Learn how the PCM-Archiver helped client extract data out of PCM
Bank in Kuwait used PCM-Archiver to extract all record data, attachments, and PDFs from PCM
Written by Dan MacMillan
Client Overview
Client is the largest financial institution in Kuwait. Their Primavera Contract Management server needed to be taken offline, so PCM-Archiver was used to archive the data.
Challenges
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Primavera Contract Management server must be taken offline, as it's been unsupported for years and presents an unacceptable security risk, but it has information that must be kept.
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The client has specific requirements for the naming conventions of the extracted documents.
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Information was still being added to Primavera Contract Management while some projects were being closed out.
Results
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PCM-Archiver extracted all record data, attachments, and PDFs of the default form into an archive location on the filesystem that doesn't need Primavera Contract Management, or any other special software, to access.
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PCM-Archiver has a very flexible naming engine that was configured to use the names wanted by the client.
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An incremental mode was added to PCM-Archiver that would allow archiving new documents only to accommodate the ongoing projects.
PCM-Archiver Case Studies
PCM-Archiver News Articles
on Tuesday, 23 August 2022.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn how the PCM-Archiver helped client extract data out of PCM
Energy company used PCM-Archiver to extract data, attachments, and PDFs from PCM
Written by Dan MacMillan
Client Overview
Client is a subsidiary of Michigan’s largest electric and natural gas utility, serving 6.8 million of the state’s 10 million residents.
Challenges
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Want to sunset Primavera Contract Management, which has been unsupported for years and has security issues, but it has information that's crucial to keep for legal reasons.
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Need to keep custom field data.
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Need to know who attached files, and when, in case it's needed for future dispute resolution.
Results
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PCM-Archiver extracted all record data, attachments, and PDFs of the default form into an archive location on the filesystem that doesn't need Primavera Contract Management, or any other special software, to access.
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PCM-Archiver extracted an Excel spreadsheet for each document that includes custom fields, as well as all other fields, on both the header and line item levels.
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PCM-Archiver included a tab in the extracted spreadsheet for each document with attachments that includes information about who attached each file and when.
PCM-Archiver Case Studies
PCM-Archiver News Articles
on Tuesday, 16 August 2022.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn how P6-Scrubber can edit P6 XERs, XMLs and MSP XMLs
P6-Scrubber used to edit and remove unwanted data prior to import
Client Overview
This State Department of Transportation is a governmental agency that constructs, maintains, and regulates the use of transportation infrastructure. It is responsible for more than 20,000 lane-miles of roadway, nearly 3,000 vehicular bridges and 524 other structures. This infrastructure includes rail lines, state highways, state ferries (considered part of the highway system) and state airports.
Challenges
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Users were in need of a faster, easier way to remove or remap data from contractor XERs and XMLs prior to importing to P6.
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Users required a fast way to prefix or remove roles in their XERs and XMLs.
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Microsoft Project XMLs are provided by contractors. They wanted to also have the ability to edit these files prior to importing them into their P6 database.
Results
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Deployed P6-Scrubber to facilitate the editing of XER and XML files.
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Quick role prefixing or removing roles was needed, so Emerald added that option to the Simple Scrub module in P6-Scrubber.
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MSP XML file scrubbing was added to the P6-Scrubber tool to facilitate the editing of these files.
Transportation Case Studies
P6-Scrubber News Articles
on Monday, 08 August 2022.
Posted in Case Studies
Custom checks created in P6-QA helped client
Helping Client Users Self-Monitor Schedule Quality
Written by Sue Hopkins
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 the client as a best firm to work for in the multi-discipline category for six consecutive years.
Challenges
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Needed a solution to coach their client users on scheduling best practices
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Users required a way to monitor the quality of their schedules while creating schedules, as well as when they were in-flight
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A specific set of quality checks were needed based on contract requirements and general quality guidelines
Results
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Emerald Associates built additional checks and a custom report focusing on what was of importance to their team
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P6-QA deployed on all databases to monitor project quality using out-of-the-box functions and customized checks
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The DOT users are able to self-monitor their schedules without constant assistance from the firm saving countless hours of consulting time
Transportation Case Studies
on Monday, 11 July 2022.
Posted in Case Studies
Integrations Between Zoho, P6, and QuickBooks
Projects, WBS, Tasks, and Resources Integrated with Ease
Written by Nicole Jardin
Client Overview
Consulting firm that supports large client integration projects, software development, and ongoing hosting and support needed a way to integrate ZOHO CRM, ZOHO Projects, ZOHO Desk and Primavera P6.
Challenges
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Tracking software tools development in ZOHO Projects and client tickets from ZOHO Desk to ensure all deliverables are managed and prioritized with larger client projects
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Integrate with P6 and Team Member for timesheets that are integrated with role rates and QuickBooks for invoicing
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Statusing tickets in ZOHO Desk and issues in ZOHO Projects and having them update P6 tasks quickly for weekly client reporting
Results
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Easily create projects in P6 from ZOHO Projects that land in the right EPS and have project codes critical for integrating to QuickBooks for accounting
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Easily add in tasks and resource load the tasks to tie to roles and role rates in QuickBooks
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Update tasks in ZOHO projects and integrate to P6 so that timesheets in Team Member can be updated and integrated into QuickBooks
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Use TaskList Templates in ZOHO Projects to control the roles assigned in P6 for easier invoicing to clients
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Updates for statuses and percent completes from ZOHO Projects integrated into P6
Integrations Case Studies
on Wednesday, 22 September 2021.
Posted in Case Studies
P6-QA helped to quickly review and critique a 600 million dollar project schedule
Identified Leads, Lags, and Constraints in a P6 Schedule
Client Overview
When running a large, multi-use building project in the middle of New York City, planning and scheduling is not a nice to have. As a specialty developer, having a P6 scheduling expert is a luxury the project could not afford. So P6-QA SaaS was a great fit for a quick review and critique of the 600 million dollar project schedule.
Challenges
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Reviewing an 8,000+ activity schedule when you do not have a P6 scheduling export on the team
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Giving critique on the critical path and the project workflow by discipline
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Understanding the real gaps in the schedule and how to discuss the improvements needed in an intelligent manner
Results
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In less than 2 hours, the P6-QA tool ran and gave the open ends
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In less than 2 hours, P6-QA helped with the explanation and write-up of the critical path
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Identified leads, lags, and constraints and reported on them in minutes
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The coding structure required to see the disciplines and key building areas tied to major project turnover milestones for the retail space, the hotel space, and the condominium towers was achieved with little pre-knowledge of the project
on Wednesday, 22 September 2021.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn how the PCM-Archiver helped a client with PCM data extraction.
PCM-Archiver Extracted Project Documents from PCM in Days Rather Than Weeks
Client Overview
Client used Primavera Contract Management on several large, multi-year transportation projects with the Department of Transportation of Connecticut. Part of the contract deliverables was all the project documentation.
Challenges
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Delivering the project paperwork to the client was a contract commitment and needed to be performed
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Extracting all the project documents from PCM would take weeks to do manually
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Thousands of documents were in each project
Results
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Had to work through a few field size issues on the extracts and clashing with Windows limitations
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Extracted thousands of documents in a few days
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Delivered a complete zip package to the client that does not depend on any specific software
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Created a new form in PCM to include some important information that was excluded from the existing forms.
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Restored customer data into a PCM environment constructed specifically for archiving as the client's environment was offline and could not be recovered.
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Modified PCM Archiver to include Letters.
PCM-Archiver Case Studies
PCM-Archiver News Articles
on Thursday, 02 September 2021.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn how the PCM-Archiver helped client extract data out of PCM
In a few weeks, all data was moved to a shared cloud
Written by Nicole Jardin
Client Overview
Client is a large contractor that used PCM for many years. They have an old server with projects still on it that they wanted to decommission, so they reached out to get PCM-Archiver SaaS to extract these projects and put them into their cloud storage for the required 7 year financial auditing requirements.
Challenges
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Have old projects in PCM that need to stay live for 7 years for financial auditing
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Have not used the server for a few years and cannot remember how to use it
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Want to keep data more readily available
Results
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After a few technical challenges to start, we were able to archive all the projects in one day
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Team can easily access information - no need to be a PCM Expert
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Can put the files into the cloud common repository
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They were able to turn off an old Windows server
PCM-Archiver Case Studies
PCM-Archiver News Articles
on Monday, 30 August 2021.
Posted in Case Studies
P6-Auditor helped a large oil company recover from P6 data loss
Report on P6 Data Changes
Client Overview
Client is a Canadian integrated energy company that specializes in the production of synthetic crude from the oil sands.
Challenges
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Resources and code dictionaries were being incorrectly modified in the P6 database
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Projects were being removed from the database
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EPS nodes were being moved out of place
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Uncertainty about how their licenses were being allocated across multiple databases
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Identify users who needed training and guidance on how to properly use P6
Results
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Focus training on users who needed it
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Determine active users in P6 and license distribution
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When a deletion of activity code types occurred, company was able to recover quickly from the data loss
on Tuesday, 27 July 2021.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn how Emerald's tools are enhancing this Engineering Consulting Company's use of P6
P6-Loader and P6-Auditor provide the means to Enhance P6 Usage
Written by Sue Hopkins
Client Overview
Power Engineers is a global consulting engineering firm that offers complete and multi-discipline engineering, architecture and program management services.
Challenges
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Power Engineers needed a way to easily administer multiple P6 databases and also update many projects on each update cycle.
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Administration challenges were maintaining users and user profiles, and global data like activity codes.
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On the updating side, updating actual costs and maintaining cross project relationships between contractor and owner schedules after each update cycle was really time consuming and error prone.
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Administrators needed an effective way to view audit information in multiple databases for their large user base.
Results
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One administrator is able to handle all user and codes maintenance for 10+ databases.
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P6-Loader allows the team to continue to cost load much more quickly each month.
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Handling cross project relationships is much less error prone now after receiving XERs from contractors on each update; it is a simple extract logic, change the project reference and reload!
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The project controls team is able to tackle problems that they could not prior.
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P6-Auditor has allowed them to keep a finger on the pulse of their schedules and gives them a means for disaster recovery.
From Our Customer
"P6-Loader enables me to do things that I wouldn't otherwise be able to do. It facilitates the ability to tackle problems that the infrastructure doesn't support. P6-Loader has been a quality and service enhancement."
on Monday, 28 June 2021.
Posted in Case Studies
Learn how a large engineering firm moved to the Emerald Cloud.
Emerald Cloud, Tools and Services - A Winning Combo
Written by Sue Hopkins
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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Client was looking for an alternative to the Oracle Cloud for them and the Department of Transportation (DOT) they were working with.
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The Program Controls manager wanted faster response time on support tickets for four databases.
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Needed a reliable environment for 80+ DOT users to fulfill their contract commitments.
Results
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Moved hosting of four databases to the Emerald Cloud.
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Decreased supported response time from days to hours
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Able to bring their DOT client online with their environment in less than two months, including upgrade of P6 and rollout of new business processes.
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Added a second DOT client to Emerald's hosting environment two years later.
Transportation Case Studies
EP-datawarehouse Case Studies
P6-Calculator Case Studies
P6-Scrubber News Articles
P6-Reporter News Articles
on Thursday, 17 June 2021.
Posted in Case Studies
One refinery using TAPS and P6-Loader saw great improvements in speed and accuracy when working with P6 data that the company rolled out the tools to all refineries.
Simplify the STO process from beginning to end
Client Overview
Client is an oil and gas company with a focus in refining and marketing petroleum products, processing natural gas and gas liquids, and manufacturing petrochemicals, polymers, and plastics.
Challenges
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The Planners wanted to add information to their schedules in an easy way using information provided in spreadsheets.
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The Washington state refinery was seeking to simplify and accelerate the input of progress.
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The contracted master scheduler at the Ferndale Refinery had used P6-Loader and TAPS before and knew the tools would simplify their STO processes.
Results
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TAPS was initially used at the Ferndale Refinery and saved so much time, it is used on turnarounds at all the company’s refineries now.
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After using P6-Loader at the Ferndale refinery, the tool was purchased company-wide for use with all P6 databases.
on Thursday, 17 June 2021.
Posted in Case Studies
TAPS helped turnarounds run smoother and with less stress.
Scanning made all the difference
Client Overview
As an international integrated Oil and Gas organization from Vienna, Austria, large turnaround projects are second nature. However, getting updates and forecasting done is still a challenge.
Challenges
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Updating thousands of activities within 2 hours of shift change.
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Ensuring a simple forecasting at the end of the shift to get the next crew lead to status this to complete.
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Knowing what inspections were needed.
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Getting the crews to the right place for efficiency.
Results
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The New Zealand group got TAPS at the recommendation of the Engineering leads, and this has been great for them. With TAPS, the updating process was much more smooth and painless.
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The team had a lot less stress, and reporting was simplified.
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Accurate forecasting went up significantly.
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The turnarounds have been smoother on the impact analysis.
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Better mitigation of work area access.
on Tuesday, 08 June 2021.
Posted in Case Studies
Discover how Suncor Energy harnessed Emerald Associates' TAPS to reduce their scheduling costs while boosting their speed.
TAPS makes updating faster and easier
Client Overview
Suncor Energy is a Canadian integrated energy company based in Calgary, Alberta. It specializes in the production of synthetic crude from the oil sands.
Challenges
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Updating schedules was incredibly slow
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Updating schedules was inaccurate
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The schedulers they had to hire were expensive and in high-demand
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Early shifts were needed to get updates in on time
Results
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3x faster progress entry into schedule
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Updating schedules was much more accurate and efficient when the human component was taken out
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Less skilled resources could be used - can use entry clerks and foremen instead of the more expensive schedulers
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A lot of money was saved
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Decided to implement TAPS throughout their multiple refineries
From Our Customer
“We have used this system for progressing Primavera scheduled activities for three turnarounds now, and I and everyone who has used it for updating are most favorably impressed with the speed and accuracy achieved. What used to take an experienced user 1½ to 2 hours to update manually, can now be done in ½ to ¾ of an hour and can be done accurately by a less experienced user.”
on Monday, 31 May 2021.
Posted in Case Studies
Safran Risk is selected for it's robust cost and schedule integration.
EEI Corporation Implements Safran Risk for Their Team
Client Overview
EEI Corporation is recognized as one of the leading construction companies in the Philippines, known for the quality of its work and the excellence of its workforce. It has the broadest range of construction and engineering services, with expertise in the construction of large-scale heavy and light industrial projects, infrastructure, and property development projects all over the world.
Over the years, EEI has built several power plants, refineries, petrochemical plants, cement plants, mining facilities, industrial plants, buildings, schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, seaports, airports, railways, water distribution stations, flood control systems, steel structures and modular assemblies.
Challenges
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Need Risk Analysis capability
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Need integrated cost and schedule risk analysis
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Training of users needed to be done remotely due to COVID-19
Results
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Implemented OPRA (Oracle Primavera Risk Analysis) then upgraded to Safran Risk
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Safran Risk has robust cost/schedule integration
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Emerald ran Safran Risk online training for the users
From Our Customer
"Speaking on behalf of my team, Safran is really an exceptional product - it is a very powerful and useful tool for us. As for Ian [Nicholson], he is among the best that we've had...a knowledgeable planner, risk analyst and Safran operator."
on Sunday, 16 May 2021.
Posted in Case Studies