Introduction
One Bangkok is a state-of-the-art mixed-use smart urban development that opened its doors at the end of October 2024 in the heart of Thailand's capital city. Encompassing over 1.8 million square metres of floor space across a complex of large tower blocks, it is designed to be Thailand's first fully-integrated district built on people-centric principles, with a focus on environmental sustainability and smart living.
The project includes a variety of spaces such as offices, retail, hospitality, residential, hotel, and cultural areas, intended to serve more than 100,000 people daily who will live, work, and visit there. As of 2024, it remains the largest active mixed-use project under construction in Southeast Asia.
The Challenge
Developed by TCC Group – one of Thailand’s largest conglomerates spanning several industries – and Singaporean real estate and property management company Frasers Property, One Bangkok aimed to integrate numerous smart services across the project, including energy management, water systems, telecommunications, predictive maintenance, video analytics, security, traffic management, and parking solutions. The developers faced significant challenges in sourcing the specialised expertise required to implement these innovative smart services on such a large scale.
TCC Technologies, a subsidiary of TCC Group, needed to build a team of approximately 120 staff members under a Project Management Office (PMO) to manage 22 work packages (sub-projects). Lacking sufficient internal employees with the necessary experience in smart city solutions, they turned to Hitachi Asia for support.
Hitachi Asia, a subsidiary of the Japanese multinational conglomerate Hitachi, has extensive experience in smart city strategy, planning, IT, and smart infrastructure. Tasked with designing the user experiences, technology, and business cases for the smart services of One Bangkok, Hitachi Asia was selected by Frasers Property and TCC Group in 2018 to assist in this innovative project. To implement their Smart City Services Blueprint, Hitachi Asia required a partner capable of sourcing and managing a highly skilled local PMO team.
Hitachi Asia’s goal was to jointly design and deliver the largest, most high-technology-integrated smart city within Southeast Asia. All smart services within One Bangkok are intended to run off a single Internet-of-Things-driven platform and command centre.
To implement their Smart Blueprint, Hitachi Asia required a partner capable of sourcing and managing a highly skilled local PMO team. They needed a partner with the ability to find and recruit people within the challenging and complex field of smart services and place those new recruits into a high-pressure environment.
Outsourcing Staff Requirements
ddx was selected to take on this responsibility owing to their local expertise, high-standing reputation within the region, and knowledge of smart city fields and digital twin work, alongside their previous successful projects in partnership with Hitachi Asia.
In collaboration with their partner Forviz—a digital solutions company specialising in software development and IT consulting—ddx focused on sourcing and managing the local onsite PMO team.
In order to meet Hitachi Asia’s requirements, ddx proposed to put together a five-strong team for the smart services PMO, consisting of Project Director, a System Architect, a Device and Sensors Engineer, a Senior Scheduler and a Master Systems Integration (MSI) Project Manager.
Roles and Responsibilities
- Project Management Office (PMO) – The central organisation that oversees the management of multiple, different projects that all fit together under a single programme.
- Project Director – Head of the PMO team and responsible for creating, organising and implementing strategies for the project, and ensuring all related projects are completed on time and within budget.
- System Architect – Responsible for providing a high-level view of how all projects fit together in terms of systems and solutions.
- Senior Scheduler – Responsible for pulling together detailed Gantt charts of all projects and piecing them into the overall programme, and providing weekly reports on progress value and progress against schedule.
- Devices and Sensors Engineer – An expert in the devices and sensors which collect data around the smart services, reporting different technologies used by different sensors – particularly IoT sensors – performance characteristics and how they work with different systems.
- Master Systems Integration (MSI) Project Manager – Responsible for ensuring all of the systems in the various sub-projects all work together in an integrated fashion.
Understanding the Requirements
Having agreed their collaboration with Hitachi Asia to recruit the smart services PMO team, ddx’s initial focus was to ascertain as much information from the existing project team as possible.
With the new smart services PMO team required to manage 22 work packages as well as their specific individual teams, ddx also needed to understand the status of these. With multiple organisations – TCC Technologies, Frasers Property and Hitachi Asia – involved in the management of the project, these discussions were often lengthy and complex.
The remainder of ddx’s focus was to recruit new staff to fill the organisation structure of approximately 120 people that had been initially defined for the project. ddx therefore undertook a thorough recruitment, vetting and interview process to locate and recruit expert staff for the vast number of roles, doing so within a tight timescale to remain in line with the requirements of the overall project.
Once the PMO team, as listed above, had been successfully recruited by ddx, approved by TCC Technologies and implemented into their roles, the development of smart services provision across One Bangkok got under way.
Meeting Unique Demands
One Bangkok represents the first smart city project of its kind in Thailand and one of the most complex privately delivered projects in Southeast Asia. The collaboration required ddx to navigate the challenges of working alongside multiple organisations that had never previously partnered on such a scale.ddx's ability to understand, plan, coordinate, and deliver on the project's innovative requirements was key to its success. They effectively managed a large workforce possessing a variety of skill sets, all while maintaining clear communication and strong working relationships with TCC Technologies, Hitachi Asia, and Frasers Property.
The ddx onsite team developed an excellent working relationship with the TCC Technologies team and the Executive Director of Smart City & Innovation at Frasers Property Thailand. On a day-to-day basis, they directly liaised and took guidance from these individuals, ensuring alignment with the project's vision and goals.
Overview
The One Bangkok smart city project showcased ddx’s ability to recruit and outsource highly-qualified expert consultants to an industry-leading organisation to take the lead on an innovative and complex project.
Due to the success of the team under Hitachi, TCC Technologies expressed interest in continuing their collaboration with ddx directly once the Hitachi contract concluded, allowing ddx to work directly with TCC Technologies to complete the project.
ddx’s comprehensive internal systems and structure allowed them to identify skill requirements for a wide range of job roles before finding, screening and interviewing suitable candidates for those roles, and eventually submit them for approval to a highly selective client.