Executive Summary
BlueScope Buildings North America (BBNA), a leader in the engineering and IT software development sector, faced a common enterprise hurdle: as their codebase grew, their build times became a major bottleneck. By implementing Incredibuild, the team transitioned from four-hour overnight builds to just over one hour – a 70% reduction – enabling faster feedback loops and significantly higher developer productivity.
The Challenge: The Growing Pains of Enterprise Code
Prior to adopting Incredibuild, the IT Software Development team at BlueScope Buildings North America struggled with lengthy local and CI build times. These delays were particularly impactful for their full and overnight builds, which had stretched to over four hours.
As the codebase expanded, the recurring bottleneck began to slow down developer feedback loops and extend the duration of CI pipelines. The team initially considered hardware scaling, internal optimization, and DIY distributed build concepts. However, these options were either not cost-effective or introduced too much maintenance overhead without providing the enterprise-grade visibility needed for their hybrid work environment.
“Incredibuild helped us remove build time as a daily frustration. Developers can focus on delivering features instead of waiting on builds.”
The Solution: Distributed Power and Visibility
BlueScope Buildings North America chose Incredibuild for its ability to deliver immediate acceleration with minimal changes to their existing Windows and Visual Studio workflows.
Key features utilized:
- Distributed Build Acceleration: Leveraged idle CPU power across the on-prem and hybrid network to speed up compilations.
- Build Cache: Reduced redundant work by reusing previously computed build artifacts.
- Build Monitor: Provided the team with essential visibility into the build process to identify and eliminate further inefficiencies.
The solution was integrated directly into their CI pipelines, allowing them to optimize their existing on-prem infrastructure without a forced dependency on the cloud.
The Result: 4 Hours Down to 1
The impact of Incredibuild was immediate and measurable, particularly within their CI/CD pipeline.
- 70% Reduction in Build Time: Overnight CI builds that previously took over 4 hours now complete in just 1 hour and 11 minutes.
- Faster Iteration: Developers experienced noticeable reductions in local build times, allowing for more frequent feedback and fewer workflow interruptions.
- Maximized Infrastructure ROI: By utilizing existing on-prem resources more efficiently, the team reduced the pressure to purchase expensive high-end developer hardware.
- Cross-Team Benefits: The speed-up created a “ripple effect” across the organization – QA gained faster access to build artifacts.
About BlueScope Buildings North America
BlueScope Buildings North America is a business unit specializing in engineering and business-critical applications. Their IT Software Development team supports the infrastructure and applications that drive the company’s leading position in the North American building industry.
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