Project handovers pose a major risk for large-scale infrastructure projects. If documentation is not properly catalogued to be usable by the receiving party then this can result in information loss, additional work to recover the knowledge and knock-on delays and costs to the programme.
This challenge becomes even more acute in highly regulated sectors like nuclear energy, where data integrity and traceability are paramount, and where the volume of historical documentation can span hundreds of thousands to millions of files accumulated over multi-year design phases. In these environments, hosting legacy data to modern information management standards is not just essential for operational efficiency, but critical for risk management, regulatory compliance, and ensuring that decades of operational knowledge can be safely and effectively applied to complex decommissioning decisions well into the future.
The challenge
A Tier 1 engineering consultancy was contracted to support a major nuclear decommissioning project with migrating a design dataset of 250,000 documents into a common data environment (CDE). The design contract was due to be re-tendered, and the client needed to ensure an accurate record of the partially completed design. The legacy documentation varied significantly in format, quality, and metadata completeness, creating substantial challenges for standardisation and migration.
The project was already underway using a traditional approach: an offshore team of ten specialists working manually to process, classify, and standardise the documentation. However, the scale and complexity of the task meant work was likely to take many months, constrained by the staff headcount. Additionally, several valuable data enhancement requirements had been descoped from the original project due to the prohibitive manual effort required, including extracting latest revision information, author details, and other critical metadata.
Hoppa's solution
Hoppa was brought into the project mid-flight as a data processor to accelerate the migration process using our automated classification and data extraction capabilities. Our approach combined advanced natural language processing with domain-specific knowledge to rapidly process and standardise the documentation while maintaining the rigorous quality standards required for nuclear decommissioning work.
Working alongside the Tier 1 consultancy, Hoppa deployed our automated systems to classify documents, extract metadata, and prepare files for ISO 19650 compliance. Our solution was designed to handle the diverse range of document types, formats, and quality levels present in the historic dataset, from technical drawings and specifications to correspondence and regulatory submissions.
Deployment and performance
Hoppa's approach delivered transformational results, processing documentation 100 times faster (on average per document) than the manual offshore team. The automated approach also enabled the client to reinstate previously descoped requirements without budget impact. Tasks such as extracting latest revision information, author details, and comprehensive metadata – which had become cost-prohibitive for manual processing – could be delivered at minimal additional cost.
During deployment, it was discovered that a significant portion of the customer's information was held in Autodesk Inventor format. Hoppa rapidly developed and deployed support for this format to re-establish model-part lineage, demonstrating the agility and adaptability of our automated processing capabilities compared to traditional manual approaches.
Quality assurance and accuracy
Recognising the critical importance of data quality in nuclear decommissioning work, Hoppa implemented a comprehensive QA/QC service to ensure AI accuracy met project requirements.
Performance varied with the quality of the source material. Where documents contained sufficient classifiable information, Hoppa achieved 97% accuracy out of the box; where information was incomplete or unclear, accuracy dropped to as low as 75% on some work packages. This is where Hoppa's certainty scoring and explanations came into their own: each result carries a confidence score and the reasoning behind it, so a human reviewer can go straight to the cases where the model struggled, understand why, correct them - and feed those corrections back so the model doesn't make the same mistake twice. Working this way brought all outputs up to the required accuracy regardless of source document quality, with accuracy improving as the project progressed.
Transparent reporting and benchmarking
Hoppa provided detailed performance reports outlining exactly how results were achieved, including transparent benchmarking of model performance across different work packages and information types. This reporting approach gave the client and their nuclear decommissioning stakeholders confidence in the process and clear visibility into Hoppa’s approach.
The detailed performance analytics also enabled continuous improvement throughout the project, allowing Hoppa to refine processing approaches for specific document types and work packages where initial accuracy was lower.
Project impact
The speed of categorisation had a direct bearing on programme. With the design contract due for re-tender, the time taken to establish an accurate record of the partially completed design sat squarely on the critical path - compressing it meant the client could move to market sooner, with a reliable baseline for bidders to price against.
The work also strengthened the long-term information picture. Because processing was automated, far more detailed metadata could be captured per document than manual effort would ever have justified - revision history, authorship, and other attributes that increase the fidelity of the record. For a nuclear decommissioning programme spanning decades, that assurance is critical: the documents entering the CDE are not just filed, but described well enough to be found, trusted, and used long after the original teams have moved on.
Looking ahead
Large-scale data migration and standardisation projects are increasingly common as organisations modernise their information management systems. Hoppa's automated approach, combined with domain expertise and transparent quality assurance, offers a proven pathway to accelerate these critical projects while maintaining the accuracy and compliance standards required in highly regulated environments.
If your organisation is facing similar challenges with legacy data migration, standardisation, or compliance requirements, Hoppa can help you achieve faster, more cost-effective results while maintaining the quality and traceability your projects demand.
Feeling inspired?
See Hoppa in action and learn how it can make the difference to your workflows.
