The Integrated Product Delivery (IPD) model is fast becoming a popular and powerful agreement for contracts that involve multiple organizations responsible for the successful delivery of major projects. The goal of IPD is to remove much of the friction and adversarial nature of joint ventures and P3 style agreements by aligning the financial goals of all parties involved. Commonly, major projects are jointly managed and delivered by a combination of the owner plus a general contractor, architect, engineering company and other contractors.

While a healthy bit of competition can result in positively motivating entities to work more productively, traditional agreements can foster a caustic, ineffective environment where organizations that should be working together, end up working against each other, competing for the same resources and, inadvertently, sabotaging the health of the project. IPD encourages a more collaborative approach, bringing down barriers and silos to achieve a more beneficial result. The intent is to tie individual success to project success, thereby achieving a more holistic approach from each entity, rather than a segregated approach. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) defines IPD as “a project delivery approach that integrates people, systems, business structures and practices into a process that collaboratively harnesses the talents and insights of all participants to optimize project results, increase value to the owner, reduce waste, and maximize efficiency through all phases of design, fabrication, and construction.” I’ve provided more resources on IPD at the bottom of this article for your reference.

According to the rather direct message in the recent McKinsey report on “The Next Normal in Construction”, the construction industry has historically underperformed, and struggles with poor customer satisfaction due to budget overruns, lengthy claims, along with a substantial list of other issues.

The report cites that construction, “as the largest industry in the global economy, accounting for 13 percent of the world’s GDP,” is due for a disruptive overhaul driven by a changing landscape, technology innovation and a much savvier customer.

It’s been proven over and over that breakdowns in communication on a construction project can lead to an abundance of unnecessary problems. Problems that can lead to confusion, frustration, unhappy clients, and can slash profitability for the contractor. When, for example, the field team is working from a different set of information than the back-office team, they’ll each make decisions on what they think is right, which may unknowingly go against what the other has decided, and cause mistakes, rework and incoherent communication to stakeholders. So, how can you avoid these common challenges of disconnected people, data and process? How can you move towards a more harmonious, collaborative environment where all team members are working with timely, accurate and complete information that they can each access from a centralized place?

Part 2 of 2

This is the second installment of a 2-part article on eliminating threats to project profitability. The first installment tackled more of the planning and pre-construction phases of a project lifecycle and how to assemble the structure, people and processes on the project that will set the stage for reducing financial risk. 

To recap what was discussed in part 1, here is a quick summary of those first 4 methods:

We're excited to share this guest blog by Vista Projects, a leading integrated industrial engineering firm. This feature explores how Vista Project's truth-based program can help organizations navigate the digital transformation of their projects and operations, something that's very near and dear to our hearts here at 4castplus. Keep reading to learn more.

Construction projects rely on strong communication across the entire team to ensure everyone is working from the same information and there are no misunderstandings getting in the way of quality and productivity. Miscommunications among the project team can lead to costly and potentially disastrous results, not to mention a frustrated and angry client.

Last Thursday, the Biden administration reached bipartisan consensus on the proposed American Jobs Plan to allocate $1.2 trillion in new infrastructure spending in the US. A significant portion of that will be put towards revitalizing roads, bridges, water systems, public works, energy and other vital infrastructure projects.  This plan will create new opportunities and benefits to construction contractors for years to come, and here at 4castplus, we’re staying on top of the ongoing progress of this bill, along with the ways we can help in providing leading technology to support the industry.

Part 1 of 2

If projects are the primary revenue stream for a business, then careful financial management of each project is critical for the success of that business.  Managing a project’s finances means much more than just focusing on its revenue, it clearly also means vigilant control of costs, along with ensuring contract terms laid-out by the client are successfully delivered on time. 

Additionally, clients and other stakeholders can be very demanding in their requests to be regularly updated on the budget status of a project. Management, for example, will want to keep a close eye on ensuring the budgeted project margin is realized once the project is complete as it is the foundation of their business model.  Project managers will therefore need to be able to produce detailed reports on project finances on-demand that include analysis on actual margin and profit.  A project manager will therefore need to apply key techniques for ensuring target profitability is achieved. In this article, we explore several methods for protecting and maximizing profit from project estimate all the way to close out.

A key part of resourcing for the work that is required to be completed on larger construction project includes contracting-out some or all of the project to subcontractors. Owners and general contractors will typically subcontract the entire project, but even subcontractors themselves will sub-out work to do specialty contracting or to supplement their own workforce. With the new subcontracting extensions to the 4castplus procurement module, this process is significantly streamlined as subcontracts can be created and issued right into the project. Subcontracts are created and issued in the same easy way that 4castplus purchase orders are, so the robust and flexible interface is familiar, easy and secure.

The construction industry is swiftly shifting towards a new digital era where technology that connects the jobsite with the office is no longer considered an advantage, but rather a necessity. Document updates, electronic checklists and forms, material status, timesheets, crew management, vendor productivity and more can be shared in real-time between disparate teams, offering enhanced data integrity, transparency and real-time visibility into the health of a project. The transition from manual and paper-based processes to cloud and mobile-based solutions has never been more important than today. At 4castplus, we are committed to the ongoing development and enhancement of our project-driven solutions that enable companies to digitally communicate and collaborate on their construction projects. With the recent release of 4castplus 5.0, we have delivered an abundance of key upgrades and new features that are designed to streamline how contractors execute projects. In this entry, I'm going to briefly describe some of the enhancements to the jobsite tracking module that have been built to bring increased power with increased efficiency.

Major Upgrades to Crew and Shift Management