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The Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) 14-Point Assessment is a set of metrics used to evaluate the quality of a project schedule to ensure that the schedule is fit for purpose. And one of the 14 metrics is the Baseline Execution Index (BEI) which is an indication of how a schedule is performing against a set baseline and the video below explains how to set-up a Microsoft Project schedule to display BEI.  Read more...

MODELLING EARTHWORKS OPERATIONS WITH ORACLE PRIMAVERA P6

Many civil construction companies use P6 as their primary scheduling software and they run into a number of issues when trying to model earthmoving operations with P6.

This paper looks at the issues of using P6 resources for mobile equipment and/or earthworks quantities and suggests some possible solutions, click on this link>>>

Accelerate your understanding of scheduling software to advance your scheduling career.  

Be able to prepare better schedules with Eastwood Harris books, online videos available through Udemy and training material on:

• Microsoft Project,
• Oracle Primavera P6 and 
• Elecosoft (Asta) Powerproject 

Details at Eastwood Harris

Paul E Harris, 

Director Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd

Complete a 10-minute project performance maturity assessment, based on PMI’s OPM3 framework, to understand how effective your organisation is at managing project performance.   Once completed you’ll receive an in-depth report tailored to your organisation's maturity levels in three key areas: process, human capital, and technology. Discover how to better deliver projects - on time and budget.

Why do I need a project performance maturity assessment?

Project performance continues to operate under dire circumstances. The Portland Business Journal reported that 80 percent of enterprise projects fail, while a McKinsey study revealed that 45 percent are running over budget and delivering 56 percent less value than the original scope. Most of these ill-effects are caused by immature or outdated practices.

Understanding the scope of your problems and the specific (and fixable) pain points related to those problems is the first step realigning your organisation toward best practice project performance.  Read More...

Learn about the latest new features and functionality in PRISM Estimating Version 8 through this short overview video. Some of the updates include new 2D & 3D takeoff capabilities, new estimate wizards for both bottom up and top down estimates, and multiple project variable templates. PRISM Estimating Version 8 has also expanded its carbon estimating capabilities to provide a single platform for the estimation of cost and carbon from cradle to grave. Learn more today!  View the On-Demand Webinar...

The Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) 14-point assessment helps the Department of Defense evaluate schedules to see whether they are well-built and adhere to best practices that are important to the success of the project.

Most of the DCMA 14-Point metrics look only at activities that are baselined with a duration > 0d. The two exceptions are the Critical Path Test and the BEI. 

Read the blog post...

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Make schedule quality integral to the way you plan.

XER Schedule Toolkit have recently introduced a range of new integrity metrics combined with a scoring mechanism that makes the process of assessing and improving project schedules much easier.

All RAG and score thresholds are fully configurable, allowing you to create and save project or client specific templates.

We offer affordable packages for the enterprise, meaning access to these vital tools are no longer just for the elite.

Start your free trial today...

Digital Turnaround Contracting & Tendering:

The potential of advanced technology

June 23^th | 16:00 CEST / 09:00 CDT | 45 minutes

Join the webinar to learn how a digital tendering & contracting solution can help improve your overall turnaround performance.

About the webinar

Contracting & tendering can be a potential minefield when it comes to turnarounds. Various important decisions have to be made, all having a large influence on the overall turnaround performance itself. 

What is the right contract strategy for your specific site and turnaround? How do you make sure the contractor bids are fully comparable? And how do evaluate these bids to eventually select the best contractor for your project?

Join the conversation to gain insights into how an integrated digital system can transform your contracting and tendering processes not only to maximize cost efficiency and minimize manual efforts, but also to produce high quality reports, reduce claims and changes, and finish closeouts and finance within two months after startup.

In this webinar we’ll discuss:

• What digital turnaround tendering and contracting is and why it is important
• How to define the right contract & tender strategy
• How to compare and evaluate contractor bids
• How a digital tendering & contracting solution can help improve the overall turnaround performance
• A brief introduction to Cleopatra on how the software system can help you in tendering and contracting 

Featured Speaker

Infographic

Renewable energy industry:

The impact of declining costs and true project controls

Download the infographic to learn how digital project controls can help shape a more sustainable future.

By 2035, more than 50% of global power generation will come from renewable sources. As the industry’s technology advances and the costs of renewable energy continue declining, new opportunities will be revealed. Project controls teams should be ready to seize these opportunities.

How can you capture cost-saving opportunities and help shape a more sustainable future? How do digitalization and integrated project controls contribute to this?

Our infographic gives you valuable insights in:

• Recent advances in the renewable energy industry
• The fast growth of renewables and the importance for your business
• ·The power of digital and integrated project controls systems
• Maximizing the cost-effectiveness along the project lifecycle – cost estimation, scheduling, cost control, benchmarking

Get your infographic

A superior alternative to the "most popular" software for us as planners?

Spider Project

Spider Project offers numerous unique functional features and is the only PM software that optimizes resource, cost, and material constrained schedules and budgets for projects and portfolios. 

Check it out here...  Ask questions here...

Build your network and keep up to date by following us on social media, just click the icons to get started.

What is a DCMA 14-Point schedule quality analysis? 

How to perform a full DCMA 14 schedule assessment on existing XER and XML project files with one click and present the results with clear visual dashboard that can be easily understood by every project participant?

This article will provide answer to these questions and demonstrate how you can use the DCMA-14 checks to detect the weak points in your schedules, and take corrective actions that ensure the successful completion of your projects. Read more.

During an upload/import of XER or XML file to a P6 database, Global data such as Calendars, Activity Codes, Financial periods, and similar, can cause certain complications and create a mess in the database structure due to miss-matches, missing links, or duplicate and overwritten values.

So, how can you avoid these problems? Find out in this article  

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