eproject

Project Collaboration with Quantum Leap's eProject Solution

Generally, a project is "a planned undertaking of a specific plan or design." Whether your project is designing, building, creating the interiors for a new or existing commercial building, campus or managing the upgrade of an existing refinery, you can benefit from a project extranet. As long as there's a project team, there's a need for a communications hub. This "hub" is known as an "eProject site."

eProject sites provide a single resource for all news, information and data for a particular project. By using the Internet as the network, an eProject site can reach as many team members as necessary.

eProject sites provide a single access point for data. The central server locates and manages the data, even if it is distributed among individual computers or storage media. This saves people the time and expense of looking for information. According to one study, that is how they spend 30% of their time on a project, a huge waste of time and money.

The eProject site can last as long as your project lasts—helping you maximise the value of scarce project resources, or even as long as the life of the asset even if it is 30 years or more. For instance, the design information can be used and added to for maintenance, renovations, and even retirement and demolition.

Prior to the Internet, technology roadblocks came in every form, including incompatibility between hardware, operating systems, software, networks, and CAD systems, all of which had to integrate or be homogeneous for communication to be possible. Now, information can be sent and received using the Internet and a simple Web browser.

This opens a whole new world of possibilities for project management and workgroup collaboration in a virtual environment. Project managers can secure and centralise engineering and project information for all (authorised) who need to see it. In this environment, teams can save money and time as they gather and disseminate information throughout the project lifetime.

The Quantum Leap eProject Solution manages the complete mix of file and document types, such as:

• AutoCAD and MicroStation files

• Project schedules, such as those created with Primavera® project scheduling software

• Microsoft Office files

• Corporate standards

• Design standards

• Project standards

• Project correspondence

• Site photographs

What benefits can result for your client and project team?

• Rapid exchange of information among project participants

• More complete automatic reporting

Access to data from a single source

• More disciplined adherence to work procedures and review processes

• More organised workflows

• Continuous and systematic project status

• Less time and energy spent trying to find and read information

• Saved printing, plotting, and distribution costs

• Reduced RISK with version control

What can project team members accomplish from any location?

• See progress through engineering and CAD files

• View the project schedule to see if events are on track

• Review construction materials

• Look at actual site photos and project renderings

• Review invoices

• Redline engineering drawings

• Plot engineering drawings

• Organise change-order information

• Manage correspondence

• Worry less about whether members have the most current information

• Involve the client better in the project process

Quantum Leap's eProject Solution encourages collaboration, document access and information security, while centrally locating information with definable workflows so team members can access it at any time, from any location. Team members can share and find information with less effort, and do so between cross-functional teams. Security is maintained so that only "the right people see the right documents" and management have a complete audit trail of access – a must for dispute resolution.

The bottom line is that a Quantum Leap eProject Solution can save your organisation money, reduce your project expenses, and win more business that was previously deemed out of reach.

Eight Ways a Quantum Leap's eProject Solution Can Save Time, Money and Risk

1. Reduce printing, plotting, and mailing costs. It has been estimated that 2% of total project costs are for reprographic services, such as plotting and photocopying. On a $2 million project, that's an immediate savings of nearly $40,000. And the saving continues on every project.

2. Access information any time, from anywhere. Why should only 10% of users have easy access to their information? Let's say you are an architect from Melbourne and you just had a review with a client in Paris. At the airport, simply get on the Internet from your laptop PC, post the notes from the meeting, and send home the drawings your client redlined from his office. The savings on overnight courier charges alone can more than justify the cost of an eProject Solution.

3. Better leverage the information by sharing it once. If you have an engineering drawing, site photograph, or schedule that many people need to see—post it once for everyone. This brings out of hiding the 70% of company information not in a database. Information is immediately available to anyone who needs to access it, any time, consistently. You can appropriately limit access through passwords. It changes the paradigm from a push to a pull.

4. Lower training costs. What could be easier to use than a Web browser? With Quantum Leap's eProject Solution , accessing engineering information—once locked away in the CAD department—is as easy to get as using a browser.

5. Moderate set-up costs. When you purchase Quantum Leap's eProject Solution, you get software and services. The Quantum Leap eProject Solution Rapid Deployment Team comes to the location you choose, installs the software on servers and desktops, organises your data, and trains your staff. Alternatively, we are able to provide the solution as an externally hosted service. Because Quantum Leap's eProject Solution leverages the Internet for communication, your cost is reasonable whether you purchase Quantum Leap's eProject Solution outright, or license it as a hosted service.

6. Better group interaction. The eProject site is the heart of the project. It's the place where project team members can access and update design files, site photographs, scanned photographs, transmittals, reports, schedules, and other documentation. Through the site, anyone involved in the project can simultaneously access the same information in a single, central location.

7. Dynamic Publishing and Version control. Quantum Leap's eProject Solution dynamically publishes over 250 file types, including CAD drawings. This means that you do not have to have a person manually converting files to "Internet friendly" file formats. The original and current file, controlled by a secure workflow, is converted on the fly by the System's server on request by the viewer, redliner or designer. This reduces the RISK of accessing out of date files and drawings and "building from the wrong plan".

8. Compatibility among different brands of hardware and operating systems. The Web browser is a universal interface. It does not matter what brand of PC or workstation you operate, or which operating system you run. Members of the project team can use their systems of choice and still be well connected with the group. According to research, those team members will save the 27% of working time usually wasted on operating-system issues.

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