Most projects that you are working on will follow a typical lifecycle. It is broken down into different roles and the people involved. We will break those roles and people down into four locations:
Front office
Field office
Jobsite
Back office
What are the essential functions of the front office? What roles are involved?
The front office focuses on getting work and typically houses estimators who, during the bidding phase of the project, start out by estimating its value. This is done by calculating cost estimates, analyzing quotes, and capturing all the data necessary to submit a bid to the client.
Once complete, they prepare the bid proposal, submit it to the client, and find out if they are the preferred contractor to do the work. If they have the winning bid, they can start the planning phase and preparing to build the project.
What work roles are typically found in the field office? What are their primary tasks?
During the execution phase of a project, the field office manages the budget and forecasting for the project. The
Field office relays this information to the other field personnel, so they understand what the budgets for the work are, how they should build the job, who the suppliers of materials are, and if there are any subcontractors, etc.
Project engineers and managers procure contracts for materials and with subcontractors.
The field office is where the field engineers and superintendents responsible for the work prepare work plans for the foremen and their crews, breaking down the work into manageable pieces. They then create quantity-tracking plans, formulate inspections and create daily plans to send to the foremen on the jobsite.
As issues arise, project engineers record and submit issues, get them approved through the client, and execute change orders.
Inspections, as well as actual time and quantities from the jobsite, come back to the field office where they are review and approval before going to the back office.
What types of employees work at the jobsite? What type of information do they capture as they build the work? Where does that information need to go and why?
The jobsite is where you find the quality controller, safety manager and foreman. It is where the work is completed. The safety managers, superintendents and foremen are involved in safety inspections, while the quality controller and field engineers perform inspections before and after the work is complete. The foreman also captures the time of each of the craft workers and the quantity completed each day, based on the plan provided from the superintendent and field engineer.
All this information is relayed back to the field office where it can be verified and approved.
What functions take place in the back office, related to the project? Why is the back office a critical element of managing the project?
The back office is where the account managers and administration staff keep track of budgets, make sure the payroll is correct and completed in a timely manner, keep track of all the accounts payable and receivable, and take care of revenue. After a contract is created, the business manager verifies purchase orders are generated. All the “actual” data, whether it be time or dollars then is communicated back to all the other areas of the job.
Often issues arise when it comes to communication between all the different areas of a project. Information must flow quickly and accurately between the different areas, but often it is lost, miscommunicated, or slowly received. In some cases, information must be re-entered in a new system and is duplicated. This can cause all sorts of issues when it comes to managing a project.
Employing too many systems to transmit information on a project can result in duplication, which is not efficient. Here are a few examples of such inefficiencies:
Inspections that are completed on paper must be manually input or scanned into a computer system.
Hand-written time cards that are misplaced or get wet must to be reproduced and then entered into a computer system so that the crew can be paid.
Quantities established in the daily plan do not coincide with the quantity claiming system.
What issues can you think of that you have experienced on your projects?
The InEight cloud platform was designed and is continually updated to address these issues. The cloud platform of software applications designed to help companies visualize, estimate, manage, control, and connect all aspects of capital and maintenance projects. The cloud platform is built so all the different applications can communicate with each other. It is also designed to communicate with multiple different ERP systems such as SAP or Oracle to share key information with the back office.
Scenario: Step 1
Skyline Construction Company decides to bid on a project to build a concrete foundation.
Upon submittal, the client informs them that they are the preferred contractor for the work. They now need to take the project from the estimate to the project execution phase.
Using the InEight Estimate application, the estimating team in the front office builds the cost estimate and submits the bid proposal, including awarded quotes and all bid documents.
Once awarded the contract, the project team then transfers all the information from the estimate to InEight Control where the project can be managed. This includes the cost item estimates, awarded quotes, bid and proposal documents, and the estimate budget structure. During this transition, the project management team can modify the estimate easily to conform to how the project will be built and tracked.
Scenario: Step 2
The field engineers and superintendents in the field office are ready to begin planning the work. They break the work plans down into work packages that contain the specific quantities, materials, labor, equipment, and budgets associated with each portion of work.
The project manager and engineers procure contracts for material and subcontracted work.
Then, inspections are created for quality of the work to ensure it meets the specifications as well as safety.
The field engineers in the field office can now go into InEight Plan to break down the work into work areas, work plans within those areas, and then work packages where the work is broken down into components. There, all the components are assigned a WBS code from InEight Control as well as other important information and claiming schemes.
Project Engineers use InEight Contract to create bid packages and submit them to vendors and subs and solicit contracts.
Engineers also utilize InEight Compliance to create the forms necessary for both the quality and safety inspections. They can then send these to InEight Compliance Mobile for the responsible person to complete them in the field.
Scenario: Step 3
Joe, the concrete superintendent, now has all the work planned for a concrete foundation and is ready to communicate all the details to his foreman Jill, so construction can begin tomorrow.
The superintendent can go into InEight Plan and create a daily plan for his crew to erect the formwork needed for the foundation. He brings in all the quantities, budgets and claiming schemes from the work package his field engineer created and breaks it down into what Jill’s crew needs to complete tomorrow. He adds production goals for the day and safety notes related to the formwork installation. He communicates this to his foreman by syncing it to her, where the foreman can open the InEight Progress app on her iPad.
Scenario: Step 4
In the morning, Jill reviews the plan for the day and determines if any changes are necessary due to one of the crewmembers calling in sick.
John, the quality controller on the project reviews the quality inspections that he needs to perform that day and creates a plan with Jill to schedule the proper times.
The foreman reviews the plan in the InEight Progress app on her iPad and adjusts as necessary to the plan (e.g., sick crewmember, unforeseen issues).
The quality controller speaks with the foreman and determines when they can complete the inspection for the day. The quality controller uses the InEight Compliance app on his iPad to perform the inspection.
Scenario: Step 5
Throughout the day, Jill has kept track of the quantities completed on the formwork but had to adjust the plan to send her crew to build a quick access ramp for an earthworks crew. This was not in the plan and she needs to account for it before signing out the crew.
In the InEight Progress app, the foreman can keep a log of notes on the day’s progress and any unforeseen construction needs that come up. She can quickly add extra tasks to accommodate adjustments to the plan, review each crewmembers’ hours, and sign them out at the end of the shift. She enters in the quantities completed and can see her crew’s productivity for the day. She will be able to communicate this to the crew in the morning.
Once complete, she approves the daily plan and synchronizes it, so it can be reviewed by the superintendent in the field office.
Scenario: Step 6
Joe and his field engineer have received the quantities, hours, and inspections completed during the day and now want to review and approve them.
Upon review, they discover there was an issue with the foundation specifications that may result in a change order. They log this issue to communicate with the client.
The superintendent can open InEight Plan and review the hours for each crewmember, any new tasks created, and the quantities completed for each of the tasks. He is also able to review the daily costs and see how the crew performed in both man-hours and cost. He can approve the plan and can make any necessary changes to the plan tomorrow based on the productivity information he received.
The field engineer is can also verify the inspections were completed in the InEight Compliance application.
One of the project engineers records the concrete foundation issue in InEight Contract and will track it, converting it into a change order if necessary.
Scenario: Step 7
The account manager in the back office will now verify all the time for each crewmember and ensure they are paid correctly according to the union guidelines.
This information is then communicated to the front office, so the project manager can analyze the job costs and update forecasting.
Within the ERP system, the account manager and administrators review all the time that has come in, adjust where necessary, and submit the payroll to ensure everyone is paid accurately and on time. They then synchronize this information into the ERP system, where it can be sent to InEight Control so project management in the front office can review the information.
Scenario: Step 8
At the end of the month, the project management in the front office views all the actual quantity and cost information, compares it to the budget, and projects the final cost of each operation. Forecasts are then finalized for the project.
In InEight Control, project engineers and managers can view all the actual quantities and costs from the jobsite and analyze the information to determine if they are going to meet their budgets. If, after review, they see that a few operations are spending more time and money due to weather delays, they can decide to update the forecasts for those operations accordingly.
They also look at the total quantities for the month to determine how much of the scope can be billed to the client.
No matter what location you are in or what role you have, the information created for your project is communicated to all the InEight cloud platform applications and shared through the Cloud Platform. The InEight Cloud Platform is also able connect and communicate to your ERP system and other 3rd party applications to utilize the same information, eliminating the need to re-enter data. All this information can then be archived for future reference, and selected information can easily be turned over to the client.
The following workflow diagram illustrates in greater detail what information travels between the InEight cloud platform applications and the ERP system and direction in which it flows.
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