Learn how P6-Reporter helped an engineering company in this case study.
Client Overview
Client is and engineering and environmental consulting firm that diversifies services to strengthen core competencies in complex, multidiscipline work. They are the largest Power Delivery detail designer in the US, Top 5 in Power (Generation + Power Delivery), have 10+ years as Top 10 Food & Beverage Engineering firm and are a Top 200 Environmental firm.
Challenges
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Schedulers needed to create reports on how their projects in Primavera are progressing with convenient, easy to understand reporting and dashboards in Power BI.
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Report creators needed to capture and report on historical data from their P6 databases.
Results
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Emerald provided a solution using Oracle Data Access Connector that allows the client to connect and query data from their Oracle databases.
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Emerald's P6-Reporter takes snapshots of data at points indicated by the client. This data is made available in Power BI tables for report trending.
P6-Reporter News Articles
on Wednesday, 10 May 2023.
Posted in Case Studies
P6-Scrubber helps utility company clean P6 schedules prior to importing them in their production environment
Client Overview
The client is a multi-faceted utility company that has multiple business units. They own and operate many substations and transmission lines that form part of the Alberta interconnected electric system. They provide water and wastewater services to more than 85 communities and industrial sites across Western Canada. The client also operates in the US and serves more than 780,000 people across 42 communities and 18 counties in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, making it one of the largest private regulated water utilities in the U.S. Southwest.
Challenges
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The scheduling teams' interactions with outside contractors and consultants required the team to receive schedules to import. They required a way to clean the schedules prior to import so the data does not collide with other business units.
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Each team required different rules for contractors and consultants, such as prefixes and what parent tree to land resources when imported.
Results
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P6-Scrubber was deployed for the team to make the cleaning effort easier, more reliable and faster to handle.
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The users setup the scrubbing definitions for the contractor and consultant loads, import an XER/XML file into P6-Scrubber, run P6-Scrubber which does the cleanups and then import the projects into P6 Production after the P6-Scrubber has done the cleanups
P6-Scrubber News Articles
on Wednesday, 10 May 2023.
Posted in Case Studies
Client Moves Their Primavera P6 to the Emerald Cloud and Uses EAI Custom Tools
Client Overview
Client is and engineering and environmental consulting firm, that diversifies services to strengthen core competencies in complex, multidiscipline work. They are the largest Power Delivery detail designer in the US, Top 5 in Power (Generation + Power Delivery), have 10+ years as Top 10 Food & Beverage Engineering firm and are a Top 200 Environmental firm.
Challenges
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The client wanted to move their in-house Primavera P6 environment to a cloud option with full time support.
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Internal IT was overloaded with other initiatives and lacked expertise in maintaining their Primavera P6 environment.
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They required the ability to maintain and analyze their Primavera P6 data in an easy, reliable manner.
Results
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Their Primavera was moved to the Emerald hosting environment, which allowed Emerald to become their full time host and support model.
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Emerald provides expertise in Primavera and provides complete support for their Primavera databases.
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As part of Emerald hosting the environment, we also provide Emerald tools like P6-Loader to create and maintain data, P6-QA for schedule quality analysis, P6-Reporter for schedule reporting and P6-Auditor for monitoring the changes in their databases.
Primavera P6 Case Studies
P6-Reporter News Articles
on Friday, 05 May 2023.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn how Emerald helped client clean up Primavera P6 and move to the Oracle Cloud.
Client Overview
The client is a multi-faceted utility company that has multiple business units. They own and operate many substations and transmission lines that form part of the Alberta interconnected electric system. They provide water and wastewater services to more than 85 communities and industrial sites across Western Canada. The client also operates in the US and serves more than 780,000 people across 42 communities and 18 counties in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, making it one of the largest private regulated water utilities in the U.S. Southwest.
Challenges
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The client needed to consolidate several Primavera P6 databases, both shared and standalone, to move to the Oracle Cloud.
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They needed the ability to manage appropriate levels of user access to the data for different business units once the databases were combined.
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Required the ability to support and execute the Capital Delivery Model (CDM) with Phases and Stages defined.
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Each business unit had different schedule requirements that were sometimes unique that needed to be maintained.
Results
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Emerald analyzed the different databases and proposed business rules and clean up recommendations for each business unit and then consolidated the P6 databases into one database.
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Business unit and user security rules were implemented to ensure data was secure and accessible to only the users who needed to access the schedules within each business unit.
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Implemented schedule templates for each business unit that followed the corporate CDM requirements and provided consistency across the company for data analysis and reporting.
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Analyzed each business unit requirement. Created naming conventions for individual requirements and consolidated shared attributes for corporate wide data.
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Emerald used their P6-Loader tool to make the necessary adjustments for security and data changes that allowed the implementation to take much less time than manually entering the new and updated data in P6.
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After going live, Emerald continues to provide Primavera support in the Oracle Cloud to the client adding new users and maintaining their environment.
on Tuesday, 02 May 2023.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn how P6-Loader helped a consultant manage their clients' Primavera P6 schedules.
P6-Loader saved client a lot of their valuable time
Client Overview
Client is a one person company that manages schedules for many different clients.
Challenges
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This client receives information on a regular basis for managing schedules for different companies. They needed an easier way to create resources and update rates in their P6 database to accommodate the creation of the schedules.
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Client receives spreadsheets with activities and resource assignments. They needed an easier way to get this information into P6 to develop schedules.
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They receive regular updates to existing schedules and required an easy method to change existing data in P6 to reflect changes made.
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The user needed to upgrade their current P6 environment to the latest version but had minimal technical experience to do so.
Results
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P6-Loader saved the client a large amount of time by allowing them to convert the data provided to them in spreadsheets to P6-Loader files to load in resource information.
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They can quickly and easily copy the information to a P6-Loader sheet to load the data into P6 without having to retype it manually.
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They are able to take information provided by their clients in spreadsheets to quickly update schedules using the P6-Loader.
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Emerald provided support to purchase and upgrade the client's current P6 environment.
on Friday, 21 April 2023.
Posted in Case Studies
Discover how this refinery used TAPS to improve the accuracy and speed of progress data entry during their turnarounds.
Turnaround progress entry more efficient and streamlined at the refinery
Client Overview
Client is an independent petroleum refiner and marketer that produces products like gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, and other specialty products.
Challenges
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The refinery needed a way to streamline data entry and schedule updating.
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Manual data entry of progress after each shift was taking two schedulers 4-5 hours to complete, which took time away from the analysis of their updated schedules.
Results
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Schedule updates take a matter of minutes using bar code scanners, rather than several hours.
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The time savings using TAPS freed up schedulers time to analyze the results, and provide better reports to management after each shift.
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P6 updates are more accurate
on Tuesday, 04 April 2023.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn how a leading chemical and plastics manufacturer used P6-Loader to boost the efficiency of their contractor updates in P6
Updates Made Easy for Contractors and Schedulers
Client Overview
Client is a leading producer of plastics and chemicals. They develop and manufacture materials for customers worldwide who produce consumer, industrial and packaging products.
Challenges
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Client had trouble getting contractor/scheduler updates for pre/post turnaround work
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They were upgrading to the latest version of Primavera P6
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They had unclean data that needed cleaning up
Results
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Client can easily deal with their contractor updates by using P6-Loader
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They can easily extract and update resource availability and reload to Primavera P6
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The P6-Loader eliminated manual input errors
Manufacturing Case Studies
on Thursday, 23 March 2023.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn how Power BI makes reporting much easier
Power BI makes reporting much easier
Client Overview
Client is an employee-owned, multi-disciplined engineering, planning, architectural, and environmental services firm in the United States. With nearly 700 employees spread between more than 30 offices in 12 states, they offer a wide range of services with a focus on aviation, construction, facilities design, federal, power, transportation, survey, and water. They sit in the top 150 of the Engineering News-Record's prestigious Top 500 Design Firms list, while Zweig Group has recognized client as a best firm to work for in the multi-discipline category for six consecutive years.
Challenges
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Compiling historical data for reporting was difficult and time consuming
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Reports were being created from many different sources, including Primavera P6 and Excel worksheets
Results
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EP-datawarehouse was deployed and snapshots are taken regularly to record historical information
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New reports are easier to create with the snapshotted data readily available in Power BI
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Previously created reports in Power BI were able to be utilized and improved with additional data provided by EP-datawarehouse
Transportation Case Studies
EP-datawarehouse Case Studies
on Tuesday, 14 March 2023.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn How Emerald Helped Client Migrate to the Oracle Cloud
Primavera Migration and Custom Primavera P6 Training
Client Overview
Client is a Canadian construction company. They have provided innovative construction solutions to complex infrastructure projects across Canada for over 100 years through various contracting modes including general contracting/bid-build, design-build, design-bid-build and public-private partnerships.
Challenges
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Needed to consolidate and migrate several databases, some residing on individual machines and on different versions of Primavera P6, to two databases located on the Oracle Cloud
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The P6 Client version interface was not simple to use for the skill level of the end-users
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They required a more formalized process between the Planning and Scheduling group managing the Primavera instances and the business as well as the IT group
Results
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Migrate all existing project schedules, filters and layouts from both the enterprise and local Primavera installs to the Cloud solution
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Implemented a sustainable Primavera QA/Training environment for the testing of enhancements and upgrades and to train users. Also implemented an archive strategy for closed projects.
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Updated and redesigned roles, profiles, EPS and OBS to business requirements using established best practices.
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Developed and delivered specific training documentation and class room sessions for administrators, power users, end users and IT.
Custom Training Case Studies
Primavera P6 Case Studies
on Thursday, 09 March 2023.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn about how Emerald helped with an Oracle Fusion integration
Client Overview
Large contractor in the Philippines needed a better way to manage costing and forecasting processes for dozens of multi-year projects in five different industries, including very large and critical infrastructure projects.
Challenges
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Having one consistent system across the business units, giving transparency to management on progress
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Getting forecasting done every week on all projects
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Managing manpower and critical equipment requirements from all jobsites for best performance
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Accurate reporting of progress to date and forecasting of estimates to complete on the project tasks
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Managing estimates and budgets with actual progress in the field to have a clear understanding of actual progress to date
Results
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Integrated Oracle Fusion Projects and Oracle Primavera P6
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Standardized strategy on project WBS, project task details, project resources, and project expenses
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All calculations and integrations accommodate hours and costs. Set up multi-currency reporting for ledger and project based reporting.
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Control of overheads and profits within P6, and control of resource rates to the project
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Automatic updating of forecasting integrated from actuals from Oracle Fusion, and then updates from the field in P6
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Time savings for actuals management and forecasting updating
Integrations Case Studies
Primavera P6 Case Studies
on Friday, 03 March 2023.
Posted in Case Studies
A more efficient way to handle getting project information into P6 with the P6-Loader
P6 Administrators are able to analyze and clean up global data
Client Overview
Client is Canada’s premier nuclear science and technology organization. They are a world leader in developing peaceful and innovative applications from nuclear technology through expertise in physics, metallurgy, chemistry, biology and engineering.
Challenges
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Schedulers were in need of a more efficient way to handle getting project information into P6
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They wanted to add resources, edit rates, and add and edit codes
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P6 administrators needed to clean up old data in P6 and manage their users in a more efficient way
Results
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P6-Loader was deployed to schedulers, which significantly reduced the time to create and edit project information in P6
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Administrators are able to analyze global data usage and clean up obsolete information using the Usage Sheets available in P6-Loader
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Users are being added much more efficiently, using copy and paste features in Excel to quickly set user permissions from already existing users
on Thursday, 23 February 2023.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn how P6-Calculator helped a client with automations and streamlining of processes
P6-Calculator made for easier forecasting
Client Overview
Client is a large contractor in the Philippines who deals with projects in many countries and many industries. The amount of data that is needed as a large contractor can be daunting without automations and streamlining of processes.
Challenges
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Gathering field data for progress to date and forecasting remaining to complete amounts
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Working in multiple currencies with clients in many countries
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Simplifying schedule development and calculations from budgets
Results
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Deployed P6-Calculator to assist with resource rates varying by project since P6 does not allow more than 5 different rates
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P6-Calculator allowed for different taxes, overhead and profits per resource for more flexibility in cost calculation
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Calculated values in multiple currencies for better transparency
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Complex calculations of budgets versus actuals and percent completes for easier forecasting in the field
P6-Calculator Case Studies
P6-Calculator News Articles
on Wednesday, 15 February 2023.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn how Emerald Associates helped a client upgrade from P6 v16 to v21
P6 upgraded without any interruptions in service
Client Overview
Client is one of the largest midstream oil and gas operators in Canada. The company services oil and gas producers in Western Canada and transports natural gas liquids to markets throughout North America.
Results
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Deploy a test server for version 21
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Migrate project data into the new version 21 server
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Use P6-Loader to help cleanup old versions
Primavera P6 Case Studies
on Tuesday, 14 February 2023.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn how P6-Loader helped client cleanup their P6 environment
Philippine contractor uses P6-Loader to load from estimating into Primavera P6
Client Overview
Client is a large contractor in the Philippines. They wanted to be able to manage costs once a project was won, so a consistent coding structure across estimating, scheduling, cost controls and accounting was critical. However, the level of detail that each works with can vary greatly. Having a clear way of working all these systems together in an integrated manner can save a lot of time and money to the contractor and enhance their bottom line.
Challenges
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Building a consistent structure for all costing to be done from estimating to accounting
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Consistent resources, expenses, and cost accounts to ensure matching across the different project data and for ongoing performance measurement
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Ongoing loading from estimating into Primavera P6 via Excel to speed up the process for project controls
Results
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Reworked master P6 resource dictionary to cleanup labour, equipment and material resources for standardization
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Ongoing loading from estimating for task level resources and expenses to bring a consistent and repeatable approach to estimating
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Cleanup of activity coding to ensure phase, area, and discipline type reporting could be done with ease
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Multi-currency development and data tracking using P6-Loader
Primavera P6 Case Studies
on Friday, 10 February 2023.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn how Emerald helped a client clean up and upgrade their Primavera P6 database before moving to the Cloud.
Client moved from P6v16 on-premise to P6 v22 in the Cloud
Client Overview
Client is a worldwide supplier of products and services to the global power generation and gas production industry and is based in Calgary, Alberta.
Challenges
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Clean up and upgrade Primavera P6 database from P6 v16 on-premise to P6 v22 in the Cloud.
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Additionally, a standalone database was identified to be incorporated in the upgrade.
Results
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The agreed database clean up and incorporation of the second database was carried out. The database was then upgraded and loaded to the cloud.
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In addition to the clean-up and upgrade, training on the new version of P6 was presented.
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Emerald used P6-Loader as a service to identify activity codes and UDFs currently not assigned to any activity IDs to facilitate dictionary cleanup.
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The P6-Loader was also used to move schedule files and reformat EPS and OBS structure.
From Our Customer
Emerald was an excellent partner on our project. Would look forward to working with them again.
Primavera P6 Case Studies
on Thursday, 09 February 2023.
Posted in Case Studies