Owners Taking Charge of their Capital Program Through OPMIS-ROI 2 Yrs.

For those that are considering OPMIS, the following power point and webinar highlights why it is important for Owners to understand the benefits of an Owner's PMIS and how it can improve their construction departments effectiveness.  Since our OPMIS has allowed us to become paperless, I have come to the conclusion that our OPMIS has easily resulted in an ROI of 2 years since we would have hired 2-3 administrative assistants just to help us with all the filing and paperwork that the current projects would have generated.  

OPMIS has really been an amazing improvement to our ability to manage our construction program and hope other Owners can take advantage of this new technology and model where the Owner is the host of the PMIS.   

Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions. 

OPMIS Presentation Powerpoint

OPMIS Webinar on Youtube.

Project Portfolio Management for the Building Owner

Authors - Alexia Nalewaik, CCE MRICS
Jeffrey Witt, CPA CIA MCSE CFE

Web-based project management systems have been available for at least 13 years. Over that time, there has been a great deal of differentiation across the different platforms available, so much so that facility owner/operators managing large capital programs now have the option of taking a more proactive approach in selecting systems that focus on their unique and specific needs in terms of project controls, process automation, information management, and reporting.

One of the drivers for owners implementing these solutions is the availability of systems that are easier to deploy, and require lower up-front investments than traditional systems. In the past, it didn't make sense for an owner to go through the pain of rolling out a complicated system that required hardware installation and configuration, third-party software licenses, maintenance, support, and constant development efforts to ensure the maintain the system and configure it to meet their business needs, assuming the system did what it was supposed to once installed. Under these circumstances, the contractor usually provided an adequate project information management system, with the owner taking a more reactive approach in tracking (vs. managing) this data. However, once the project was complete, the owner was left with a compilation of raw data that was difficult to use for planning future projects, or for analyzing performance improvements.

The recent Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) success of companies like Salesforce.com has allayed fears that a thin-client system could not provide enterprise features. This success has perhaps signaled a change in the Capital Program Management space as more and more owner-organizations are deploying software. These systems offer capabilities that enable the owner to have greater control over their program's cost, schedule, and scope. This wave has been building momentum for some time.

For instance, The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC)
went live with the first online project management and collaboration site
back in 1996, but widespread owner adoption is a more recent development.

Also, because these systems are available on a subscription basis, if the
owner does not get value they can stop subscribing. The result is vendors have to "earn their keep daily" forcing them to focus on the owner's success, decreasing the risk for the owner.

Looking at Data Strategically for Continuous Process Improvement
There are many benefits for the owner associated with implementing an
owner-centric solution vs. using a contractor's tool. Having their own
system in place allows Owners to track and measure historical vendor
performance, budget data, actual results, schedule information, changes
and change management, design information, claim information, and many other sets of information that can be used to continuously improve how future projects are managed, while minimizing risk for the owner. Today web-based systems provide owners the opportunity to strategically manage their own project data and offer just the right combination of "out of the box" functionality with customizable tools to quickly tailor the system to fit their organization's information management needs (KPI tracking, reporting). These systems are designed to take the lessons learned on current and past projects and apply them to future projects.

Risk from the Owner's Point of View
Regardless of how responsibility is shared in a project, owners argue that they bear the ultimate risk for the execution of new projects. Their reasons are varied: they write the checks for overruns; they feel the pain of delays in the form of lost revenue opportunity; and they pay the additional costs of a facility built for project profitability rather than long-term operating efficiency. Everyone but the lawyers will agree that litigation won't recover these costs.

From this point of view, mitigating capital project risks requires a project management approach that mandates the building owner's priorities. Easier said than done: any major project includes contractors, architects, engineers and subs with competing interests and plenty of opportunity for miscommunication. How then, can building owners assert control and ensure all of these constituents are working in the best interest of the owner?

For more information on this topic, please visit: e-builder

Design Economics: Construction Management Software

19 January 2012

In times of economic uncertainty modern construction management software can be vital for the success of a project. Elisabeth Fischer discovers how the latest technology, including workflow and mobile software, and the concept of connected data can deliver design jobs on time and under budget.
Technology is paramount when it comes to managing construction projects today. The days of sharing cumbersome hard copy, spreadsheets and blueprints have long passed and been replaced by cutting-edge software and services.


The slogan here is 'the simpler, the better' and in times of persistently rising material costs the use of modern construction management software can be the crucial factor for the viability of a project.


Undoubtedly, the rise of the internet has made the overall planning, coordination and control of projects from inception to completion easier than ever before.

Read the full article here:Design-Build Network

Value of PMIS by Charles Thompsen

"A PMIS provides information so the team has a common understanding of the facts: a prerequisite for collaboration.  It's the cheapest way to gather information because it's only done once.  And it's the most reliable way to host information because many eyes scrutinize centralized data and mistakes are most likely to be found and corrected.  It the first line of defence against political against political or legal attack. It's clear window into the project that leaders can use instead of relying on delayed or biased reports filtered though layers of management.  It improves performance because it measures it; it's a report card for both team members and management.  And most important, it educates the team and makes better managers it tells a true stories."


At UTSW, the VP of Facilities Management, the COO, Assistant VP of Business Affairs and his assistant have access to the PMIS software.  We also provided access to our internal and external auditor .  Our goal is to make the projects and our department transparent and make project related information readily available to administration. 

Please use the following link to view the entire article.
OPMIS Publications

PMIS by Charles Thomsen

The Program Management Information System written by a Charles Thomsen provides a good overview, benefits and challenges in implementing a PMIS.  Below is the link to the article. 

PMIS by Charles Thomsen

PMIS: An emperical study of their impact on project managers and project success

Research confirms that PMIS can be an important tool to improve project managers effeciency and effectivenes. Organizations that do not have a PMIS for managing their construction program should seriously consider one.  But, becareful with selecting the right one.  Research also confirms that selecting the wrong one can have the opposite effect on your construction program and project managers besides being a waste of money. 

".......the result of this research show that the use of project management information system is in fact advantageous to project managers.  Improvements in effectiveness and efficiency in managerial tasks were obseverd here in terms ofbetter project planning, scheduling, monitoring, and control.  Improvements in productivity were also observed in terms of timelier decision-making. Advantages obtained from PMIS use are not limited to individual performance but also include project performance.  These systems were found to have direct impacts on project success, as they constribute to improving budget control and meeting project deadlines as well as fullfilling techincal specificatons.  One can therefore conclude that PMIS make a significant contribution to project success and should continue tobe the object of project managment research."

Louis Raymond, Fracois ergeron, International Journal of Project Management, June 7, 2007.

Crate & Barrel Reduces Construction Cost with OPMIS

At the COAA National Conference in Las Vegas, John Moebes of Crate & Barrel did a fantatsic job with showing us how Crate & Barrel has reduced their construction "Transaction Costs" by using their Owner's PMIS and BIM.  Projectmate is the software that Crate & Barrel uses for centralizing all their program management information.  It was great to hear how they have been able to reduce their construction cost and that the retail industry also believes that mandating the use of an Owner's PMIS is the most effective way to manage their construction program. The link to the Crate & Barrel OPMIS presentation portion is listed below.

Lean It or Leave It! How Crate & Barrel Reduces Transaction Costs (OPMIS Presentation Portion)

OPMIS Examples at UTSW & Other Documents

I have reorganized the OPMIS reference files and added a couple of more UTSW OPMIS examples which include:

• OPMIS Forms
• OPMIS project requirements specifications
• OPMIS Publication
• Use of OPMIS for BIM files presentation
• OPMIS at UTSW presentation
• and a couple of more documents.

To see the documents, please click on the link below.

Owner's PMIS Reference Library 

My goal is to use this public folder to share UTSW's PMIS examples and hope that other Owners will e-mail me their examples so that I can post in the folder and share with others via the blog.    To send me your examples or best practices to share with other Owners, please e-mail them to the following e-mail address.  Being able to share with each other our best practices and examples should benefit all of us.  

Owners_PMIS_Examples@docs.e-builder.net

Charles Thomsen-Most Important Aspect of a Good PMIS

"The most important aspect of a good PMIS is that it improves people. It makes better managers. There's so much going on in a design and construction program that someone can always find examples of events to win political arguments or support individual bias rather than search for truth. But a PMIS tells true stories and reports facts agains goals. The grade cards are objective. The report is a window into project experience. The team gets smarter."

Charles Thomsen FAIA FCMAA

Program Management 2.0: Concepts and Strategies for Managing Capital Building Programs-Revised

OPMIS Blog Library

The following link provides access to the OPMIS Blog Library which includes two COAA presentation on how UTSW CIP is using our PMIS for BIM and managing projects.  I will use this link to continue to upload related documents and examples that other Owner's CIP departments may find useful.  I also included this link on the right under list of links for easy access.  I will continue to add documents in the future that I believe could be helpful to other Owner's CIP departments.

OCIP-PMIS Blog Reference Library