Introduction
Building upon earlier successes of solving secure data transfer via the Internet to the satisfaction of an international oil company Client and the establishment of project web pages as the means for providing project specific information, our company was looking for additional ways to address pressing management issues by adapting our work environment to harness the potential of the World Wide Web. Looking beyond transferring electronic drawing files between non-collocated project team members, we realized that our traditional method of reporting construction progress by placing a Project Controls Specialist at the field location to gather, assemble and disseminate reports could be significantly streamlined. By placing these functions in one place, all project team members could see the same reports at the same time—no matter where those team members were located. It was the most efficient way of reporting construction site progress.
The GIE Field Reporting System was designed to provide project stakeholders with up-to-date status information regarding pipeline construction activity in the field. This information can be used to track progress, check contractor billing information and provide trend information to project management. The ability to gather this information electronically, and disseminate it quickly to all authorized parties in a secure manner, is what sets this process apart from other field reporting systems.
At the time that we were moving ahead with our development of a web-based Field Reporting System, we were preparing our response to a North American gas pipeline company's Request for Proposal for construction management services. One of the reporting requirements was to have field progress from the workweek available to the Client's Project Manager by early Monday morning for inclusion in their Weekly Report to management. Our Field Reporting System met this challenge and succeeded in a nontraditional manner.
System Design
Construction technique in the pipeline industry is a linear progression of work activities. The scheduling of these activities is not as complicated as in other industries. As a construction management contractor, we traditionally sent project management and inspection staff to field locations during “pipeline season.” This team would include a Project Controls Specialist who was dedicated to the production of progress information. In this setting, the inspection staff would fill out daily reports and would feed this information to the Project Controls Specialist. The Project Controls Specialist would typically prepare schedules, charts and spreadsheets that summarized the information in graphical format. The Project Manager (and others on his field staff) would supply the narrative assessment of progress and related construction issues (safety, environmental, contract changes, etc.). This process is labor intensive and can be time consuming as well. Depending upon the number of concurrent pipeline “spreads” being worked, the number of Project Controls Specialists required to accomplish these functions could multiply. In addition, there needed to be someone in the home office producing our own internal reports, preparing desktop quality reports to the Client and providing invoicing support to Accounting. Our challenge was to reduce the effort required to perform these functions and do it in a manner that addressed all the elements of a traditional progress report.
Reporting systems are developed by asking two questions:
• What do we want to measure?
• How do we wish to measure it?
The first time we used the Field Reporting System, we had the selected Construction Contractor's schedule of activities and the lump sum contact price for the affected spreads (with traditional weighted values identified for each pipeline activity) upon which to prepare the baseline performance criteria. The type of information the Client wished us to track determined our reporting requirements. This answered the first question. As pipeline work progresses in a standard sequence of activities from point A to point B, this lends itself to a simple format to display construction progress in pictographs. As work was performed along the pipeline right-of-way, our inspection staff recorded the Construction Contractor's activity on pads of preformatted daily report forms that were designed to provide the Client, for their own internal reporting, with the information they needed. These forms were specifically adapted to provide the type of data to be fed into the project database that generated the reports. This answered the second question.
The system was set up on a spread specific basis by the home office based Systems Analyst and Project Controls Specialist. From the construction contract they defined the pipeline activities, the length of the spreads, cost components, progress curves, manpower histograms and various specialty items to be tracked. The users of the system were then identified and granted access depending on the type of reported information they required. For instance, this Client wished to show the field progress data to various interested parties within their organization but wished to limit access to the cost information to only selected individuals. Finally, a directory was set up for the delivery of the generated reports in industry-standard Adobe .PDF format. This delivery mechanism allowed authorized remote users to access, download, or view all status reports or other online information at any Internet-accessible location. The system is currently accessible to any authorized user with a web browser that supports encryption. This program supports all versions of Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer. In order to view any distributed .PDF files, the computer must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on the machine. As versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader are freely available for most operating systems, we point the authorized user to the Adobe web site to allow that person to download the Reader.
Exhibit 1. Input Screen
Exhibit 2. Daily Inspector's Report
Exhibit 3. Activity Report
Exhibit 4. Weekly Reports
Security is always a concern when working across the Internet. All traffic accessing this system is encrypted using the same secure technology used by banks and credit card companies for online banking. Additionally, all access to the system is logged, and protected by assigned usernames and passwords. Storing the information in a database at the home office, accessible only via secure server, guarantees that the data is not compromised if a laptop or workstation is stolen in the field. The system allows for further protection on a project-by-project basis.
System Usage
Field office personnel used the system to input the progress of work, by activity, along the pipeline right-of-way. The Inspectors completed daily reports and faxed them or phoned the information to the field Office Manager, located at a central field office. This person logged onto the Project Web Page through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and accessed the input screen for the Field Reporting System. See Exhibit 1. The next screen encountered was for the Daily Inspector's Report. See Exhibit 2. The Office Manager would pick a new date from the drop down list on this screen to bring up the activity categories for recording that day's progress. Prior progress was shown in addition to progress being entered. A category for updating was picked from the Items list to bring up the detail screen for a particular pipeline activity. See Exhibit 3. Station-to-station progress in kilometers, the Construction Contractor's personnel and equipment usage and the Inspector's comments on that day's activity was recorded. Updates were submitted on a daily basis for each pipeline spread. This information was then stored in a central database and was available to all project team members in the format shown in Exhibit 3. The information in the database, easily referenced by a web browser, was used to generate pictographs showing progress per activity on any spread along the pipeline right-of-way, and other weekly detailed project controls reports. In addition, the narrative components of the formal weekly report to the Client were prepared at the field location and sent to the home office as attachments to e-mail. These were converted to .PDF format and posted every Monday morning to summarize that week's activities. The individual weekly reports provided snapshots of the pictographs for that workweek and could be compared to the progress depicted in any other weekly report. See Exhibit 4.
The home office Project Controls Specialist used this data to generate pictographs on a weekly basis, and posted these completed pictographs to the delivery directory in Adobe .PDF format. These pictographs were available on a secure server as soon as they were posted, and could be immediately downloaded by any authorized user anywhere in the world. See Exhibit 5. The advantage this system brought to the Client and GIE project team members was the information in the Daily Inspector's Report was current to within the preceding 24 hours. Trending information was visually apparent by viewing the weekly pictographs.
Actual progress has to be exact and not approximate. Leaving gaps in Inspector's daily report will affect the pictographs. They will show gaps in the progress bar for that pipeline activity. An example of this may be seen in Exhibit 6. This lends itself to checking with the field staff to determine whether this suggested progress gap results from a data entry error or is in fact an indication that a section has been skipped. If the latter, a note in the narrative section of the online Weekly Report addresses the reason for this.
The timing of database data entry to the Field Reporting System currently supports daily and weekly reporting formats. This allows for almost “real time” (24-hour delay) reporting and the ability to show performance gains on a daily basis with the Inspector's notation of potential field issues as the work progresses.
Exhibit 5. Pictograph
Contract Considerations
There is a basic template of functions available within the Field Reporting System. Yet, Clients have different needs when it comes to tracking and reporting. The final system “look” depends on the need for customization to individual Client requirements. From the Inspector's daily report form pads to the input screens for data transfer to the look of the online reports, the Field Reporting System is adaptable to the level of detail the system is going to maintain. The type of contract that exists between the Client and the Construction Contractor may determine the level of detail available to the application developers during the initial system set-up. In a lump sum contracting environment, there is a traditional reluctance by the Construction Contractor to divulge his internal cost data to any party beyond the Client. While contractual language may indicate that this is to be made available to the Management Contractor, it may be impractical to assume that this data will be forthcoming. With limited detail you may have to settle for showing only weighted value relationships between the activities or manpower usage curves, rather than progress curves, on the pictographs. See Exhibit 6. Whereas time and material or unit rate contracts tend to be written such that all performance criteria is available to the application developers. The pictographs can then display more information. See Exhibit 7. The Field Reporting System supports forecasting of the Construction Contractor's anticipated remaining progress and is an integral component of the system. If this information can be supplied to us in a timely manner, we are able to provide a forecast-to-completion feature on the pictographs.
It is advantageous to the Client and the application developers to recognize the influence of the contract type on the final output that the Field Reporting System is required to address. Our early influence on the Client's contracting methodology is key to our ability to customize a system that meets or exceeds all of that Client's tracking and reporting needs.
Exhibit 6. Lump Sum Contract
Exhibit 7 addresses a contract consisting of three different compensation components. A base price was awarded to the Construction Contractor. This value identified a specific Scope of Work. Another component addressed Unit Price Items (UPIs) for those aspects of the work scope that could not be clearly quantified: rock blasting or extra backfill required on the right-of-way. The final contract component addressed change orders for out-of-scope work. Change orders were negotiated for outside services: snow removal from the pipe laydown yard or the purchase of materials. All Change Orders were approved at the field location. Inspectors maintained a daily tally sheet of all UPIs. This information was forwarded to the Office Manager and maintained in logs for UPI‘s and Change Orders used to verify the Construction Contractor's weekly invoice. This log information was transferred to the home office Project Controls Specialist as e-mail attachments to be posted in the online Weekly Report. This data was also incorporated into the statistical presentation of the pictographs.
If the information upon which the Field Reporting System is based has sufficient detail to allow the Construction Contractor to invoice based upon independently measurable progress, this simplifies the payment process for all parties. Billing information is verifiable by checking progress gained between invoice periods and applying that figure to the current contract price.
System Benefits and the Future
The major benefits of using the Field Reporting System pointed out to us by our satisfied Clients include:
• Meeting and exceeding their expectations of the timeliness of the reporting functions
• On-screen analysis through the viewing of visible performance indices from the weekly pictographs.
By placing the Project Web Server and the Project Database Server in our home office, we eliminated the need for a Project Controls Specialist(s) at the field office location to gather the data and assemble it into the report formats. The home office project controls functions of accounting/invoicing support and report assembly/publication were maintained by one Project Controls Specialist. The cost savings realized by the Client using the GIE Field Reporting System were from:
Exhibit 7. Unit Rate Contract
• Not placing a least one Project Controls Specialist in the field to perform those functions
• Using an onsite administrative position to cover additional field roles
• Eliminating the traditional reproduction and transmittal costs associated with hardcopy reports
• Archiving of this information electronically on a CD-ROM and presenting to the Client at project completion (rather than shipping boxes of documents).
What is the benefit to GIE in providing this Field Reporting System to our Clients?
• We demonstrate the ability to provide management reporting for distant projects with a reduced Project Controls field presence
• We provide this service to global Clients to better compete in the international arena
• Repeat business from user Clients who are knowledgeable of its value
• Enhancement of Gulf Interstate Engineering's name recognition for providing innovative service to our Clients.
So, where do we want to go next with enhancements and refinements to our Field Reporting System? As stated earlier, pipeline scheduling is relatively simplistic in nature. Can this same Field Reporting System be adapted to more complex projects? We feel that this is possible. We have successfully used a Production Measurement System for pipeline compressor station construction. Features of this system include the reporting of installation progress tied directly to progress payments to the Prime Contractor. We are looking at integrating the functionality of the Production Measurement System into the Field Reporting System to provide Clients with the ability to address:
• Planned versus actual cash flow requirements
• Billing support for Contractor payments during construction.
In addition, we are looking to remotely report non-construction pipeline field activities such as:
• Permitting
• Right-of-way acquisition.
Enhancements to the progress pictographs we are considering include:
• The addition of “comparative pictographs” for pipeline projects to display actual to planned progress
• Late start curves to prepare “banana diagrams.”
In this age of remote field locations and international projects, we feel that the features we offer with the Field Reporting System give us the ability to satisfy the demands for immediate progress data transfer that our Clients require. The timeliness of the reporting capabilities is the key feature of this system. Enhancements to those strong system features will be an important component in the undertaking of future successful projects.