Case Studies

Solving the Complexities of the Project Management

Introduction

The tools that are available at the disposal of project managers are not very user-friendly. A trained project manager may have to spend a lot of work in order to organize and integrate different aspects of project management systems for different department. One such issue was causing unnecessary delays and work lag at the OTC or Optimal Target Company for General Contracting. The company basically takes on different scales of construction projects and civil contracts. Due to its efficiency the company was awarded new projects regularly. However, due to the lack of proper tools the project managers were unable to keep up with the work flow.

Algoras Software for Construction Costs Management

The biggest point of concern for civil contractors is the keeping the project within the bounds of the proposed budget. It can reflect badly upon the reputation of a civil contract company, if it keeps running over-budget contracts. Therefore, when the OTC contacted Algoras experts, the team started to work suitable software that can make the financial management of the project easier for the entire staff. There are many dimensions in a construction project that can affect the budget. The Algoras software provided the project managers of OTC to create unlimited amount of new project and work on them at the same time. Each project log has the capability of storing new and old information about important factors like labor costs and raw material management.

Project management in construction: main tasks

Managing a construction project is complex. We summarize the main tasks for you:

• Do not lose sight of the purpose of the project! And for that, detail the construction plans, the schedule, the budget, and choose the right team.

• Invest in efficiency: choose the right professionals and the right materials to maximize your productivity. The cheapest insulation foam is often not the best.

• Maintain constant control over your contracts, planning, budget and work to be done, from start to finish. This will allow you to manage your time as well as possible and will save you a lot of worries: time wasted waiting for quotes from suppliers, leading to a delay in the start of work, for example.

• Priority to effective communication between all parts of the project: this enables latent (unspoken) conflicts to be resolved and not to waste time on the phone.

Project management processes

Once the project has been entrusted to a contractor, work can begin. As bizarre as it sounds, all construction projects follow a standard lifecycle, no matter how varied they are.

We have divided this cycle into four phases:

1 / The initiation phase

This is how the project begins. The concept of the project is studied and analyzed.

2 / The planning phase

Planning the time, costs and resources of the project - THE priority during this second phase.

The team develops the strategy to be followed, also called scope management.

It is important to make a work breakdown structure, an integral part of the planning and essential basis for evaluating the scope of the project. This structure helps you to reach, with your team, the heart of the final result. The work breakdown structure in turn represents a starting point for the allocation of responsibilities. The work breakdown structure ensures that you have in view all the components that make up an entire project.

Once the budget, planning and activities to be implemented have been defined, the project can start.

3 / The realization phase

This is the stage in which the project plan comes to fruition. Generally speaking, this phase is divided into two processes: the implementation process and the monitoring and control process. The entrepreneur gets down to carrying out the requested tasks. At the same time, the work is monitored and controlled, and if necessary, modified and adjusted. In fact, the site supervisor spends a significant part of his time monitoring his project, and adapting it, according to the information provided to him, for optimal management.

4 / Assessment phase

An essential phase, often forgotten. This is when everything is done to assess the outcome of the project. Among the activities that take place during this last phase, we can think of the writing of user manuals, maintenance, project evaluation, drafting of a project report (valuable feedback for projects later), or at an event to celebrate the result etc.

Conclusion

The project managers can easily extract the financial data based on different time stamps and send it to the relevant department for further processing. It is also easy to generate realistic financial resources for the future based on the real time data available for every individual project. In this manner, the project engineers and the all the stakeholders can remain on the same page and stay updated about the latest development and progress. With the help of Algoras Software OTC has become a trust worthy name in the construction sector.


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