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Introduction

Before we recommend any of our services, the first and most important thing we do is listen; by understanding your business objectives, we can deliver services which meet both your expectations and needs.

So, let’s see if we can simplify this seemingly complex subject called ‘Project Controls’ and discover how Amtech can give your company that competitive edge.

Our services can be broken down into four sectors:

1. Project Controls
2. Forensic Planning Support
3. Document Control Office
4. Other Support Services

Project Controls:

Our Project Controls Service is sub-divided into three areas:

• Project Level Service – a single contract or project
• Programme Level Service – multiple contracts or projects
• Corporate Level Service – regional- or area- based programmes

Although these seem similar, we have devised these products to be quite distinctive and targeted to specific types of business organizations. At whatever level, the three inextricable key elements will always be the same: Time, Cost & Resource.

Project Level Service

• At this level, we initially perform our due diligence in determining your contractual requirements which need to be met. This may focus in on specific project reporting requirements such as Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), Resource and Cost reporting.
• The project is then created from a set of manageable areas, also known as the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). Generally, a WBS shows the hierarchy of the work components and is used to summarise the Work Packages and activities.

• At the Work Package level we develop individual units of work which are used to represent one or more activities or tasks that have defined resources and time duration. This can also be used to define its ‘Phase’ on the project, i.e. Design, Supply Chain, Implementation, etc. Each WBS can then be reviewed and analysed to check the performance of the whole project.
• From the project Bills of Quantities, we can cost code these into the project schedule and assign them to the relevant work activities. When the schedule is updated with the project’s progress, it will give an accurate update to both percentage complete on the activity and the cost element for the work performed.
• Resources can be considered as anything which is necessary to be expended to complete the project. This can be in terms of Labour, Plant and Materials. We would suggest that only key resources are tracked on the schedule as these can be adjusted to meet the maximum available levels.
• Reporting can be as simplistic or as in-depth as required. This will depend on any of your in-house standards or the client reporting requirements.

See also: Why Amtech?

Programme Level Service

• This differs from the Project Level Service as it is generally used for the strategic planning of a number of projects which form your Control Period or Asset Management Programme.
• Again we initially perform our due diligence in determining your contractual requirements which need to be met. This may focus in on specific programme reporting requirements such as KPI’s, Internal Resource and Cost reporting.
• A set of high level project phases are then created for you. This is then replicated to form the basis of the Programme of works.
• Programme budgets can be assigned to each of the stages to determine the overall budget profile. Strategic decisions on procurement and main contracting can be introduced and the appropriate budget levels set.
• Programme-wide KPI’s are then assigned to determine the status of each project. These give a high level indication of the timescale performance of each project against the baseline targets dates.
• Internal Resources such as key Managers or Design Engineers can be assigned to the project phases to see if they are potentially over-stretched or under-utilised.
• Programme Reporting can be arranged in a number of ways to suit your requirements. These can report on individual projects, phases and even by Manager Portfolios.

See also: Why Amtech?

Corporate Level Service

• This high level service looks at your data captured from multiple programme levels.
• We shall create for you additional coding to the Programme level information and then re-organise this into Regions, Areas, Sector types and Business Units.
• Actual Cost synchronization may be necessary to allow a more accurate overview of the costs in relation to the schedule performance. Otherwise, an adjusted Cost Forecast may need to be used.
• Your Corporate Level Reports can then be generated to display information to track Project and Programme performance, some of the more useful data types are listed below.
  • Schedule Performance Indices – SPI
  • Cost Performance Indices – CPI
  • Budget, Actual and Forecast Costs
  • Forecast/Actual Start and Finish Dates
  • Project Variations
  • Schedule and Cost Variances
  • Business Unit/Programme/Project Managers
• These powerful internal reports will allow strategic business decisions to be made regarding the viability of current and future projects. It can also give an overview of the Company’s performance at any time.

See also: Why Amtech?

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Forensic Planning Support

You may be wondering what Forensic Planning is.

It has nothing to do with anything medical but it is a term used to describe the independent review of planned versus actual project progress. It analyses and quantifies culpable delay and disruption which leads to the prolongation of the contract schedule. It is predominately used to substantiate the potential entitlement to costs, damages and Extension of Time.

• This can only be used to support Project Level contracts.
• Initially we perform our due diligence in determining the suitability of the Schedule to be used for the analysis of the claims.
• Detailed research is then undertaken into the documents, correspondence and progress reports to determine the start, finish, cause and effect of change events.
• The analysis can be both contemporaneous or retrospective and will be based on one of four methods as below:
  • As-Planned vs As-Built
  • Collapsed As-Built
  • Impacted As-Planned
  • Time Impact (Windows or Snapshot)
• Schedules are constructed to illustrate the delay events and are incorporated into the original contract Schedule to determine any potential change to the completion date of the project.
• The most popular methods tend to be Impact As-Planned and Time Impact, but these needs to be reviewed on a case by case basis.

See also: Why Amtech?

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 Document Control Office

Since our formation in 1996, we have worked with various document control systems. However, we found that, whilst they shared similar features, they all lacked the ability to create and manage project correspondence. Together with our preferred partner Aconex we will provide an online document and correspondence management system to store, track, search, archive, version control and report on all documents and mail items. In addition, there are built-in tools to help you communicate in real time through instant messaging, document viewing and drawing mark-ups, allowing true collaboration between you, your Client and your Contractors.

Some significant benefits that we can provide are listed as follows:

• Direct online web access to documents and correspondence
• Built-in project correspondence management
• User restricted information access
• Scalable user security access
• Online file viewer compatible with 450 file types
• Live crash data recovery
• No system requirements other than a PC and Internet link
• Approval submission reporting
• Free 24/7 online support
• Our Groundbreaking project collaboration tools

For more information on this service see our Document Control Office page.

See also: Why Amtech?

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Other Support Services

In this section we would like to show you some other great services to enhance your company’s profile and effectiveness.

• Planning Presentation – we can generate some clear and effective animations in the construction stages to communicate your plan to prospective clients.
• Main/Sub-contract Tender Planning Reviews – we can deliver a clear and concise view on the tender schedule submissions from your potential contractors. This will allow you to make a direct comparison between the various schedules on their suitability for your contract. This will be subject to the schedules being submitted in Primavera formats. For other Project Management software, we may not be able to give the same level of detailed analysis as with P6.
• Training – we can provide your planning team with hands-on tuition to successfully implement your Primavera P3 and P6 software.

See also: Why Amtech?

Got a question?

If you would like more information on any of our services, please feel free to contact us. We’re a friendly bunch of people!

Sample Client Page

For a preview of our client services, have a go and download our sample documents from Hectam Contracting Limited. Just Login to the sample client page using the following information:

Username: Hectamkey
Password: Hectampass

You’ll be amazed how easy it is to securely access your online Project Schedules and Reports. Anywhere, any time.

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