Why Every Single Contractor Must Have His Own Project Management Information System?

Contractors are always faced with the dilemma on how to make use and take advantage of their projects’ big data as they are always required to use the project management information system (PMIS) or document management system (EDMS) imposed by the project owner which would usually vary from one project to another. The data and documents captured in those systems will be always owned by the project owner and not by the contractor. Actually, the project owner can block the contractor from accessing the project’s data should the contractor gets terminated or when the project is handed over.

The Project Execution Plan

The common practice that for every construction project there will be a project execution plan that will detail the different form templates to be used in managing the project processes. This project execution plan (PEP) is either developed by the project owner or his authorized representative. The (PEP) manual will also include sample of the logs that need to be maintained for each process during the project duration. In addition, the manual will include the responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) and the workflows to be adopted in submitting, reviewing and approving those processes. This manual will provide the guideline for managing all formal communications between the different project entities that has a contractual agreement with the project owner. The project execution plan will not cover any project management processes or communications between the contractor and his subcontractors, suppliers, internal communications or any other informal communications.

In addition, the project owner will usually specify the PMIS or EDMS to be used by all project’s entities for formal communications and storage of project documents. Those could include systems such as Aconex, Viewpoint, Wrench, Unifier, PMWeb among others. Access to those systems will be usually managed by the project owner or his authorized representative. The project owner has the ultimate decision on what access to be given or data to be shared with the different project entities during the project’s duration. The project owner also has the ultimate decision to block or remove any project entity from those systems when the contractual relationship with those project entities end or get terminated.

Why Every Single Contractor Must Have His Own Project Management Information System?

In addition to the fact that the contractor has also the requirement to manage his own internal project management processes with his subcontractors, suppliers and own team, the contractor needs also to ensure that the big data generated from the different formal project communications and documents captured in the project owner’s PMIS and EDMS is also available for him. In addition, the contractor might have his own project management processes during the project delivery where he does not want the project owner to have access to. For example, the event occurrence report is a very important form that allows the contractor to capture the particulars that could lead to a project change. One of the 39 occurrence event templates that a contractor can use, is the template for unforeseen site conditions. Using this template, the contractor will be able to capture the complete particulars of this event before formally communicating with project owner or his authorized representative.

A contractor with mature project management culture will usually have many of those processes well defined and established and ready to be used on their projects. For example, they might have forms for delay analysis, daily reports, site inspection checklists, material deliveries among many others. Of course, for the many other processes used on the project between the contractor and the project owner and his authorized representatives, there will be a version that the contractor will use with his own subcontractors, suppliers and internally. Those could include meeting minutes, RFI, submittals, punch list, daily reports, budget, budget adjustments, commitments, potential change orders, change orders, progress invoices, actual payments among many others.

Now imagine that all of the data generated from all those processes on a specific project needs to be combined with the same data generated from the many other projects that the contractor is currently delivering to enable senior management to measure, monitor and evaluate their projects’ portfolio performance. This becomes even more challenging when the contractor considers the data from the completed projects whether those projects are closed or still pending. This big data represents great value for a contractor, that no contractor can afford to waste, as this is the knowledge captured from executing projects that no contractor can afford to waste.

How a PMIS Can Help the Contractor to Capture and Take Advantage of this Big Data?

A Project Management Information System (PMIS) like PMWeb can be used as the single platform to manage the complete projects’ portfolio that the contractor has as PMWeb allows managing unlimited number of projects and programs. PMWeb will be also used to automate all of the contractor’s internal and external project management processes. The difference between internal and external processes will be the collaboration step where for the external processes, the contractor will use the EDMS platform specified by the project owner to achieve this collaboration.

Should the project owner have a PMIS platform like PMWeb, Unifier or others, then the Contractor need also to use the project owner PMIS to feed this data. Although for some this could be considered as duplicate effort, nevertheless the benefit that the contractor will gain from having his own complete data far exceeds this effort. Nevertheless, this does not eliminate the need that the output form along with the supportive documents to be formally submitted, whether the project owner has an EDMS or PMIS. A formal communication submission requires printing, signing, stamping, scanning and uploading the form and supportive documents or have the same form and supportive documents be digitally signed using applications like DocuSign before they get uploaded.

When the contractor has all of his projects’ data captured in PMWeb, then the contractor has no restriction on what tabular and graphical reports as well as dashboards that can be generated to measure, monitor and evaluate his projects’ portfolio performance. Those real-time single version of the truth reports and dashboards will provide the contractor’s management team with the improved insight for better and faster decisions.

The big data captured from the PMWeb PMIS along with the big data captured by the contractor from other applications such as the ERP application can be associated and blended to provide the contractor with a real-time single version of the truth on how his overall business is performing. Today most business intelligence applications like MS Power BI, Qlik, Tableau, iDashboards among others allow extracting, transferring and loading data from different applications and associating those data sources using common fields such as project number, cost breakdown structure among others. In addition, some organizations might opt for having a dedicated data warehouse to store and report on those multi-data sources.

In addition, the big data captured from the different projects, completed or in progress, will provide the contractor with unlimited and unrestricted access to the everyday knowledge and lessons learned captured from delivering his projects’ portfolio. Using business intelligence applications like MS Power BI, Qlik, Tableau, iDashboards among others allow the contractor to establish trends by analyzing actual data to predict future performance. This information will enable the contractor to identify and implement the necessary actions to ensure continuous improvement to how his projects are being managed.

Conclusion

Contractors can continue to be passive and simply use the PMIS or EDMS specified by the project owner for all project’s formal communications or become proactive and stop the massive waste of great data that could have great benefits to the contractor’s bottom line. Similar to the accounting and financial systems used by the different entities involved in delivering a project to manage their everyday operations, there will be different PMIS applications that each of those entities will also use to manage their everyday project's processes. The nature and type of data captured in those PMIS applications will be relevant and specific to each entity. It is true that for each project, there will be a single specific PMIS or EDMS application to be used for all project’s formal communications between those entities, nevertheless, the ultimate owner of this captured data is the project owner. The project owner has the ultimate right to restrict or prevent access for any of those entities to the project PMIS or EDMS when he decides to do so. That is why contractors are obliged to maintain at all times their own digital as well as hard copy of all those formal communications, whether the project owner has PMIS, EDMS or none.