How AtkinsRéalis Standardized Global Project Controls and Achieved Enterprise Portfolio Visibility

Enabled through Octave Sequence Enterprise (formerly EcoSys) and LoadSpring Managed Cloud Services

AtkinsRéalis delivers engineering, project management and professional services across infrastructure, transportation, energy and defense sectors, supporting some of the world's most complex capital programs.

The Challenge 

Creating A Single Source of Truth for Project Controls

As AtkinsRéalis grew its global footprint—including through significant acquisitions—project controls processes had evolved differently across regions, making consistent reporting difficult to achieve and maintain. Even in the UK, where a project management application was already in place, it was only capturing updates from around half the portfolio.

The core issues were straightforward:

• Inconsistent global reporting, with regional variation making consolidated visibility difficult

• Spreadsheet-driven processes were functional at a local level, but not built for enterprise scale

• Limited visibility into project performance without a single source of truth across the portfolio

“We had an application that was only allowing our teams to update the forecast on about 50% of the portfolio in the UK. Other regions were more sporadic, often relying on spreadsheets.” - Charles Severn, Senior Director of Global Project Controls

The underlying issue was not just a technology gap. There was a long-standing practice of submitting a single “project summary report” with no certified data sitting behind it, and no way to audit or trace the activity that led to the final forecast.

This created downstream effects including limited trust in data, lack of confidence in decision making, lack of auditability, which raised governance considerations, and inefficient reporting cycles, placing unnecessary burden on project teams.

The Strategy

Building a Global Project Controls Operating Model

AtkinsRéalis recognized that solving the reporting problem required more than a new tool, it required a fundamental rethink of how project controls were governed across the enterprise. The program formed part of a broader digital transformation initiative designed to standardize financial, project and portfolio management processes across the organization. It needed a consistent interface through which project managers could interact with it. That interface would be Octave Sequence Enterprise. Delivering this at global scale required a platform capable of supporting it. This role would be fulfilled by the LoadSpring Platform™.

A deliberate architectural decision shaped the entire design: project managers would not be given direct access to the ERP. Instead, Sequence Enterprise would serve as their dedicated environment — enabling them to set up cost collectors, submit budgets and forecasts, and manage project performance, all within a controlled, standardized framework. Finance teams retained access to the ERP; project managers had Sequence Enterprise.

“The fundamentals of project controls are the same across the globe. Having a product that’s already designed to do that — it just doesn’t make sense to develop your own version.” — Peter Bushby, Senior Product Manager

Sequence Enterprise was selected over internal development and other options for a clear reason: it was best-of-breed, built specifically for the challenge at hand, and could be configured to meet AtkinsRéalis’ exacting standards without the risk and overhead of building something from scratch.

Beyond technology, the program established common governance, forecasting and reporting standards that could be applied consistently across regions. 

The strategic pillars were straightforward but demanding to execute:

• A global ERP as the backbone of financial and operational data

• Sequence Enterprise as the single project controls platform — the project managers’ interface to the ERP

• Fully standardized processes across all regions, with a clear mandate that there would be one way of working globally

The Decision

Selecting a Platform for Global Scale

Deploying Sequence Enterprise at global scale is not a trivial infrastructure challenge. The technology stack, spanning multiple layers including database, application server, and integration components, requires specialized skills to host, patch, and maintain reliably. AtkinsRéalis needed a hosting environment that could meet demanding requirements without placing that operational burden on internal IT teams.

Key evaluation criteria included scalability, security, data sovereignty and the ability to support long-term global growth.

Peter Bushby, Senior Product Manager and technical owner of the Sequence Enterprise program, led the hosting evaluation. Four requirements defined the decision:

• UK data residency — a non-negotiable requirement for data sovereignty and compliance

• High performance at scale — with thousands of concurrent users across multiple regions, latency and reliability were critical

• Scalable infrastructure — capable of supporting rapid onboarding of new regions and environments as the program expanded

• Strong supportability — requiring deep expertise in the Sequence Enterprise technology stack to ensure reliable performance at global scale

“We recognized the complexities of hosting Sequence Enterprise — the number of different technology layers in the stack — and that tended to be in areas where we were not strong internally.” — Peter Bushby, Senior Product Manager

Internal hosting was ruled out quickly. AtkinsRéalis already had an on-premise Sequence Enterprise instance in Canada, and the experience of maintaining it had demonstrated the operational complexity involved.

Technologies such as Tomcat and Oracle services fell outside the organization’s core infrastructure competencies, and replicating that capability at global scale was not a risk worth taking.

The Octave SaaS offering was also evaluated, but data residency requirements and the desire for an independent, dedicated environment pointed clearly to a managed service provider with a proven Sequence Enterprise track record.

The LoadSpring Platform

Providing the Foundation for Global Deployment

The LoadSpring Platform provided the foundation that made global standardization possible, delivering the infrastructure, performance, security, and operational control required to scale across regions without adding complexity or risk.

LoadSpring provided:

• Secure, compliant hosting with UK data residency, meeting AtkinsRéalis’ regulatory and client obligations

• Scalable, elastic environments capable of supporting a growing global user base across testing and production workloads

• Integration support to enable seamless connectivity between Sequence Enterprise and AtkinsRéalis’ global ERP systems

• Proactive operational management and monitoring — ensuring issues are identified and addressed before they impact users

The relationship with LoadSpring was designed as a genuine partnership, not a commodity hosting arrangement. AtkinsRéalis, Octave, and LoadSpring operate as a “three-legged” partnership: each bringing distinct expertise and accountability. LoadSpring provided the infrastructure and operational support required to deploy Sequence Enterprise consistently across multiple regions while meeting data residency and governance requirements.

“From day one, AtkinsRéalis made it clear that data sovereignty was non negotiable. Our role was to deliver a platform that not only scales globally, but gives them complete control over where their data resides and how it’s governed.” — Dr Asif Sharif, Managing Director, LoadSpring Solutions

The Deployment

From Pilot to Global Scale

The Sequence Enterprise deployment on LoadSpring began in 2022 with an initial rollout that proved the model and established the technical and operational foundations. From there, the program expanded across regions, bringing new business units and geographies onto the platform in a structured, managed way.

The scale of the deployment today reflects both the ambition of the program and the robustness of the platform underpinning it:

• Initial rollout completed in 2022, establishing the platform and operating model

• Progressive global expansion, bringing regions onto a single, consistent platform

• Approximately 10 environments in operation, spanning testing, staging, and production

• Roughly 3,000 users currently work within the standardised system across the UK, Europe, and the Middle East. The platform is expanding into Canada, with future plans for North America, South America, and APAC.

Managing a deployment of this complexity — across multiple environments, time zones, and integration points — demands operational discipline and deep platform expertise. LoadSpring’s proactive management approach ensured the program could scale without accumulating technical debt or operational risk.

The Results

From 50% Coverage to 100% Portfolio Visibility

The impact of the program has been significant and measurable. In the UK alone, regular project forecast updates went from covering 50% of the portfolio (by project volume) to covering 100% — and across other regions, which had previously relied on ad hoc spreadsheet processes, the same standard now applies universally. Leadership can now view projects across the UK, Europe, and the Middle East in a single dashboard, with certified data.

A full audit trail and robust governance framework have replaced the ambiguity of spreadsheet-based reporting, building trust in data at every level of the organization. The business case for the program was always about more than cost. Charles Severn, Senior Director of Global Project Controls, who has championed this initiative since 2017, is clear about where the value lies: not just in the reporting improvements already delivered, but in the foundation it creates for the future.

“By creating a consistent global project controls framework, we've established a foundation that supports better decisions, stronger governance and future innovation across the business.” — Charles Severn, Senior Director of Global Project Controls

AtkinsRéalis has already conducted ROI analysis against its broader ERP program on a ten-year horizon, and Sequence Enterprise contributes meaningfully to that return. Critically, the organization is also capitalizing on its existing investment by expanding into additional Sequence Enterprise capability areas — adding return without proportionally adding cost.

Across the business, the program has driven measurable improvements in:

• Forecasting accuracy

• Decision-making quality

• Governance and audit

But Charles’ longer-term ambition goes further. The goal is to move from a “rear view mirror” view of project performance — actuals and progress — to genuinely proactive project management: putting insights and analysis in front of project managers and leadership in real time, and eventually using the clean, certified data now flowing through Sequence Enterprise to power AI-driven forecasting and decision support.

Key Lessons

Lessons for Large-Scale Digital Transformation Programs

The AtkinsRéalis journey offers three lessons that apply to any organization embarking on a project controls transformation of this scale.

1. Committed subject matter experts make or break the program. Having dedicated, senior owners — one accountable for the functional, one for the technical — was critical. Clear boundaries, a strong working relationship, and the authority to hold the line on design decisions kept local exceptions from fragmenting the global standard. If those experts aren't engaged and passionate, the program will struggle.

2. Stakeholder engagement must happen at the right levels. AtkinsRéalis worked two tiers: operational leadership focused on P&L outcomes, and regional champions — daily users selected for their passion and willingness to share knowledge. That combination of top-down mandate and bottom-up advocacy turned a technology deployment into genuine behavior change.

3. Standardization pays dividends beyond reporting. A single platform means a project manager moving between countries can be productive immediately — no new system to learn, no unfamiliar regional process to decipher. In a sector facing a growing skills gap, that consistency is a real competitive advantage.

ABOUT LOADSPRING

For over 25 years, LoadSpring Solutions has been at the forefront of transforming capital-intensive projects worldwide, supporting over $1 trillion in project value and serving more than 100,000 users across 5,000 organizations. As the industry's most trusted digital transformation partner, LoadSpring leverages its deep expertise in cloud technology, data modernization, and AI-powered analytics to deliver customized solutions, drive measurable results, and maximize ROI for the world's most complex capital projects.

ABOUT ATKINSRÉALIS

Created by the integration of long-standing organizations dating back to 1911, AtkinsRéalis is a world class engineering services and nuclear company dedicated to engineering a better future for our planet and its people. AtkinsRéalis creates sustainable solutions that connect people, data and technology to transform the world's infrastructure and energy systems. The company deploys global capabilities locally to their clients and delivers unique end-to-end services across the whole life cycle of an asset including consulting, advisory & environmental services, intelligent networks & cybersecurity, design & engineering, procurement, project & construction management, operations & maintenance, decommissioning and capital advisory services. The breadth and depth of the company’s capabilities are delivered to clients in strategic sectors such as Engineering Services and Nuclear, as steward of CANDU® nuclear technology. Learn more at atkinsrealis.com.