Modern Contractor Solutions January 2025 - 25

Quality Checker feature, which assigns a
letter grade for overall schedule quality.
" If a scheduler received a B minus on their
schedule, they would focus on driving their
grade up to an A, " he says. " Plus, they would
try to better understand the grading system,
how each of the different schedule elements
was being weighted. "
" BIG PICTURE " PERSPECTIVE
Studying the results churned out from the
Quality Checker has helped to dramatically
sharpen the schedulers' skill sets. Yet while
Howell encourages this quest for grade
improvement, he wants SmartPM users to
adopt a " big picture " perspective about the
platform. " It's great that they're looking at
the schedule quality, " he says. " But if they
dig deeper, they'll see that the schedule can
provide many more insights. I encourage them
to look at how much compression they've got
in their schedule, look at the changes that are
taking place, and see if there are any trends.
Try to determine if the data is warning about
any overruns or delays. "
SmartPM is also integrated directly with
STO West's BA tool, which displays a myriad
of metrics related to each project's budget,
safety, RFIs, and submittal logs.
ACHIEVING ROI
Implementing SmartPM for Windows Analysis
led STO West to significant cost and time
savings. Traditionally, conducting this analysis
manually would have required an estimated
40 hours of dedicated effort spread over two
weeks. Based on their standard hourly rates,
this manual process would have incurred
approximately $6,000 in labor costs.
In contrast, with Smart PM, the analysis
was completed in just two hours. This single
analysis saved the $6,000 in labor costs and
shortened the completion time from two
weeks to less than a day.
USEFUL LEGAL TOOL
Occasionally, there is a legal dispute between
the company and a project owner, and having
a tool like SmartPM on his side is a major
plus. Thankfully, Howell hasn't had to call
on SmartPM very often. But there is one
particular Layton project on which it definitely
came in handy. " The project owner was
focused on a metric called 'Commitments
Met,' " he recalls. " That is, out of all the
activities we were supposed to start since the
previous month's update, what percentage
did we actually start? "
According to the consultant's calculations,
Layton hadn't started a whopping 85 percent
of those activities. Layton's own analysis
showed essentially the same figure. However,
using SmartPM, Howell tried to dig deeper
into the reasons for the low score. The
platform allowed Howell to filter and sort
all the critical path (or near critical path)
activities. " I was able to show the consultant
that we didn't hit those dates because of all
the owner delays, " he explains.
for more information
For more, visit www.smartpm.com.
www.mcsmag.com
JANUARY 2025
25
http://www.smartpm.com https://emarsinc.com/ http://www.mcsmag.com
Modern Contractor Solutions January 2025

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