Asta Powerproject helps win tenders

North Midland Construction uses Asta Powerproject to help win tenders - plus manage up to 60 sites for Severn Trent and Network Rail.

North Midland Construction is a national construction group that has set up a dedicated Contract Services team for the Civil Engineering Division, whose role is to provide the tools and support to plan and manage the tenders, the project execution plans and to identify value added opportunities.

This in turn helps identify and resolve project overruns and improve the collection and use of management information.

The key project management tool used to achieve these objectives is Asta Powerproject.

As a business, NMC recognised the need for creating a 'project management centre of excellence' that would play a pivotal role through the tender process and seamlessly into the construction phase.

Some of the issues they faced were the identification of jobs running late, which can result in penalty costs, a culture of haphazard progress reporting from construction sites and a lack of timely management information.

So five years ago, they gave Gavin Clegg, one of their experienced project managers, the task of setting up the Civils Contract Services team to address these issues.

Managing the tender process.

One major change instigated was a more structured tender management process.

"I believe that it is essential to plan our priority tenders in as much detail as possible in order to present the client with an accurately costed plan that is both realistic and achievable, and which provides certainty of outcome," comments Gavin.

The team have dedicated staff to produce tender programmes and typically have 10 live tender programmes being planned in Asta Powerproject at any one time.

The detail they put in the tender programme allows the estimator to estimate costs very accurately.

They include detailed preliminary plans (for the works that need to be done before the project can start) as well as resource histograms in terms of staff, labour and plant.

Once this is complete, the plan is compared with the estimate and directors can make accurate assessments on what needs to be included in the final tender.

Clients can be assured that the tender programmes presented by NMC are accurate, fully costed and realistic.

Gavin adds: "Not only does it give clients the confidence that we have the capabilities to deliver the programme and have thought it through properly, but also it shows when we win the work, we can move swiftly into delivery mode as we know exactly what needs to be done".

"I'm glad to say that we now have a really robust tender process in place." This is born out by results - for example, NMC recently won a major project laying 37km of pipeline in Bridlington for Yorkshire Water and this was the first Yorkshire Water scheme the company had won in four years.

"The quality, accuracy and detail of the tender programme helped the whole bid team win the project," adds Gavin.

The Civils Project Services.

The team provides an in-house end-to-end planning service for the Civils Division within NMC, which delivers projects ranging in value from £150k to £15m, and framework schemes of work totalling some £150m over the next five years.

It focuses on producing tender programmes that help NMC win business and then, once the work has been won, continuing the service through producing contract programmes and facilitating the management of these programmes through to successful delivery.

They currently have four full-time planners working in the Civils Contract Services team, plus Gavin, now Contract Services Manager.

The team uses Asta Powerproject for all planning from water treatment works to rail possession work (highly detailed, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute planning).

They operate a traffic light scheme to show end variance slippage for progress reporting against baseline programmes and update over 30 contract programmes on a weekly basis.

They have a five year framework contract with a value of £150m with a large water company (Severn Trent) and are using Asta Powerproject as a programme management tool to monitor report and forecast costs against original baseline to their key client.

Each individual Contract within the framework has key milestones that are also monitored by Asta Powerproject.

The people side of project delivery.

"Having risen from office junior to site agent, I have gained a good inside knowledge of the business and I was acutely aware of the 'people issues' that I'd have to face in overcoming these process changes".

"In particular, gaining the 'buy-in' from site agents for weekly progress reporting," explains Gavin.

So from the start, Gavin and his team have made it clear to the Site Agents that they have ownership of their programme and control over it - and that the Contract Services Team are there to provide support with the planning process.

Ensuring all 40+ Site Agents were reporting progress on a weekly basis did take time and effort.

It was important that the task was made as simple as possible so it did not become an administrative burden.

Also it was critical that the Site Agents could see why it was important, in particular how it would benefit them and make their jobs easier.

Before Gavin started in this role, they used to produce 'as-built' programmes only at the end of the job.

In addition, some Site Managers saw the programme as something to stick up on a wall rather than a key tool to help them deliver the project more effectively on a week-by-week basis.

So Gavin dedicated two members in his team to facilitate the progress reporting process who are both office and site-based.

Part of their role is to explain to site managers the benefits of this process, how it should be done and why it is important".

""Asta Powerproject is simple to demonstrate for training purposes and produces clear programmes which are easy for novices to understand," adds Gavin.

Contract process - how it works.

On being awarded a new contract the Tender Programme is reviewed by the Contract staff and alterations, if required, are made and issued to the client as the Contract Programme.

NMC baselines this programme, and this forms the key plan that Client and NMC measure progress and success upon.

Weekly progress sheets for each site are automatically generated from Asta Powerproject and exported to Microsoft Excel using a macro written by Asta Development.

The progress sheets are completed by the Site Agent and returned to Head Office every week highlighting all activities and durations that have been incurred.

It is then uploaded into the programme in Asta Powerproject.

The progress line is redrawn to the end of each week and then the entire programme of projects is automatically rescheduled to map the new end dates.

The NMC team were very focussed on recording and updating historical progress across all sites on a weekly basis.

However, what was required was to be able to look at the programme and accurately plan what they needed to do this week, next week and further ahead.

Now if requested each Site Manager can have either a 2-weekly or a 4-weekly 'look ahead' programmes with a baseline specifically created for their site using Asta Powerproject".

""Asta Powerproject is very flexible in allowing you to set up different views".

"This is how we created the look ahead programmes for Site Managers, which are simply sent via PDF to sites," says Gavin.

Management Reports.

Gavin's department issues progress reports to Contracts Managers (who are typically responsible for around six sites) and directors using a traffic light system to highlight any important variances from the programme - for example, they have set up the system so that a red traffic light denotes slippage of four or more weeks; amber for between one and four weeks' slippage; and green for works on time.

The reports provide full details on tasks that are still in progress and summarises those sections that are complete (rolling them up into a simple summary bar).

Annotations are used on the bar chart to add explanations to tasks where required.

Reports are issued in PDF format on a weekly basis.

Gavin's team also produces monthly external progress reports for clients on the programme status.

These reports of 'as-built' information to date, and the projected programme to completion, are presented to clients by the relevant Site Agent.

Recent NMC projects.

NMC is a national construction group and has been using Asta Powerproject since 1997.

Recent and current projects include construction of a waste re-cycling centre at Bidston, Liverpool; laying a 37km stretch of pipeline in Bridlington for Yorkshire Water; a £150m programme of works for Severn Trent Water; and refurbishment of railway bridges in the Lake District.

For example, looking at the latter two in more detail: Severn Trent.

NMC has two framework agreements with Severn Trent Water for the next five years, worth £150m.

One for infrastructure works (pipeline / pumping stations) and non-infrastructure works (waste water treatment works).

NMC started the programme in April 2005 and are managing the entire programme with the help of Asta Powerproject.

It is important for Severn Trent that the forecasted spend on this five-year programme matches the cost plan submitted to OFWAT (the water regulator).

To do this, NMC created a high level programme and baselined the forecast spend - then, as the programme progresses, they put in actual spend figures to reach the 'cost to complete'.

One important use they are making of Asta Powerproject is as a resource planning tool used to help Contract Managers review and forecast resource levels for both staff and operatives 18 months in advance.

This has been used successfully in implementing a recruitment drive to employ new Site Agents and Engineers to best match the requirements of the programme.

With resourcing planned several months in advance, this allows them to discuss with the client how to 'stagger' projects in such a way that they can easily smooth out peaks and troughs in staffing levels and hence provide continuity of personnel and provide efficient and best value management of the schemes of work.

With Asta Powerproject we can present a variety of delivery scenarios to the client and come to a mutually acceptable agreement on the scheduling of the commencement of the works, whilst maintaining the Clients regulatory targets.

For NMC the clear advantage in achieving the mutually acceptable high level programme of works is in the smoothing of staff resources, and recruitment and training programmes, to provide the optimum solution.

Network Rail project - replacing a railway bridge in Clay Cross, Derbyshire.

Network Rail closed off stretches of railway line for a maximum of 50 hours to get the job done - so NMC had to plan the project in great detail.

Using Asta Powerproject, the programme was worked out on an hour-by-hour and minute-by-minute basis.

For example, down to a 10-minute task of rigging a beam.

In such a highly-pressured work environment and with an immovable deadline, NMC typically had two site managers on the job at once and the project programme was used as a vital master plan to ensure the work was on schedule".

""I'm pleased to say that, despite challenging minute-by-minute project planning, the team successfully completed the bridge project in the allotted time".

"Without a powerful project management and scheduling tool such as Asta Powerproject, this would simply have not been possible in the timeframe," comments Gavin.

In conclusion.

NMC has reaped the benefits of using Asta Powerproject to help generate new business and effectively manage ongoing contracts".

""Asta Powerproject is far easier to use than other planning tools and far more visual".

"In addition it is great for communicating information - in fact it is the best tool I've ever seen for this," says Gavin.

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