Centralizing Engineering Information for a Major Australian Energy Provider
Major Australian Energy Provider
Executed one of the largest Autodesk Vault migrations in the Australian energy sector, consolidating over 2TB of data from 7+ legacy systems into a single unified repository for 1,000+ users.
Project Outcome
Before
- Data spread across 7+ systems
- Conflicting metadata and naming conventions
- Broken references and inconsistent revision control
- Inefficient document retrieval
- High operational risk from data fragmentation
After
- A single Autodesk Vault repository housing all engineering data
- Standardized metadata across the entire enterprise
- Full preservation of document history and CAD references
- Highly searchable, reliable, and governable data
- Scalable architecture for future digital engineering initiatives
Client Overview
A major Australian energy company engaged Tentech to solve a long-standing challenge with fragmented and inconsistent engineering data. Across the organization, engineering documentation and CAD files were distributed across multiple disconnected systems, resulting in inefficiencies, data duplication, version conflicts, and a lack of visibility over critical engineering information.
Existing Environment
- Bentley ProjectWise
- Two independent Autodesk Vault instances
- IBM FileNet
- Dozens of unmanaged network drives
- Multiple metadata standards and inconsistent file structures
This fragmentation created operational risk, slowed down engineering teams, and made controlled information management nearly impossible.
Project Objective
To design and implement a single, authoritative source of engineering truth by consolidating all engineering and CAD data into a unified Autodesk Vault environment—modernizing their information management, improving governance, and enabling long-term scalability.
Solution Overview
1. Large-Scale Data Consolidation and Migration
Tentech executed one of the largest Autodesk Vault migrations performed in the Australian energy sector, consolidating over 2 terabytes of data, multiple legacy repositories, full revision and version histories, and complex CAD reference structures. We built a robust migration framework capable of extracting, transforming, validating, and loading data from all legacy systems. This ensured zero data loss, preservation of file relationships and hierarchies, accurate mapping of varying metadata structures, and integrity of CAD references across thousands of drawings. We did not simply copy files from one system to another. Instead, we reverse-engineered the logic behind each repository, normalized the structures, and merged them into a cohesive Vault data model.
2. Delta Management for a Seamless Cutover
To ensure continuity of operations, Tentech implemented a delta-tracking mechanism throughout the migration period. As engineers continued to work in the legacy systems, our tools captured new documents, updated revisions, metadata changes, and file movements and reference changes. This allowed us to continually synchronize legacy sources with the new Vault environment, ensuring that on the day of Go Live, the new Autodesk Vault was fully up to date with every change made prior to cutover. There was no downtime, no rework, and no 'missing' documents.
3. Metadata Standardization Across the Entire Enterprise
Each legacy platform had its own naming conventions, metadata structures, and required fields. Some fields were duplicated across systems; others were contradictory or obsolete. Tentech worked with engineering, document control, and IT stakeholders to define a single, unified metadata schema, map every legacy system's attributes to standardized fields, eliminate redundant or conflicting metadata, and enforce governance and quality rules within Autodesk Vault. This created clean, consistent, validated metadata—critical for searchability, compliance, automation, and long-term maintainability.
4. Preservation of Revision History and File Relationships
A major risk in any CAD migration is the loss of version and revision history, XRefs and dependent files, parent-child relationships, and structured document hierarchies. Tentech developed specialized tools to extract complete histories from FileNet, ProjectWise, Vault, and network drives, then reconstructed them in the new Vault environment. We also rebuilt reference structures so that no CAD reference paths broke, no drawings opened with missing XRefs, and no 3D assemblies lost linked parts. Users experienced a fully intact environment where every historical detail was preserved and every drawing opened exactly as it had before migration—but now within a single, unified system.
5. Enterprise-Scale Rollout to 1,000+ Users
The successful Go Live required careful planning and a coordinated rollout across engineering, drafting, operations, and document control teams. Tentech delivered comprehensive end-user and administrator training, reference guides and onboarding documentation, live support during transition, and a controlled handover to ensure zero business disruption. More than 1,000 users were transitioned into the new Autodesk Vault environment, all able to immediately continue their work without interruption.
Why This Case Study Is Important
This project demonstrates Tentech's unique capability to:
- Manage large-scale, multi-system migrations
- Solve complex engineering information management challenges
- Deliver enterprise-grade outcomes in high-risk environments
- Support national critical infrastructure with zero downtime
It highlights Tentech's dual strength: deep consulting expertise and strong technical implementation capability, positioning us as one of Australia's leading Autodesk Vault specialists.
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