The Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE) is the world's largest membership body for structural engineers, with over 30,000 members across the globe. Its professional examinations are a cornerstone of the organisation - and for years, running them was a significant operational challenge.
Every exam paper was physically collected, shipped to the UK, anonymised by hand, and distributed to examiners around the world. Papers went missing. Marking was inconsistent. The process was slow, expensive, and difficult to scale. The organisation was spending over £40,000 a year on shipping alone.
Beyond the cost, the manual system was creating pressure on the team responsible for managing it. Adjudicators were stretched. Processing times were long. And as IStructE's membership continued to grow, it was clear the existing approach would not hold.
The leadership team knew a digital solution was the answer. What they needed was a partner who could diagnose the problem clearly and build something that actually worked - without disrupting a process that thousands of members depended on.
"This was a landmark project for IStructE - affecting almost all of our members. Distinction understood that from the beginning and went to great lengths to ensure a smooth process. Until recently, we had been slow to make changes to our technology or digital offering. The success of this project has given key stakeholders the confidence and member backing to drive innovation in other areas of the Institution."
We started with a structured assessment. Two senior consultants spent time with the team at IStructE - mapping the existing examination process end to end, interviewing stakeholders across the organisation, and identifying exactly where the manual system was creating the most friction.
One finding stood out early: examiners were more open to change than the organisation had assumed. That shifted the conversation from 'how do we make this less disruptive' to 'how do we build something these professionals will actually prefer using.'
We designed and built a four-part digital examination platform, delivered over a focused 12-week sprint:
Candidate management - a system that allowed exam managers to assign candidates to examiners and track progress in real time, replacing a spreadsheet-based process that had no visibility once papers left the building.
Digital script viewer - a high-resolution PDF viewer built for examiners, with structured marking and feedback tools integrated directly into the interface. Examiners could mark scripts anywhere, without waiting for physical papers.
Adjudication workflow - a tool that automated the distribution and management of scripts, giving exam managers control over the process without manual intervention at every step.
Feedback compilation - a system that gathered examiners' marks and comments and delivered structured feedback directly to candidates, removing the manual consolidation work that had previously taken the team days to complete.
The platform was built to fit inside IStructE's existing infrastructure. There was no disruption to live examinations during development, and the cutover was planned carefully to ensure continuity throughout.
The impact was immediate. Shipping costs - previously over £40,000 a year - were eliminated entirely. Exam adjudication capacity increased by 300%, meaning the organisation could now handle significantly more exams without adding resource. The time required to mark exams dropped by more than 50%.
The operational shift was equally significant. The team managing the process went from coordinating a logistics operation to overseeing a digital workflow they could monitor in real time. Examiners could mark from anywhere. Results reached candidates faster. And the risk of papers going missing in transit no longer existed.
Perhaps most importantly, the project changed the organisation's attitude to digital investment. A process that had run on paper for decades was now running on a platform the team controlled - and the confidence that created opened the door to further improvements across the organisation.
