A New View to Project Management

April 29, 2008 By: Mary Jo Wagner

Over the past few years, traditional business has steadily transitioned from "p" business to "e" business, shredding its paper legacies and creating digital outfits with all the efficiencies that accompany e-processes and digital data. For spatial data managers, the "e" has typically come from developing spatial information systems that integrate myriad datasets and map out the business for viewers. Though the data transparency and collaborative environments created by the GIS can improve productivity and efficiency, for many organizations, the flow of digital spatial data and information still stops at the company's front door — particularly with project management, where the e-communication and e-delivery of critical information returns to "p" form, despite the obstacles to efficiency and productivity inherent in paper-based information management.

However, with the notable advancements in Web and GIS tools on offer that greatly ease the job of aggregating, integrating, and distributing data, there is little to hold developers back from uncorking that bottled project information and pouring it out in real time to anyone connected to the project. Instead of waiting on e-mail or paper progress reports, or playing the telephone game, hoping the right information reaches the right person, managers and crews could have all the answers they need with just a few mouse clicks. Built smartly, the real-time communication tool can scale to serve not only small-scale projects, but those "largest-ever" ones too. You only need to look as far as Burns & McDonnell and Bohannan Huston to see how.

An Electrified Approach

With only three people, two software tools, and some high-wattage ingenuity, software developers at engineering firm Burns & McDonnell created a real-time GIS "mashup" in just three months. First featured in Earth Imaging Newsletter's coverage of the 2008 Geospatial Infrastructure Solutions Conference, the Google Earth geospatial dashboard tool streams together project management data, design files, and GIS software to create a holistic, real-world view of the $1 billion Middletown-Norwalk Transmission Project for Connecticut Light & Power. About 57 subcontractors are at work building a new transmission line that will stretch nearly 80 miles and affect 7,000 residents. It's the largest transmission project to date in the U.S., and it was being managed with reams of paper until Burns & McDonnell introduced the real-time GIS.

Safe Software's FME technology provides the data "glue," connecting disparate databases of information and automatically integrating any changes as spatial components for viewing in Google Earth. With a Web-connected computer, project managers, construction managers, and subcontractors alike can zoom into any area of the construction site and immediately see the status of any given point along the 3D model of the transmission line. Depending on their data-access rights, they can also take note of any pending issues regarding land use or customers. Construction features such as overhead and underground utility lines, poles, and vaults are color-coded for easy identification and provide instant knowledge of their installation status — clicking on any of the features yields attribute data. Color-coded flags also appear, alerting users to any important issues pending, or to information related to a particular asset or parcel of land.

According to Wes Hardin, a project manager in Burns & McDonnell's information management group, the real-time communication tool has redefined project management.

"This tool is providing real power to the person in the field or in the boardroom because it provides the knowledge to both construct and to make informed decisions in real time," said Hardin. "It has created such undeniable efficiencies that traditional project managers and 20-year construction veterans now don't want to manage these projects any other way."

A New Sight

The ingenuity of a real-time Web-based communication tool created by engineering and spatial data services company Bohannan Huston (BHI) also took the "p" out of paper-based project management.

This shot of downtown Dallas and its I-30 and I-45 networks is one of 56,000 image frames collected with Intergraph's Digital Mapping Cameras in a 45-day period. According to BHI's Adams, in visually inspecting 11,000 images, including 7,000 bridges, quality control teams only found eight errors, for an error rate of 0.014 percent.

At issue for BHI was how to effectively and efficiently acquire and coordinate nearly 14,000 square miles of high-resolution orthophotography over 17 adjacent counties in Texas's Dallas/Fort Worth area — the largest-ever regional aerial photo project (by frame count) to date in the U.S., according to BHI. Funded by the Dallas District of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the $2.6 million project not only required BHI to coordinate four aircraft's flight schedules over some of the busiest air spaces in the world — Dallas Fort Worth airport ranks third in operations — it also required teams to post-process 56,000 image frames into one seamless mosaic of 6-inch, natural color orthophotos. That kind of pressured, multi-faceted project couldn't be managed with pushpins and paper status notes.

Instead, BHI opted to develop a real-time, Web-based project management system that would connect all components of the project into one seamless window of information. Anchored by the open-source Minnesota MapServer and managed by Intergraph's GeoMedia software, developers created a customized Web site that allowed TxDOT and other stakeholders, as well as subcontractors, to pan the project area and zoom into any location for the latest status update. In addition to mapping the county boundaries, roads, and municipal boundaries, the site also provided control panel locations, estimated aerial photograph footprints, and acquisition details including planned acquisitions, ongoing acquisitions, and completed acquisitions. As actual imagery was received, BHI personnel quickly created low-resolution mosaics of each county to provide TxDOT with a visual sense of the coverage and quality of the color aerial photography and the opportunity to offer their feedback.

The TxDOT 17 project challenged BHI managers to coordinate access to airspace over the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, the third-busiest airport in the world in terms of operations.

Supporting the spatial view of the project was a project journal that alerted project members to any unexpected delays or obstacles affecting flight schedules, such as "still seeking FAA approval to fly over Dallas-Ft. Worth airport."

Bradley Adams, BHI's senior vice-president, says the ability to continually communicate as the project progressed helped its teams to complete the project in less than one calendar year, two weeks ahead of schedule.

"Providing a real-time Web portal to the project offered a kind of visibility not common for such large, multi-party projects," said Adams. "And it was a key enabler to our success in fulfilling this massive project in record time."

Perhaps these innovative dashboard tools will become a common-enough productivity tool that more e-businesses will truly embrace the "e" in project management.

Bookmark it: digg del.icio.us technorati yahoo facebook twitter

Add Comment