Projects

Selected engagements, framed by scale and outcome.

Clients are named only where the work is already public. Where confidentiality applies, the engagement is described without identifying the client. Where a figure describes a client's programme rather than Innov8's scope of delivery, the card says so.

Programmes at scale

Statewide health network standards, and the pilot that proved them

NSW Health, eHealth NSW. 2015 to 2024.

Scale

eHealth NSW's Health Grade Enterprise Network programme spans more than 1,100 health facilities across 13 Local Health Districts, against Treasury-backed investment above $500M. That is the client's programme. Innov8's part in it was the standards and the pilot.

The problem

NSW Health ran fragmented ICT infrastructure with no statewide standard. Each Local Health District managed its own estate, contracts and procurement independently, so every project negotiated its own design position and every operator inherited something different.

The work

Co-authored the legally enforceable HGEN standards suite alongside the eHealth NSW team, covering LAN, WLAN, distributed antenna, DECT and paging, plus the ICT cabling standard for new and refurbished facilities, and the zone-based specifications and phased rollout sequencing underneath them. Co-authored the Treasury-grade business case behind the programme, including the contract and procurement analysis across districts and the financial models below it.

Then delivered the pilot. Technical programme lead across four simultaneous campuses in the Westmead precinct, greenfield and brownfield, enforcing the C1 design gate and the C2 deployment gate against those standards over roughly 240 communications rooms and more than 80,000 outlets. Led the winning tender response for the statewide rollout, including the multi-tier cost model across every hospital classification in the state.

Outcome

Independent evaluation confirmed the pilot delivered its forecast benefits, and the programme proceeded to statewide rollout. NSW has run the phases since on those standards, without Innov8. That is the proof worth having. The standard outlived the engagement that produced it. We built it to run on its own.

He helped translate strategic objectives into enforceable standards, zone-based specifications and phased rollout sequencing grounded in operational reality.

Andrew Pedrazzini OAM, Director ICT Infrastructure, eHealth NSW. Public LinkedIn recommendation.

The facility count and the investment figure are the scale of the client’s programme, not of Innov8’s delivery scope. Innov8 co-authored the standards and delivered the four-campus pilot. The statewide rollout is eHealth NSW’s.

Exchange hosting data centre

Hong Kong Stock Exchange. 2010.

Scale

A $350M programme including $95M of data centre elements. 25,000 square metres, approximately 65MW.

The problem

The exchange was investigating a sovereign hosting environment for high frequency trading brokers, a business it had never operated, with no facility, no commercial model and no specification.

The work

Led the investigation and full design of the hosting facility, from concept through board approval to delivery. Authored the business case including revenue modelling and low-voltage versus high-voltage net revenue sensitivity analysis.

Delivered the final draft ICT and services infrastructure specifications for every supply contract, the logical connectivity architecture, the three-phase schedule and the statements of work for all equipment and services suppliers.

Outcome

Approved and proceeded to implementation, with approximately 80 per cent of capacity pre-committed before construction began. Presented as a public case study at DCD Sydney in 2011, and again to BICSI the same year.

Statewide public safety network, ancillary infrastructure programme

An Australian state public safety network. 2008 to 2012.

Scale

Approximately $72M across roughly 300 sites, including remote island and regional community locations.

The problem

A state emergency services network needed its ancillary infrastructure, meaning the racks, structured cabling, power and monitoring at every site, brought to a single enforceable standard and cut over to the new network. The sites were geographically extreme, operationally sensitive, and could not go dark.

The work

Authored the implementation manager instruction set, the quality assurance and test regime, the site cutover plans and the contractor QA templates that governed delivery across a distributed subcontractor workforce.

One wave alone covered 57 sites across ten regional clusters, using four subcontractor firms and around twelve field teams. Every port was certified to the Australian and New Zealand standard with a mandated headroom margin, tested and recorded before acceptance. Pilot lessons were captured formally and fed back into the release standards.

Outcome

The instruction and QA set became the delivery standard for the release. More than 200 site upgrades were completed to that standard across the wider effort.

This engagement involved emergency services facilities. The client, the sites and their locations are not published, and no design detail is published.

Statewide education broadband transformation

NSW Department of Education. 2002 to 2003.

Scale

AU$74M across 2,550 schools and TAFEs, serving roughly 150,000 computers and 1.5 million students.

The problem

The state education network ran on ISDN and Frame Relay, and could not support the department's digital learning plans.

The work

Delivered the migration to MPLS across the full site estate, sequenced around school terms so that no site lost connectivity during teaching time.

Outcome

Delivered nine months early and 30 per cent under budget.

Standards and governance

Data centre standards authorship for a state health system

A second Australian state health system. 2008 to 2011.

Scale

The data centre standard governing every category 1 and 2 facility across a state health estate, plus the associated ICT cabling standard.

The problem

The health system was building and refurbishing data centre and communications facilities against no consistent standard, which meant every project negotiated its own design position and every operator inherited something different.

The work

Authored the data centre standard for category 1 and 2 sites, taken from statement of work through ten drafting revisions to formal stakeholder review, alongside the ICT cabling standard and the technical standard framework that sat over both.

The underlying position was researched rather than asserted: cooling and airflow analysis, overhead bus power, chimney rack versus hot aisle containment, raised versus solid floor, labelling and administration standards, and a total cost of ownership model, benchmarked against comparator facility designs in Australia and the United Kingdom.

In parallel, provided certified design sign-off across roughly 28 detailed designs for state police and justice facilities.

Outcome

The standard was issued for stakeholder review and adopted into the health system's technical standard framework. Together with the cabling standard authored for a different state health system, that is standards authorship across two state health estates.

Client and site names are not published.

Data centre and DCIM operating frameworks

A sovereign financial institution, a global insurance group, a national carrier and a hyperscale data centre operator. 2024 to 2025.

Scale

Four concurrent engagements across sovereign, financial services, telecommunications and commercial data centre estates.

The problem

Each operator had an estate documented well enough to run day to day, and not well enough to plan against. Provisioning and decommissioning were manual, and the record of power, redundancy and cross-connect pathways lived in people’s heads.

The work

Full-stack physical audit across network, carrier services, compute, storage, power and cooling. DCIM implementation and population against the audited state.

Design of the integrated provisioning and decommissioning operating framework, including power, redundancy and cross-connect pathway tracking, spanning four business units in the largest of the four. Operations workflows documented, and the operating teams trained and handed over.

Outcome

Each estate fully documented in a live DCIM platform, with the operating workflows to keep it that way. High-security and sovereign access protocols observed throughout.

Design and delivery

Post-merger data centre consolidation

A national telecommunications carrier. 2009 to 2010.

Scale

Eight data centres across two states, more than 7,000 servers, storage and network devices. Approximately $23M.

The problem

A merger had left the carrier with duplicated data centre estate and no accurate picture of what was in any of it. Consolidation decisions were being made on incomplete information.

The work

Led an external team through a full physical audit of all eight facilities, capturing infrastructure detail at device level across servers, storage and network, plus mechanical, electrical and power infrastructure assessment per site.

Produced facility-level audit reports, then the consolidation strategy and roadmap built on them. Migration was executed with a 72 hour dual-run and formal acceptance before any legacy platform was retired.

Outcome

Consolidation strategy delivered and the estate rationalised. The forensic audit became the basis for both the commercial and the technical decisions.

Automated container terminals, two greenfield ports

Hutchison Ports Australia, delivered through Fujitsu. 2012 to 2014.

Scale

$11.7M of ICT across a 49 hectare terminal at Port Botany and a 26 hectare terminal at the Port of Brisbane.

The problem

Two greenfield automated container terminals needed a single technology platform covering everything from fibre in the ground to the systems running automated stacking cranes, in an environment of salt, dust, heavy machinery and continuous operation.

The work

ICT delivery across both terminals: fibre in ground to harsh-environment cabinets, CCTV, wireless, and two-way radio converged into a Cisco unified communications platform, with a network monitoring and management platform over the top.

Delivered as a single point of accountability covering programme, project management, quality, safety and environment.

Outcome

New capacity increased 50 per cent at Port Botany and 100 per cent at the Port of Brisbane. The client's own headcount went from 30 to 150 within a year, against a forecast of 350.

We needed a reliable partner with deep knowledge across many disciplines. We needed the best expertise, the best of breed brought to the project and a willingness to work around flexible time-scales. A partner that would look after our interests and wouldn't give us any surprises. Innov8 was that partner.

Adrian Sandrin, General Manager Information Technology, Hutchison Ports Australia.

Named because it is already public. Fujitsu published this engagement as a case study, with on-record quotes from the client’s Chief Executive and its General Manager of Information Technology.

Connected venues, high density wireless at stadium scale

Metricon Stadium for Gold Coast SUNS FC, plus a north Queensland regional stadium. 2014 to 2016.

Scale

Queensland's first Wi-Fi enabled stadium. 25,000 seats, more than 10,000 concurrent users, over 300 access points, 15km of Cat 6A. The second venue modelled roughly 26,500 seats across six zones, and designed 384 access points against 20 access switches.

The problem

A stadium is the hardest wireless environment there is. Tens of thousands of devices arrive at once, in a bowl of concrete and steel, and the installation window is whatever gaps the playing season leaves you.

The work

Prime technical contractor for the first venue: RF survey, seat-by-seat capacity modelling, access point placement and mounting design per stand, cabling and pathway design, and installation across six months with up to 30 engineers working at heights of 40 metres.

For the second venue, full design covering under-seat, under-concrete, sign-back, concourse, plaza and 50 metre car park throws, with stand-level drawing sets and a costed bill of materials.

Outcome

The first venue was delivered without disrupting a single scheduled fixture. The design method carried into subsequent venue work, including two 2018 Commonwealth Games venues.

The team had exceptional knowledge, they completely understood the stakeholder objectives and really knew how to manage all third party providers.

Paul Pamenter, Chief Operating Officer, Gold Coast SUNS FC.

The second venue is not named.

Hospital estate readiness for a statewide clinical system

A major Australian public health service. 2023 to 2024.

Scale

Audit and design phase of approximately $3M within a clinical programme of roughly $100M. Five hospitals plus more than 20 community health sites.

The problem

The health service needed to deploy an integrated electronic medical record across its estate, and had no verified picture of whether the infrastructure could carry it.

The work

Led a three-layer audit methodology correlating asset database records, logical network management data and physical site capture. Active wireless surveys with heat maps against building floor plans. Communications room audits per site covering rack elevations, power, cooling, cabling and UPS. Firewall and network access control assessment across a mixed two-vendor environment.

Then future-state network designs to the state health standards, bills of material aligned to each procurement pathway, an implementation roadmap to 2032, and a risk management plan to the client’s own framework.

Scale indicators

The largest single site carried more than 150 communications rooms, over 1,500 access switches and more than 4,500 wireless access points.

Outcome

Full audit and design programme delivered across every site, enabling the clinical system deployment. The three-layer methodology was adopted by the prime contractor as the basis for subsequent health programme pursuits.

Innov8 builds

Finance Engine

An Innov8 build. 2026, in development.

Scale

An internal financial operating system for the practice, built on Azure Functions with roughly two dozen deployed functions, blob, table and queue storage, and Microsoft Graph and Xero integration.

The problem

Financial evidence arrives as bank exports, statements, receipts and spreadsheets, in different formats, at different times, from different places. Classifying it by hand is slow, and doing it inconsistently across years makes reconciliation impossible.

The work

An evidence intake pipeline that detects new files in SharePoint, archives the raw file to blob storage, records the ingest in a manifest, classifies the evidence type and dispatches it to the right parser, over a canonical transaction dataset.

A hierarchical classification taxonomy of 35 categories across 13 groups, applied through a merchant rule engine that proposes rules and requires human approval before any rule goes live. Routing logic decides how each transaction reaches the accounting system, then a reconciliation engine compares what was routed against what actually landed, month by month, and reports the variance.

Why it is here

It is the same architecture Innov8 recommends to clients, applied to Innov8: telemetry-led ingest, a canonical model, standards enforced by an engine rather than by discipline, and a human approval gate in front of anything that changes the record.

Outcome

In development. No financial figures are published, because the same system carries personal as well as company records.

Aggregate

Across the practice, engagement value exceeds $1.5 billion. The work spans healthcare, financial services, telecommunications, government, education, ports and logistics, major venues, public safety, higher education and retail, delivered direct to client and through prime contractors including Nexon, Fujitsu, Avantex and ASV Platforms.

These are programme and contract values, which is what the practice was engaged on. They are not Innov8 revenue.