Asset and Work Management Software

 

Asset and Work Management Software

An Adoption Story

 

Innovation is the current business buzz word. Companies that fail to innovate are destined to fall behind and disappear from the scene. Witness the recent demise of the brick and mortar retail industry. Legendary American companies like Sears, JC Penny, Macy’s, and Woolworth’s that ushered in the age of the giant corporate retailer are fighting for their lives against the innovative online onslaught of Amazon and its clones. It’s David and Goliath. The old school giants are no match for the innovative start-ups.

Innovation in the Construction Industry

Construction is no exception. Owners and contractors that have had the foresight and the wherewithal to adopt innovative construction technologies are leading the competitive field. Construction companies, even large legacy contractors, who have been stubborn or slow to adopt new construction technology are falling behind. And the operative phrase is “the wherewithal to adopt”. 

 

Adoption Hurdles

 

The fundamental technological innovation in the construction industry has been the adoption of enterprise Internet Technology (IT) to advance efficiency, speed, and quality control. However, even this innovation has been slow to take hold.

 

The Standish Group has compiled IT projects for three decades and their recent data shows:

  • 46% of projects are over-budget, over-schedule, and offer fewer features than specified.
  • 26% are cancelled at some point or not used after being implemented.

A Geneca study reported:

  • 75% admitted their projects were either “always” or “usually” “doomed” right from the start.
  • 61% take longer than anticipated and 57% are not considered a success.
  • 80% admit they spend at least halftheir time on rework, which is the result of unclear objectives, confusion of roles and responsibilities, and lack of stakeholder involvement.

McKinsey and University of Oxford studied 5,400 IT projects:

  • 17% reported a shortfall in benefits achieved vs. the original plan.
  • 66% reported cost overruns and 33% reported schedule overruns.
  • 17% reported that IT projects perform so poorly that they threaten the very existence of the company.

A Case Study in Successful Adoption

 

The City of Rochester, Minnesota used Simplar’s XPD process to select an IT services provider to successfully implement an enterprise based, map-centric work and asset management system. With a total budget of more than $550,000 for software and hardware installation, integration, and data migration, the new system allows the city to efficiently manage their growing public infrastructure.

 

How Simplar Does – IT

  • The primary goal of the best valueXPD™ approach is to clearly differentiate expert vendors from their competitors based upon price & performance criteria.
  • What are the best criteria to differentiate vendor expertise? The data is clear: project performance is primarily driven by the capability of key individual project team members and their ability to identify, prioritize, and minimize project risk.
  • Streamlined criteria include vendor proposals that (1) precisely identify their project-specific capability, (2) identify and prioritize key project risks and associated solution strategies, and (3) assess any value-added options that are offered. A process for interviewing each vendor’s key team members is normally included, along with data-driven past performance information on those individuals and the vendor firm in general.
  • A key principle underlying best value procurement is that it is the responsibility of each vendor to differentiate themselves from their competition.
  • In order to facilitate a fair and transparent procurement process, a blind evaluation procedure is utilized where vendor proposals and pricing components do not contain any identifying information.

Three Cautions

 

  1. The Statement of Work (SOW) developed by the Owner is extremely important.
  2. Traditional IT project software demonstrations are highly ineffective and can even be misleading.
  3. The RFP and procurement processes are just the first steps.  Contracting, planning, implementing, and organizational adoption are all important considerations too.

 

And Remember

 

  • You cannot wait to innovate.
  • Don’t become Blockbuster.
  • The time is now.
  • You cannot do it alone.
  • It is not the technology.
  • It is the people and the process.
  • Contact the Simplar Institute