Even before Layton β one of the 13 companies that comprise the STO Building Group β had any kind of schedule analytics tools, he was using Excel to produce customized analytics and dashboards. Unfortunately, it was very time-consuming to create the desired metrics , as he had to manually export the data dump and paste it into Excel, along with several other steps, to make the spreadsheet work.
Layton eventually invested in a business analytics BA tool that would integrate directly with their scheduling program. Howell figured he could automatically extract the data from the scheduling program and build custom dashboards. While a great idea, in theory, the execution fell short. The data coming into the BA tool was not always reliable, so our people stopped trusting it. While attending a scheduling conference, Howell and his team were introduced to SmartPM, a cloud-based, schedule-controls program.
The company purchased 10 slots to pilot on a handful of projects; based on their satisfaction with the pilot, the company made a jump from 10 licenses to But interest in the platform is spreading to other personnel as well. This dashboard includes the handful of key metrics they want project teams to be able to access so they can be prepared for the monthly project reviews with their executive teams. Howell introduced SmartPM to the other two companies in the division.
Now, Howell manages and oversees the scheduling efforts not only for Layton Construction but for the entire STO West division β with SmartPM playing a key role in helping his team build schedules that make sense. Traditionally, conducting this analysis manually would have required an estimated 40 hours of dedicated effort spread over two weeks. In contrast, using SmartPM, the analysis was completed in just two hours.
I can get a snapshot of how all their projects are doing. Smart PM already has most of the necessary metrics pre-built into the platform; all it takes is a simple XER upload to import the data.
