Case Study

Background

Heathrow is a gateway connecting the United Kingdom to over 80 long-haul destinations, making it easier for British exporters to get to growing markets and for tourists, students and investors to come to the UK. The Framework for the Heathrow Management System has been developed by the Business Assurance Team and approved by the Exec. Business units across Heathrow are using the framework as a baseline for their Self-Assurance. The Business Assurance Team develop the plan for rolling out the Heathrow Management System across Heathrow with two priority areas, namely Policy and Legislation and Training and Competence. As Heathrow gear up for growth, there is a need to become increasingly agile, efficient, consistent and effective. One of the key challenges was the multiple ways of working and confusing or contradictory information that hinder Heathrow’s ability to achieve common objectives, to collaborate, be aligned, stay current, consistent & compliant.

BDO Consultancy Engagement

Given the vision of Heathrow Management system which includes having a common way of working that makes Heathrow more efficient, organises and enables them to deliver consistently high performance and outcomes, having a single set of information and that is current, reliable, useable, compliant, secure and easy to access and focusing on enabling colleagues, so more time can be given to deliver great service to our passengers. Heathrow required BDO consultancy to demonstrate their understanding of the HMS strategic objectives which was that the Heathrow Management System will make Heathrow more efficient by defining and capturing their standard way of working, enable accountable leaders to establish simpler & joined up practices, remove waste and replication and become the common baseline for assurance, compliance and continuous improvement.
The engagement started by interviewing over 70 stakeholders from executive directors to heads of departments, collating inputs to define the “what” and “how” of Heathrow. BDO Consultancy now developed a conceptual model that sets the overarching framework across the business. This model included the business vision, priorities and objectives, stakeholder requirements, generic and common business functions to deliver the plan and requirements, enterprise organisational structure, supporting structure of core policies, procedures, standards and processes and the facilities, equipment, IT and information needed.

Business Architecture Expertise

BDO Consultancy built out a business reference model and transformed it into an enterprise business capability model. The business reference model grouped Heathrow core domains (Commercial, Operations, Support, strategic and assurance), business functions and business services. The baselined business reference model was used as input to the business capability model. The capability model (Map and catalogue) depicted what Heathrow does currently and where there seems to be duplicate activities in different teams, these were rounded-up to give a simplified summary picture. The above were achieved by splitting the work in three phases with phase 1, sourcing and collating existing materials, completing a desktop exercise, engaging business facing IT stakeholders, development and seeking approval for the first draft of the models. Phase 2 included further stakeholder engagement, covering business and operational stakeholders. Task performed included refinement, filling gaps, enhancing accuracy and structure and developing common business function list. Phase 3 included challenging the AS IS contained in the model, final review and refined model, heat mapped areas of potential improvement, developed initial target list of opportunities, assessed, elaborate and prioritised opportunities and created improvement opportunities assessment report. Additionally, BDO Consultancy created a multi-layered model for Heathrow Management System that was used to support enterprise RACI and IT simplification, using the model for cross checking of alignment, misalignment and gaps. Heathrow Strategic Capability statement was also created to outline capabilities used to deliver services that are directly consumed by passengers, airlines and retailers; Capabilities used to provide the operational support needed to maintain and deliver the day-to-day airport services; Capabilities used to continuously develop and improve the airport’s performance, assets and infrastructure; Capabilities used to assure the efficient, effective and compliant running of the airport and it’s environment; Capabilities used to manage and deliver the corporate and enabling functions of the airport business, its staff and supply chain.