JDB Insight Archives - JDB Engineering, Inc.

Oct 11 2018

Centralizing Construction Project Information

There is much discussion regarding waste and inefficiency in the construction of a building, yet most A/E/C firms struggle to find the same level of efficiency improvements realized in the manufacturing sector over the past two decades.

I believe a major challenge holding the industry back is the ever-changing roster of contributors to a construction project. You have many contractors through the lifecycle of the project. Names change, companies change, and we each operate through our preferred channels of communication. This inconsistency complicates the ability to achieve cohesion as a team. Imagine if we could each agree on #Slack —all of our problems would be solved!

Across all these players, there are also differing levels of communication skills, technological skills, and attention to detail. Gaining alignment on one platform is a challenging proposition within a single company, much less dozens of companies loosely coupled by AIA contracts.

Who owns the communication across a construction project?

It is not the owner/client of the project. They are working on leveraging the new facility to increase and improve productivity of their company or institution.

It is not the designer(s) of the project, either. They inform the plan for building or renovating the property.

Client owners often retain a Construction Manager (CM) to manage all the facets of a construction project, including the communication between skilled professionals to coordinate the orchestrated effort of executing a design. (Note that I’m referring to Construction Manager as a project role, not a specific project delivery approach.) The range of contributors include architects, engineers, project managers, skilled labor, contractors, construction managers, accounting staff members, owner staff members, regulatory officials, haulers, security guards, and on and on.

There is a critical need to centralize all communication and access to information to enable all contributors to be able to make informed decisions with regard to their responsibilities for completing a construction project.

It is within these thousands of collaborations and communications where waste and inefficiency can be found and eradicated.

Successful Construction Management teams have established processes and platforms to improve the collaboration of all contributing members.

The CM who owns the platform must recognize the need for user participation, provide ample support to compel internal and external users to participate, and facilitate the hell out of it. Perhaps the ‘C’ in CM should be communication.

I recently partnered with a client to implement the BIM 360 Docs platform from Autodesk. This firm specializes in Design-Build projects and is tightly partnered with a specific Architectural and MEP Engineering firm. Their decision to invest in the Autodesk platform stems from the extensive use of Autodesk products by the two partner design firms.

This post is in no way a strict endorsement of Autodesk, as there are many software providers offering a solution to centralize project information and communications. Others have found success using integrated, best-of-breed solutions across multiple products. The process of software selection requires an analysis of what the problems the CM is trying to solve, technical capabilities of staff and, of course, budget. Please reach out if you would like to discuss these considerations specific to your applications.

My goal with this post is to provide high-level considerations for implementing BIM 360 for construction management projects.

The First 90 Days of BIM 360

Below I share my experience implementing Autodesk BIM 360 for the first 90 days of software use.

Initially, we outlined the three simple aspects of communication to be addressed to get started on the platform. Here are the goals we established for the first 90 days:

Prepare Daily Update Reports
Create Checklist Templates in Platform
Develop Tasks for Execution of Checklists

Our first step was to identify the scope of contributors to be introduced to the platform. Unless you are a startup, your company has existing platforms and processes that need to be adapted to or replaced by the Autodesk BIM 360 platform – or any other platform you choose.

You should also start by determining who the company intends to engage directly on the platform. Most firms have already adopted an online shared storage solution for exchanging project documents that are either too big or too important to be shared through email attachments. Additionally, the status of an email request is impossible to gauge without a phone call or another email. Requirements typically include the ability to synchronize, secure, and share access to project information. Examples of these include cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Box.com, Microsoft OneDrive or ShareFile, to name just a few.

Managing User Provisioning

When considering Autodesk BIM 360, the CM must determine the level of interaction expected from external contributors. This is important to understand the license volume you will need to maintain to support a project throughout its lifecycle.

Determine which specific processes you plan to implement on the newly-acquired platform, based upon priority order.

Email has been a core tool for communicating with project partners since the end of the last century. What role will email play in your project? Can you rely on it? At the start of the implementation phase, identify the biggest challenges you are attempting to resolve with the platform decision.

You can limit the initial implementation to internal staff only. This is not ideal for the long term but allows your organization to develop platform best practices before opening it up to the entire project team. Other components of a successful implementation include:

Training of staff
Training of external users
Acquisition of peripheral devices to facilitate engagement with the platform
Provision of technology support for design and configuration

Pre-Purchase Decisions

Which components do you need to get the most from the solution? Autodesk is in a state of transition between their legacy applications and a shiny, new integrated cloud platform designed to bridge design activities with construction and facilities management. The new platform also promises an open architecture to allow for integration with other software solutions through the use of Application Programming Interfaces (API).

Our implementation needs on this project required the use of the feature-rich Autodesk BIM Field service, a tried and true legacy application for managing construction activities on the project site. The newer BIM 360 Docs platform has a comparable BIM 360 Build service; however, not all of the BIM Field features had been released at time of our implementation. (Summer 2018)

Navigating the legacy and new platform does create a somewhat disconnected experience between BIM 360 Docs (new) and BIM Field (legacy), but Autodesk has made it manageable. You must thoroughly assess the features of the new and legacy services you are considering within the Autodesk BIM ecosystem to better inform your initial implementation choices.

How Many Seats are Required to Use the BIM 360 Solution?

Adopting the platform as marketed would require a basic BIM 360 Docs seat for anyone who engages the project. A phased approach to implementation could allow an initial savings on base BIM 360 Docs seats until you are ready to incorporate all processes into the platform. This will be dictated by the priority of those issues you are attempting to address with the solution. Employing specific software services, like BIM 360 Design or BIM 360 Build, in support of design or construction, requires a specific service seat enabled by a BIM 360 Docs seat. A base BIM 360 Docs seat accompanies the purchase of an advanced service seat. For example, the purchase of a BIM 360 Build seat will include a BIM 360 Docs seat. Of note, a BIM 360 Build purchase currently includes a seat of the legacy BIM Field for use under the same license. If you intend to use BIM Field, be sure to let your reseller know prior to purchase.

Get Familiar with the Platform

So, you have invested in Autodesk BIM 360, taken the time to familiarize yourself with the platform, and learned about the interaction between services. This may seem like an obvious approach, but is rarely the way most people embark with a new software program. We have all engaged enough software interfaces in our lives to think we can “just figure it out.” This is a big mistake: RTFM! Read the Manual.

I strongly recommend that you purchase training hours from your Autodesk reseller or a qualified training consultant. You will need to maintain dedicated staff to set up and support the platform. If your budget does not allow for the extra cost of training, Autodesk has developed an extensive knowledge base, including helpful training videos. Allocate time to review the basics of the platform in your implementation project plan.

Set Up the BIM 360 Environment

Invite Your Team Members

This requires an Autodesk login to be set up based on an email address. The Autodesk user is free to create, but allowing a user to connect to the BIM 360 Docs project will require a seat license per Autodesk BIM 360 Docs pricing. The owner of the BIM 360 project will typically pay for the license to be used for the project; in the case of our project it was the Construction Management company.

Add Your Contracting Companies to the Platform

A best practice is to identify and configure the known contracting companies you regularly partner with, so they can be easily added to a project. This is a good, quick step to start realizing the value of a centralized platform – when you simply assign a contractor to a task from a dropdown list, and all their contact information is readily available. Feel the power.

Add your Contracting Company Contacts to the Platform

This step is required if you bought extra BIM 360 Docs seats to allow external partners to engage the platform for activities like document libraries or submitting RFIs to the RFI flow. We did not set up this level of granularity for our launch, as contact with specific individuals in subcontracting organizations was still done from the project manager’s Rolodex.

Set Up a Project Template

The first project you create should be a template project. This template can then be copied to accelerate the creation of future projects. All enhancements should be done in the template project so there will be no confusion as to where the latest and greatest structures for new projects are located.

Convert or Develop your Quality Checklists to BIM Field Checklist Templates

Quality checklists are developed to direct a thorough assessment of the work being conducted by contractors and provide a complete list of items to be verified before the work unit can be signed off as complete. Considering all the disciplines within a construction project, you may have dozens of checklists prepared for your projects. If these checklists are maintained in electronic format, there are methods to convert the documents to a character separated variable (csv) file format for import into the BIM 360 platform.

BIM 360 Field guides the inspector through checklist questions and can automatically generate issue cases based on the response to the question. Executing checklists on a tablet enables users to attach pictures of the completed work to support the details of issue to improve resolution. Once the issue is identified and synced to the database, the appropriate members of project team can get to work on resolving the issue and completing the work.

Setting Up a Project

Here are the steps to set up a project:

Copy the template project
Rename project with client/project specific details
Assign appropriate internal team members to the project
Assign a BIM Field license to users working directly with the project site
Assign applicable contractors to the project (if you are including external access to the site)
Define locations for the different areas of work on the project
Translate the project schedule milestones to tasks in BIM 360 Field Daily Update Reports

Admittedly, we had a very quick win for our initial project because it only required getting team members enrolled on the platform and then showing them how to navigate to the Daily Update tools in the interface.

Our starting point was to leverage Daily Activity Reports and the execution of Checklists within the application. This meant maintaining our existing File Transfer Protocol (FTP) solution before moving all project information to the BIM 360 library.

The goal was to simplify the creation and logging of Daily Activity Reports to be easily leveraged for monthly reporting back to the owner. Features as simple as populating weather conditions for the location when the report was started alleviates this trivial data entry and improves the accuracy of data.

In the labor component of the report, contractors onsite are selected from a dropdown selection, number of workers onsite and hours can be easily captured with a comment and uploaded to the database.

We were directed to only concentrate on construction activities after the bidding phase of the project was completed for implementation.

Create Checklist Templates in Platform

The important distinction regarding checklists in BIM 360 Field is the difference between creation of checklist templates for reuse and instances of a checklist to be executed. The creation of checklist templates mentioned in this step describes a transfer of existing checklist questions and procedures being converted into BIM 360 Field checklist templates. Instances of these checklist templates are created for each unit of work in the project to be executed when the unit of work is complete.

For our project, we were able to convert questions from Microsoft Word documents to an Excel Spreadsheet, code the expected response field in a specific format, and upload to BIM 360 Field. If you do not have a library of documented checklists available, I recommend mapping out the review process of each work discipline on your projects outside of technology, like a whiteboard or piece of paper. Determine the critical inspection points to satisfy signoff on the work with a subject matter expert. Do not try to create the checklist content in BIM 360 Field, as it will stifle your creativity.

Tasks for Execution of Checklists

Take the project schedule and create a task for each project milestone. For our project, tasks were set up for a contracted unit of work to be completed and inspected for signoff. Tasks to execute checklists were typically scheduled for the day the work was to be completed and assigned to the construction manager on site. The BIM Field service provides daily, weekly and monthly calendar view of tasks to give the construction manager a visual view of work to be done on the job. Here is a weekly view of a sample project:

Benefits of the Initial Implementation

Capture of contextual photos for work completion or issues
Use of tablets to execute checklists in the field
Upload status to the platform for immediate visibility of status by the entire project team (based on permission and licensing)
Project status visibility of quality signoff for tasks and resolution of issues
Auditability of who inspected and signed off on work
Reporting capabilities in the platform to easily compile monthly project status reports

Conclusion

This was a successful implementation with some quick wins for the client but has quickly become the new norm. As contributors experience the efficiency of centralizing the construction project information and status, creativity abounds. This is just an initial implementation and continual advancement is needed to truly realize the complete value of the platform.

I recommend a methodical approach to addressing your construction management challenges in priority order. Leadership must champion this implementation by mandating use by internal team members and compelling partners to participate in earnest. While this may be a “technology” project, two-thirds of every technology project is getting the people and the process right.

When determining the scope of any technology project, it is always best to walk before you run, or you may end up in the wrong place!

Connect with Tom

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomtraina/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tdtraina

Jan 11 2018

A/E/C Technology Disruption? You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet!

by Scott D. Butcher, FSMPS, CPSM

I recently co-presented about industry megatrends to an audience of architects. We talked about the utter lack of productivity increases in the construction industry over the past several decades. We looked at a chart that demonstrated how, in the 1960s, manufacturing and construction productivity were at similar levels. However, since that point, manufacturing productivity has doubled while construction productivity has slightly declined. And then my co-presenter, William R. Long, PE, LEED AP, FSMPS of P. Agnes Construction in Philadelphia said, “When I got into this industry three decades ago, we used to budget 40 hours for a drawing. Does anyone still use hours-per-drawing to develop project budgets?”

Quite a few people raised their hands.

He next asked, “Okay, so what’s the going rate these days?”

To a tee, everyone with raised hands said “Forty hours.”

Bill shared that he had just led a project management training program for several dozen architects and engineers, and they all reported “forty hours,” too!

Think about that. We’ve gone from hand drafting to AutoCAD to Revit. We’ve taken Building Information Modeling beyond 3D and added elements of schedule (4D) and cost (5D). We’ve evolved from hand-kept ledgers to Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel to robust cloud-based project resource planning software that everyone can access on their tiny portable computers, better known as smartphones.

We have advanced 3D laser scanners to accurately capture building interiors and sites.

We’ve been taught lean methodologies for design and construction, and utilized modular construction and prefabrication.

And yet construction productivity has slipped over the past 40 years – and designers are still budgeting 40 hours per drawing.

By the way, what’s a drawing? Don’t we create building models these days?

“The reality is that technology has enabled exponentially more options for accomplishing our goals today,” says Tom Traina, MBA, SCM, JDB Engineering’s business technology strategist and champion of JDB Insight. “The product and supply chain options available make our decisions more complicated than ever. These sophisticated models have increased the amount of information we have for making the best, most effective decision. So could it be that it takes the same 40 hours to make well-informed decisions?”

The sad fact that many A/E/C firms are facing is that profit margins are still extremely tight. It’s still a buyer’s market out there. Sure, some geographic regions are better than others. This applies to project types, too. But in general, we have limited ability to build robust profits into our projects because the market is so competitive. So if we can’t raise our fees – or if we refuse to raise our fees – then how can we possibly become more profitable?

By becoming more productive.

And while it is critical that we embrace the technologies that are currently available – and that many of us already have at our firms – the reality is that massive disruption is coming to the design offices and job sites. And this change is in the form of technology.

Take, for instance, some of the things that are happening right now:

Site, bridge, and façade surveys are being conducted by drones
3D scanning is developing point clouds that create accurate building models
Autonomous construction vehicles are being produced in greater numbers – dump trucks, front-loaders, etc.
Wearable technology is entering the job site via smart watches and hardhats with computer screens built into their visors
Augmented reality and virtual reality are providing more information about what will be – or what is, but hidden from sight – than ever before

Yet design and construction technology is merely in its early stages of evolution.

Have you heard about Autodesk’s Project Quantum yet? Revit is getting pretty old – it was created in 2000. So what’s next? Project Quantum is not a replacement to Revit, but it will change the way Revit is used – and perhaps lead to a replacement. So much of the data in a construction project is siloed. Imagine if architects, structural engineers, MEP engineers, contractors, and fabricators all pulled from a single source of data. That was cloud-based. And represented the “one truth.” How would that change the way projects are designed and constructed? How could that enhance productivity?

Tom Traina points out that too many people in our industry look at BIM the wrong way: “Most of us refer to BIM as Building Information Modeling, but we get the ‘M’ wrong. It really stands for ‘Management.’ And Building Information Management is a philosophy, not a technology. Appropriate technology is used to improve efficiency and accuracy of project status when applied to sound processes.”

Autodesk isn’t stopping there, however. They are looking at automation and even artificial intelligence. They are working toward “generative design,” which is a human-computer collaboration. Humans enter the desired goal and key project components into the software, which then comes up with thousands of options. Data is qualified, the best options are evaluated, and then new variables are added to refine the designs. Yes, we’ll still need professional architects and engineers, but the machines will be doing much of the heavy lifting.

This would certainly create opportunities for productivity enhancements and higher profits.

But does the real opportunity come from actually being the disruptor? Tom Traina believes so: “The opportunity still lies in the execution of the designs, the construction. How can these technologies contribute to the construction of the project? The best design is only as good as its execution or construction. Centralizing the information is a great start, and the disruptive technologies allows users to reference and retrieve the information important to them on their own terms. No one controls how they will use the information provided to them. The firms that figure this out become the new winners – and when you displace the incumbent, you become the disruptor. These technologies allow disruptors to cut corners for efficiency and deliver on the job to be done. Uber simply leveraged a medium that both providers and customers already possessed, connected the service with the need using this medium, and got paid for making the connection. In the process they avoided the overhead costs associated with buying, licensing, insuring and maintaining a vehicle fleet and hiring drivers to seek out sales. The corner they cut was eliminating the chance of a taxi-for-hire intersecting a customer in need of a ride. What a waste!”

Building Internet of Things

At the same time, the A/E/C industry is talking about BIoT, or the Building Internet of Things. Energy systems, lighting, security systems, parking, watering, etc. – these are all functions of a building and site that are being incorporated into the Building Internet of Things. How will this new technology improve the quality of buildings and work environments for occupants? How will A/E/C firms integrate their services with these advancements in technology?

“By providing more information to make better decisions,” believes Tom Traina. “The actual consumption of utilities is traditionally a blind spot for managers. The gallons of water used divided by hours of operation is a macro view. BIoT cuts a corner to provide a micro view to identify exactly which tasks and machinery consume the most water. People are the disruptors, but the technology enables it.”

Beyond the A/E/C Industry

There’s a whole world beyond the A/E/C industry – albeit a world that will greatly impact what our firms do in the future. Some futurists predict that the next car you purchase will be your last. Of course, some members of the Millennial generation aren’t even interested in getting a driver’s license to begin with, much less owning a vehicle. They have Uber and Lyft to get around – and in the future, these fleets will be autonomous. When families downsize from two cars to one car, and then to no cars, what will they do with more disposal income, not being tied to car payments? How will they reclaim their garages? Will there even be a need for driveways?

And what will become of all the parking garages in urban environments around the world? Today, parking garage designers are planning future uses into their designs. But the vast majority of existing parking garages don’t have much of a future. They will be demolished. How will cities reclaim these spaces? More new buildings – or spacious urban parks?

And speaking of urban parks, have you seen the EDG Loop in New York City? This concept utilizes projections for driverless vehicles creating far fewer vehicles clogging the roads, allowing some streets and highways to be for autonomous vehicles only – and other roads with dedicated lanes for these vehicles. The EDG Loop predicts much faster commutes around Manhattan – and envisions Broadway and Park Avenue becoming totally vehicle free, allowing for creation of new linear parks, ample greenspace, and no car-human interaction in these areas.

Of course, even the idea of driverless cars is perhaps shooting too “low.” NASA and Uber are collaborating to create flying autonomous taxis. And in Dubai, they’re already testing 2-passenger autonomous drones that hop from rooftop to rooftop. How will this change the fabric of urban environments? To catch a taxi or order an Uber in the future, will you have to go to a roof? How will buildings be repurposed?

Likewise, how will highway systems change in the future? Will there be opportunities to reclaim highways and streets around the world – either for new development or for green space? Will human-driven cars become illegal?

Tom Traina notes that “These extreme examples of change also increase the level of risk the customer will have to take. A successful disruption introduces a level of risk compensatory with the value of the solution. I am not necessarily willing to risk a take-off and a landing for 3-block ride, but what if it is too rainy to walk? So how much of this is attempting to force-fit nifty technology breakthroughs into a potential business windfall?”

We’re just scratching the surface with technology disruption. (Some futurists believe that we’ll have cyborgs by 2045.) However, these examples have a direct relationship to the built environment – either designing it, constructing it, or impacting it.

These current and forthcoming technologies will totally change our business models – and hopefully make our industry more productive and more profitable. Of course, we all need to be part of this solution, part of this future, lest we become obsolete. If future artificial intelligence will handle much of the design work, and robots and autonomous vehicles much of the construction, what is the role for humans?

“The role of humans,” says Tom Traina, “is to elevate their thinking to disrupt the traditional ways of doing things. Artificial intelligence will be used to work through permutations of a problem that humans have been able to do, but not as fast or accurately. It is not much different than a middle school student moving from learning times tables to using a calculator. Once armed with a calculator, you are now ready to tackle more complicated problems using complex formulas.”

So where do you think we are on the disruption curve in the A/E/C industry? Are we still at the times tables, or are we closer to the scientific calculator? What technologies do you think will have the greatest potential to add immediate value to the A/E/C in the near future? Which ones will be the most disruptive?

Concerned about disruption at your firm? Contact JDB Insight’s Tom Traina at 717.434.1581 or email him to discuss the challenges you are facing.

Connect with Tom

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomtraina/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tdtraina

Connect with Scott

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottdbutcher
Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottdbutcher

Nov 08 2017

JDB Engineering Announces Specialty Services

At JDB Engineering, innovation is at the core of who we are and what we do. We’ve continued to innovate our business model, and are pleased to share with you four specialty service lines.

The first two are not new – we’ve been providing these services for many years. However, to better meet client demand, we’re elevating these service lines within our organization:

JDB Industry provides process and industrial engineering solutions, controls, and automation. JDB has worked with many Fortune 500 manufacturing and food processing firms, plus many well-known private companies, offering myriad engineering and process-related services.

Check out our blog post “Explosion Protection for Dust Collectors” to get a taste for the type of projects in which JDB Industry specializes.

JDB Illumination is focused on architectural, industrial, and specialty lighting and controls. From mixed-use to manufacturing, higher education to health care, our talented in-house team of lighting design specialists have a deep background of designing, specifying, and installing specialty lighting.

“Understanding Correlated Color Temperature” is the first post in a series of JDB Illumination blogs to help you better understanding lighting.

New Services

Beyond elevating these services, JDB Engineering is pleased to announce the addition of two specialty service groups to diversify our offerings and respond to the pace of disruption in our industry:

JDB Insight provides IT strategy, integration, evaluation, and information management to help our clients collect data and translate it to meaningful information for decision-making.

Our first blog post out of the gate is “Walk Before You Run: Defining Project Scope.” Whether planning a design and construction project or a technology-related project, properly defining the scope on the front-end will save myriad hassles on the back-end.

jdbIQity expands upon our staff’s unique talents, offering training, marketing and business development consulting, and facilitation, integrating business intelligence into our portfolio of services. This is a natural extension of our education-based approach to the marketplace.

“Those that Lead, Speak. And Write.” is our latest jdbIQity post, and is a call-to-action for business leaders to enhance their personal brands as thought leaders, which in turn will help elevate the brands of their companies.

Core MEP Engineering

Even with these new offerings, JDB Engineering is still first and foremost a mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) engineering firm. Call us consulting engineers, facility engineers, or architectural engineers. All apply, and all are at the heart of what we do.

So when you’re finished reading the posts from our specialty services, surf over to “Bigger Isn’t Always Better – Why Oversizing Packaged DX HVAC Equipment Isn’t Good,” or read the current most popular blog on our website, “When do Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) Systems Make Sense?”

Be sure to visit our blog regularly, and follow us on social media, to read new content when it is released.

Questions? Reach out to Timothy A. Warren, PE, LEED AP, JDB Engineering’s president, or Scott D. Butcher, FSMPS, CPSM, vice president and CMO to learn more.

Nov 01 2017

Walk Before You Run: Defining Project Scope

by Tom Traina, MBA, CSM

Walk Before You Run

Whether designing a building or developing an IT infrastructure, a tempered approach to defining the project goals allows for a consistent vision to be realized by all parties involved in the execution. Getting a project completed for the sake of crossing it off a “to-do” list is not nearly as important as delivering an end-product that will move an organization forward.

A project is defined by a specific objective and constrained by both budgetary limits is well as pesky things like start and end dates. The overall project objective represents an entire ecosystem involving a complex pattern of projects required to realize the final vision. Determining the balance of such an endeavor requires a close examination of the job to be done, then selecting the appropriate expertise to make it happen.

When faced with a decision (or project objective) outside a firm’s core competencies, an owner typically reaches out to a professional organization to establish the framework to build upon the vision. As this comes into focus, the true requirements for a project begin to surface.

A Simple Case Study

I recently met with an established construction management firm that is interested in improving the delivery of project status updates to their clients. As an initial step, I reviewed examples of existing project binders used to present weekly printed reports to communicate the status to the project owners – a fairly typical approach for CM firms. These status updates were complemented with daily email and phone calls explaining progress and changes throughout the week, although there was no centralized knowledge base of all the communications taking place.

Based upon the original defined object, I also reviewed the data points used in the status reports and prepared some questions to drive the conversation at the project start-up meeting.

However, when I arrived at the meeting, the client presented me with two printed brochures for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system packages offering simple, complete solutions for collaboration, productivity, and portfolio management.

The fact that the client wanted me to look into these solutions immediately suggested that they were wanting more than a project to simply improve status delivery, but rather a solution that created the potential to abandon all the systems currently in place to go with a “silver bullet” solution! Alas, “silver bullet solutions” are as about as real as werewolves – all solutions require compromises to be made!

Talk about scope creep!

Yes, making all of your problems evaporate with the promise of a modern system is an attractive proposition, but these types of implementations often fail to surpass the effectiveness of the previous system(s) while also wreaking havoc on operations during the transition period! Development of any new system requires the dedication of the leadership group to redefine business rules and processes to ensure project success. Although this is not an impossible undertaking, this type of overhaul requires the alignment of the entire organization to attempt to repeat the success of what carried the business to this point. An undertaking of this magnitude requires a series of projects to develop the programs that constitute an ERP system. (The good news is that you will always find someone willing to take on this challenge – especially a software seller eager for an opportunity to sell perpetual licenses or annual subscriptions!)

It wasn’t hard to determine that the CM firm faced challenges with project management and wanted those challenges to go away as quickly as possible. While the well-crafted ERP brochures created an attractive vision, we were not anywhere near being prepared with the requirements or resources to launch a business overhaul project, particularly when considering the original project budget and schedule! My initial goal, the low-hanging fruit, was to review the current processes for status reporting, identify what was working and what was missing, and determine the current sources of information feeding the status updates. No matter which programs and systems a successful firm has in place, it is important to honor the legacy and recognize the entire operation as an evolving system. The fact that this firm was operating with printed reports actually provided an opportunity for an immediate, incremental improvement for their clients while allowing time to discover the requirements for the system to evolve.

It was critical to improve the flow of information to promote timely data-driven decision making on projects. However, fueling data-driven decision making for businesses is an incremental process (again, no silver bullets here!). Valuable data exists today in operations at all firms, but is often concealed. It needs to be harnessed and organized before it can be put to work to add value to an organization.

There are always better tools to access and organize data, but is this really the best use of resources and energy required to solve today’s problems? We all need dependable transportation to get us safely to work each day. The reasons for wanting a Mercedes AMG, however, greatly exceed the requirements for dependable transportation! A consulting partner can bring immediate value by innovating and bringing expertise to complement the knowledge you have of your specific operations and business.

As for the status update project, we determined that the next step is to centralize project status content in an existing online environment to enable web access to daily reports for customers. The clients can then retrieve status information when it is convenient for them. This approach allows the CM firm to build upon its original project vision and bring immediate value to their clients. And while the ultimate project vision may be an integrated ERP system, that was beyond the original defined objective, and will take a series of smaller projects to make the overall goal a reality.

When determining a project’s scope, it is always best to walk before you run, or you may end up in the wrong place!

To learn about how JDB Insight can help with your next data-driven project, surf here. For questions about this post, contact Tom Traina.

The First 90 Days of BIM 360

Set Up the BIM 360 Environment

Connect with Tom

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Building Internet of Things

Beyond the A/E/C Industry

Connect with Tom

Connect with Scott

New Services

Core MEP Engineering