The Challenge
Your business’s construction projects are constantly being completed months or even over one year behind time. A construction manager, the person who is responsible for an entire team of project managers, is responsible for submitting monthly reports on the progress of each project in your portfolio, which includes an analysis of cash flow for the projected expenditure for each. However, each of these reports has been proven to be a poor predictor of when the project will actually be finished. Therefore, the finance department of your company informs you that they are not able to estimate the annual capital expenditures and do not know when fixed assets will go into service.
When you do some research on the issue, you realize that the problem stems from the lack of comprehensive planning and management software for project managers. Each project manager employs a particular method to manage their projects. Some use spreadsheets, while others use Microsoft Project, and some former contractors work their timetables in tense details using Oracle’s Primavera P6. With these various scheduling tools, as your manager says, it’s nearly impossible to monitor typical scheduling milestones for each of the major phases of a project (planning, designing, permitting, construction, and occupancy). This is exactly the most crucial thing for your company for accurate forecasting of capital expenditure.
There is no one integrated schedule system that is easily accessible to all who require it; every project is susceptible to interruptions in productivity and delayed timelines, and the consequences could be catastrophic. Not only are delays costly in money, but they could also end up destroying your organization’s image. Some risks include increased expenses, the potential loss of profits as well as financial rewards, a lack of data to forecast the need for cash flow, and the difficulty of coordination between subcontractors and vendors. To avoid these risks, you need an effective and reliable system that offers complete visibility in every aspect of each project, one that responds swiftly to any changes.
The Problem: Old School Tools Aren’t Up to the Task
Traditional construction scheduling tools don’t have the capability of showing the entire situation, resources, and activities of a project in real-time. A real-time view is what you want, particularly when there are variances in critical path activities and resources. Without this degree of transparency, it is much more difficult to ensure on-time and budget completion of milestones as well as the project in general.
For instance, even though spreadsheets are widely utilized to record project details, they’re not capable of managing complex schedules that involve multiple parties. While many contractors employ program management tools, they are tools that they use primarily for contractors and don’t always provide the top-level overview that owners require. Further complicating the situation can be the reality that each owner and contractor has their application and, often, the different applications don’t communicate with one another. In fact, both owners and contractors alike are aware of these limitations system. According to a survey carried out by e-Builder and Dodge Data & Analytics, the majority of the owners, as well as 51% of the contractors, believe there is significant or extremely high value in using a single data platform that all parties can access to collaborate and share data.
To enhance the visibility of schedules and control, consider systems specifically designed for the management of large-scale construction projects as well as for full transparency across all tasks. Only methods that integrate scheduling are able to provide this transparency. In multi-user environments, no single person is responsible for managing schedules or forecasts, and sharing the accountability and automating repetitive processes leads to more precise programs and projections. With integrated scheduling software, you can actively manage the entire life cycle of the project and gain a better ability to predict and control project milestones, resources, and allocation, as well as the status of your budget and flow of cash.
The Shakeup: Scheduling in the Age of a Pandemic
Controlling and visibility of schedules have acquired increased importance due to the pandemic. The pandemic has created a myriad of scheduling obstacles, like restrictions in the number of employees within a given space, as well as rapid and unexpected changes in the supply chain of even the most basic of materials. Without a comprehensive scheduler that is integrated and provides visibility of the entire project, as well as the ability to address and recover from these setbacks, it is likely to be a huge problem.
“All of the assumptions that went into project plans originally have changed because of the pandemic,” said Dr. Fred Plotnick, professor at Drexel University. He says that in order to resume construction and maintain it, owners and contractors must have the capacity to work together on a recovery plan. “You may need to find new sources and identify how to best use the supplies you get when they come in, because you may not be able to get enough to continue with the original plan, such as finishing one floor at a time.”
The transparency of the schedule will also assist owners in rethinking their plans due to market shifts that will last beyond the pandemic. “The advantage of taking a fresh look is that you gain the flexibility to delay certain construction activities until the market demand is clear, or you can repurpose the building to meet new needs,” Plotnick says. Plotnick.
It is important to remember that a pandemic isn’t the only factor that can cause delays or halts to the construction process. Being able to see the project’s resources and schedules and the ability to use technology to alter plans as required allow for a quicker and more efficient reaction to any event that impacts the project.
The Answer: An Integrated Scheduling Solution
A comprehensive scheduling system can address the needs of all parties in a construction project, with particular attention paid to the requirements and interests of construction managers and owners. If you are considering the possibility of integrating a scheduling system, take note of these important features:
A cloud-based multi-user design. Scheduling systems that run on the cloud are able to allow updates from many users at the same time. Clouds also support the sharing of data in a secure manner, reliable reporting, as well as the ease of updating and monitoring results against the summary milestones.
Tracking capabilities. The software should allow you to establish a baseline for your schedule and monitor and report on the performance, progress, and critical path deviations for each project milestone. Another thing to be looking for is the ability to link the global goals or milestones to relevant tasks in each schedule to ensure that reports on portfolios will show how each project is doing against the global milestones. This will give you an early warning when deadlines are at risk, which allows you to take action and tackle the issues that are out of reach. You can be a leader of real value by managing results at the level of milestones across several projects.
Schedules that connect to other systems, such as finances. When your project budget and schedule are attached and continuously updated, you will have accurate estimates of the cost-to-completion process and cash flow. The most important capabilities to be looking for in this type of linkage are:
- A system that permits you to allocate resources to any project in the form of a schedule and which gives you actual costs of resources instead of requiring you to estimate these costs using “rule-of-thumb” percentages
- Links from the resources and scheduled tasks are linked to lines in the budget of the project to provide precise cost tracking and forecasts, which include the total cost of the project at the time of
Owner-centric scheduling. Owners and contractors require distinct requirements regarding scheduling. Contractors need detailed details, and owners need the ability to see a summary. Search for software that can directly transfer data from other applications like Oracle’s Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project, allowing owners to control the important milestones that they require along with the team.
Templates. It is possible to gain value for your scheduling system if you design templates that can scale and standardize processes and data across many projects. Templates help ensure uniformity in reporting milestones, reports, and employee performance and provide project managers with an excellent starting point.
Project scheduling in builder Trimble’s project management software, along with capital programs management software designed for owners.
Better Scheduling for Project Success
Successful construction projects require a constant eye on what’s happening and the things that matter, including the sources and activities that could expose the project to risk or lead to problems, added expenses, and delays. Owners are leaders throughout the life of a construction project if they are able to monitor the progress and budgets while making sure that they minimize risk and allocate the budget where it’s most needed.
A unified scheduling system provides owners the ability to take an active role in the management of the entire construction process. e-Builder Enterprise provides you with real-time, complete time visibility that today’s complicated construction projects require. In e-Builder Enterprise, you get:
- A user-friendly scheduling tool that has drag-and-drop functionality to determine the duration of tasks as well as dependencies
- Views that can be configured for various tasks that are assigned to different resources in several projects, including live schedule updates in an arrangement that is understandable for both you and your organization.
- Out-of-the-box reports that include cash flow and schedule data and the capability to create the reports you want to use on your schedule.
- The ability to pinpoint critical path tasks as well as drill to the specifics of any job
- Support for rollup tasks as well as summaries of functions to make it easier to monitor all global goals across the portfolio
- Real-time, accurate monitoring and forecasts on all projects in order to keep surprises out of the equation
- Dashboards on demand that give real information about the project’s performance
- Automated workflows and processes that ensure consistency,ow quicker approvals and communications, and keep change orders to an absolute minimum
- It is important to identify problems early and concerns before their impact is a threat to the overall project.