Construction and P3ec - Is it the answer?

Sigfredo Rex de leon



I think if the company is one man band, then you will not notice the advantages. And I explain several times in this forum that usually the planner is not benefit by the product, its the management who will be benefited.



Alex

Hi Paul,



It has been months, maybe years that this topic has been discussed in this thread. You can browse on the previous threads which has the same topics but different titles. I believe the point by P3ec enthusiasts has not really convinced seasoned P3 users to just shift to this latest "project management product".



It may be interesting to note why. Like me, I’ve been using P3ec for two years now, but i can not convinced myself that it is really better than P3. For want of a better word, let me say it’s fairly the same. So people would say, why would you shift to something which you already know.



Just my personal opinion.

Paul any comments on your P3e experience.

Do you love it?

Are you ready to discard P3 and move to P3e?

I’m working in the Petro Chemical business as Consultant and Master Planner for TA’s in Europe for a large petro chemical company (hired by them).

We started an implementation of Finest Hour in ’93 and progressed from that. Now I’m implementing P3 3.1 as a scheduling tool for daily/routine maintenance, connected (with a flexible tool) to SAP. We interface with SAP twice a day.



The US side of this company is using P3e and a tailor made interface to SAP. This tailor made tool downloads all workorder changes in SAP in the last hour, every hour. The planners only update their project once a week!!!!

Europe, with P3 is updating their project every hour!



Why? P3e, maybe due to the setup of it, is proving to be an overlkill for both routine maintnance and Turn-Arounds. each plant has it’s own resource pool, so no use in using one big resource pool.



But CEO’s can see costs globaly I hear you say. Yeah, right. Each plant has to make a budget and report on that budget using SAP, how they use that budget, planning wise is not interesting to the CEO.



With P3 3.1 we use one main project and sub-projects for each Main Planner Group and it works just the way we want. I shiver at the tought of switching to P3e/c.



Still I’m open to the fact that we all need to progress and "go with the flow" and when I get a chance, I would love to run a shadow project in P3e/c.



Meanwhile, we go with "Never change a winning team". P3 3.1 is a winner for us.



Just my two cents.

.mk

FYI Primavera no longer deliver any paper manual. Even you buy the product. With extra A$150 then they will provide it.



Back to the question of change it to P3e/c or not. I guess if you using it for analysis P3 projects, it will involve more steps to import and exporting projects. Especially exporting back to P3. You will lost the original project set up. I do suggest you keep two copy of the software. P3 and P3e or e/c or teamplay and get familiar with the tool. Because sooner or later, Entrepris scheduling software will storm the market and you will find yourself behind everyone foot steps.



Imagine that when lots of IT projects that need their P3e programme to be analysis. Its a huge market waiting to explore. Few years ago, when IT industry realise project management is important, who they turn to - construction industry, engineers, project managers. Same thing will happen when they need someone handle their claims.



In Australia, at the moment this is now evolving not only IT industry, even banks using P3e, and seeking professional planner and project managers from construction industry. And social security government department is using P3e. You will ask the question WHY?



A planner/project manager will not see the reasons. Because their responsibility is to deliver the project on time on budget who cares about the corporate stratgy, corporate resource utilisation, return on investment. By introduction of a new corporate planning software will cost them time to learn, will explose their performance, attract unnecessary attention, and why should the project manager have to bare with the additional time and cost. However, if you are the CEO, You want to know the whole company perform. How much each group of projects spends. What is the forecast monthly expenditures. If you are the CFO you want to know next few month expected expenditure and the best way to finance the projects. You dont want too much money sitting in the pot not earning interest. And thats the greatest challenge that I face every time when I introduce the system to a company. Existing Project manager and planners. They focus on their projects only. And usually they had a existing process and tools to handle the project. Why change?

Noted.

My understanding to Primavera, they will not release and trial package until request, that’s why no stock in Hongkong. Further the guy is authorized dealer only, not Primavera Office.

So the cost is the delivery charge to HK. If you want a cheaper way, you may just request the guy install the software without the pack. The pack is quite heavy since it has CDs and paper menus.

Further, no cost invloved, only need some time for shipment from States or from UK.



The guy incharge is on leave and his colleagues may take care the business.

Paul, why not contact Primavera Authorized Dealer in Hongkong? They’ll arrange the trail version for you.

Just try to simulate in P3e what you very easily can do within P3.



Keep hundreds of schedules to be compared, each with a separate pool of resources, as the Contractors vary the same as needed, either for the good or for Claim purposes. Add and remove jobs from the database with its respective resource pools. Please remember, your procedures must be able to be sustained in court.



What you do, we must do it as the Owner’s representative.



I am still looking for a practical way of doing this. Your approach might prove very useful to us. Please keep it simple.



In response to your question I don’t believe P3e is appropriate for 90% of construction businesses (yes 90%, it is not a coincidence), if you do not need enterprise stuff, it might prove annoying, it would be better to look elsewhere. I am not saying that for the remaining 10% P3e is necessarily good.



As a claim consultant would you present in court, schedules under separate contracts, sharing a common pool of resources?



If I tell you hundreds of reasons why I don’t like P3e others will tell hundreds of reasons why they like it.



I DARE YOU TO MAKE A FULL SCALE TEST RUN ON IT AND DECIDE BY YOURSELF.



Because of your background I would like to hear your comments after your own evaluation.



Good luck.