Mobile Technology Solution: Automating and Distributing the Construction Planning Process
OVERVIEW
Royal Professional Builders and Evolute implemented a real-time mobile solution that provides project and task data to superintendents and allows them to update the project status and task data automatically in the field.
CUSTOMER PROFILE
Royal Professional Builders has been a premier builder in Florida since 1982. Royal Professional Builders has constructed more than 300 homes in Palm Beach County in the past 20 years. Its president and founder, Wally Sanger, saw the need for better building materials that would allow Florida homes to endure stormy environmental conditions. By 1989, Royal perfected and patented a unique and innovative building system called Royall Wall. The basic premise of Royall Wall is improving both the quality and the strength of conventional building materials. The result is a wall product that does not deteriorate due to natural causes including hurricane winds, fire, and termite damage. The system is used to construct concrete walls to precise specifications for customers, including other builders and commercial users. These fundamental concepts continue to be the main focus for Royal Professional Builders today, whether building a home, a school, or a commercial building.
Royal Professional Builders has already implemented Microsoft Business Solutions- Solomon for its back-end financial management.
MICROSOFT GOLD CERTIFIED PARTNER
Evolute is an implementation services firm specializing in middleware and infrastructure technologies such as mobile applications, messaging, connectivity, EAI, BPM, and B2B solutions. The Evolute team is made up of middleware experts from such companies as Century Analysis, New Era of Networks, Sybase, and Actional. Evolute brings extensive knowledge and skill sets acquired through years of working in and developing integration environments.
Evolute is a Gold Certified Services Partner of Microsoft. Evolute’s close association with Microsoft allows it to maintain dynamic synergy with Microsoft and its other partners, and provides the broad experienced resources to serve its customers in a uniquely qualified way.
BUSINESS SITUATION
Royal Professional Builders (RPB) constructs approximately 150 houses per year in the West Palm Beach area and in Port St. Lucie. Completing a home on time and on budget is essential to running a profitable construction business. Typically, RPB has 70 concurrent house projects underway in any given timeframe. The number of concurrent projects has increased in response to increased sales. Each project requires completion of approximately 300 tasks (21,000 total tasks for 70 concurrent projects). In construction alone, a single superintendent has 40-100 tasks to manage each day. Currently, RPB receives 10-20 new orders per week and is able to complete 3-4 orders at a given time, resulting in 140 calendar days to complete one house.
The cycle time to complete a home has increased over the last 12 months for a variety Mobile Technology Solution: Automating and Distributing the Construction Planning Process Business Need Royal Professional Builders (RPB) constructs approximately 150 houses per year in the West Palm Beach area and in Port St. Lucie. There can be as many as 20 change orders per day for 20 projects. If change orders are not handled in a timely manner, they may force schedule changes which affect the entire project cycle. The mobile solution would allow better communication on project status between superintendents, project managers, and the management team, and provide real-time status of projects.
RPB’s goals are to improve the construction process, reduce cycle time, and effectively manage its construction projects as its business grows. RPB has identified a number of opportunities for process improvement, including construction efficiency, project management and scheduling, and contractor management. RPB believes that improving project management and project scheduling can reduce production and liability risks, and reduce costs ultimately resulting in increased profits and additional construction opportunities.
RPB believes that process improvement can be achieved by implementing a mobile solution for real-time, on-site project tracking by its superintendents. RPB believes that managing its projects in real time and fully documenting and automating its construction management process will help reduce the construction process cycle time and control the increasing number of concurrent projects. Improving contractor management can reduce lag time in construction scheduling, and better project documents can help bank integration and improve payout scheduling. The mobile solution would allow better communication on project status between superintendents, project managers, and the management team, and provide management with real-time status of projects. All the details of current jobs would be available at any location, at any time.
SOLUTION
Royal Professional Builders is implementing its process improvement solutions in a three-phase approach that is based on Microsoft technologies and a proprietary mobile software solution.
Phase I – Construction Management Integrate MS Project Server with custom mobile application for real-time project status.
Phase II – Integrate MS Project Server, MS CRM and Solomon, provide sub-contractor web access and automated bank notifications Integrate MS Project Server with MS CRM and Solomon for real-time Change Order Management Provide sub-contractor Access to Project Tasks via Web Portal Develop Business-to-Business (B2B) automated notification of bank draws (OFX)
Phase III – Automate CRM, Schedule and AP/AR and Customer Web Access Enterprise-wide integration of MS CRM, Project Schedule, and Solomon Interactive web portal of construction progress for customers
Phase I comprises development of a proprietary software application for Windows CE-based handhelds. Evolute Partners has provided the technical expertise to design the proprietary software for this mobile solution. Called Royal Construction ManagerTM (RCM), RPB’s solution allows its Superintendents to receive and update construction tasks in the field. Using RCM, the superintendents track the progress on each individual project. Tasks that are scheduled as ready appear on a task list. When a task is completed, it is checked off. The Superintendents can update tasks as they are completed and these updates are seamlessly deployed to the project server, in real-time. This application uses the Windows CE .NET framework to integrate with Microsoft Project Server using MS SQL Server and SQL Server CE.
As part of Phase I of its future environment, RPB is automating its existing project plan infrastructure. RPB is completing the project of automating its construction process infrastructure. RPB wants to implement tools and processes that allow it to provide information to its superintendents so that they can ensure that RPB meets cost schedule and technical objectives on all its projects. RPB is using Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server to map individual project plans. RPB developed a standard project template that uses a customized project creator to rapidly create each of its projects. The company wants to make real-time project information available its superintendents and corporate management. RPB and Evolute have developed a mobile application to allow RPB’s project schedules and tasks to be integrated in real time, with the back-end project server. RPB will deploy the project information to its Superintendents via a mobile device.
The solution integrates several Microsoft products. On the mobile device, the integration requires Windows CE operating system, the.NET Compact Framework, and SQL Server CE. Web Services technology provides the interface between the mobile device and the project server and the transport mechanism .to port completed tasks and request updates to projects since the last request. The mobile devices receive task updates on a regular schedule. The completed tasks are updated to the project server.
RPB’s solution is scalable to integrate additional internal and external systems and continue the automata ion of RPB’s business processes, through Phases II and III. The solution allows RPB to ramp up for expanding businesses. Plans are currently being architected for Phase II.
BENEFITS
Offers needed tools to Superintendents. Each Superintendent typically oversees several houses, each of which may be at a different stage in the construction process. RCM enables the Superintendents to see exactly what tasks are scheduled for each project for each day. The Superintendents have a complete list of all tasks that are scheduled to start each day. The Superintendents directly track the completion of each task. Superintendents are responsible for entering a Delay Reason for each task that is not completed on schedule.
Provides immediate project management information to the Management Team Among many other improvements, management now has greater visibility into schedules and other project information. Formerly, each individual project plan was printed out for each management team meeting, and each superintendent provided an estimate of completion status. By using the real-time data provided by RCM updates, the Management Team can see exactly what the status of each project is. Data on the task status for each project is available and can be readily compared. Project delays can be addressed in a more timely fashion. Decisions can be made on the basis of actual data instead of estimates, strengthening focus on schedule and budget management by facilitating the tighter and more efficient management of projects.
More real time data available to improve job scheduling while reducing overruns. By having detailed information available for each project, jobs can be more efficiently scheduled. Cost overruns can be controlled.
Single source of information about project status and cost management. Overall administrative benefits represent continuous savings over time.
Improved customer satisfaction. The value of being able to tell a customer exactly when their house will be completed is immeasurable.
Provides business growth opportunity for RPB. As the task scheduling for each project becomes more enforceable, the project time frames become realizable. RPB will ultimately be able to schedule more projects, if project schedules are met, then corporate management has the opportunity to find ways to improve project scheduling. Everyone at RPB has the same data about the progress of each project.
Evolute is a technology consulting firm based in Colorado. Proven leaders in business process integration in healthcare, Evolute also offers business intelligence, portal and .NET development and technical training for business and government entities. Evolute’s collaborative approach to creating agile technologies consistently boosts client profitability and user satisfaction. Evolute is also a Gold Certified Microsoft Partner and a Tier 1 managed healthcare partner.