´s value chain. 

OHL considers digitalization a key factor in addressing challenges within its sector including: strong competition; clients with more demanding requirements; and new technologies and productive processes. To face these challenges, IBM Cloud will serve as the foundation to responding faster to market dynamics.

Additionally, in an environment where it is paramount to manage operations in real time and make decisions quickly, OHL will rely on IBM to implement a new Global ERP system, based on the latest SAP technology (S4H), which will be used to perform near real-time analysis of a large volume of data from internal and external sources.

OHL has developed different tools for project management and embraces methodologies like BIM (Building Information Modeling). BIM is a platform, which adopts collaborative modelling techniques in multiple dimensions across a project lifecycle, enabling multi-dimensional visualization simultaneously and dynamically.  OHL applied the BIM method to constructions such as the urban highway Américo Vespucio in Chile, the Ski station of Follo Line reconstruction in Norway, and the construction of the 72nd Street subway station in New York City or the Hospital Gustavo Fricke (Chile). OHL is also building intelligent systems for concessional infrastructures management as well as designing management platforms integrated with smart cities to synchronize the company operations with the cities demands.

To enhance these and other digital projects in areas like mobility, cybersecurity, data analytics and cognitive computing, OHL needs a robust, reliable and secure infrastructure, as well as the best practices and specialized knowledge. That’s why OHL is relying on IBM Cloud to enable more predictable and controlled IT costs and greater flexibility to quickly execute new technology projects.

Main driver for sustainable growth

OHL CEO, Tomás García Madrid, considers digital transformation as “a key element for OHL´s future growth. OHL is prepared for change as innovation and technology have been always part of our culture, pioneering for 20 years the development of IT oriented to process optimization and competitive advantage.”

“We are very proud to assist OHL in its digital transformation and better enable this important multinational company to be prepared technologically to face important business challenges,” said IBM Senior Vice President for Global Technology Services, Martin Jetter, “Using IBM Cloud and other services, IBM will provide OHL with the tools and resources needed to compete in today’s competitive business environment.”

Obrascón Huarte Lain (OHL), a concessions and construction group with more than 100 years of history, develops its activity mainly concentrated in eight home markets: Canada, USA, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Central Europe and Spain. At present, it is a strategic promoter of public-private projects, the 28th largest international contractor and the 5th in Latin America (ENR 2016), and an international reference in the construction of hospitals and railways.