Construction Management Software (CMS)®

Please read detail features available in our latest enterprise released ERP software SoftleanERP 2010, Integrated construction management ERP

CMS® address critical construction project management issues as below :

1. Project Administration
2. Construction Bidding Solution
3. Material Planning
4. Budgeting and Estimating
5. Project Planning
6. Funding
7. Change Management
8. Relations Management

  Project Administration

With this module, an owner can make a template that is used to breakdown an entire project into a set of main jobs and associated sub jobs or milestones. The milestones may even have multiple tasks that need to be monitored. Templates can be used for one or more similar projects with or without any changes. SoftleanERP also provides export and import tools which can be used to export or import project template data in XML format. This can help improve productivity across multiple similar projects within your organization.

Using Softlean’s project administration module, the owner can manage users, enforce business rules, maintain administrative and security policy by restricting object access based on user privilege, create additional list properties to populate dropdowns and can add business functions to customize existing pages.

  Construction Bidding Solution

Owner may publish project information and can ask bidders to contact for detail. Using this online bidding system, project owner can publish multiple projects information and bidders can select those leads and can contact owner for detail.

Softlean encourages project owner to submit their project for electronic bidding that helps to reduce their bidding time and associated cost. Softlean bid form is very intuitive and also supports CSI Construction code (optional) for owners to use.

Owner can provide all job descriptions and also can make their own estimation. They can publish construction documents , addendum, Request for Information, Request for Proposal, Notice, Messages etc. and across the board all bidders receive those publications. Owner can track all bids and once the bidding is completed they can compare highest and lowest among bids against their own estimation. Finally Owner can select winning bid and can generate reports.

  Material Planning

Once conceptual design and job structuring is completed, it is important to identify what the total cost in procurement, design, construction and commissioning phase of the entire project against each main job. To identify the procurement cost, the owner should know what type and quantity of material to be procured. As the market is moving towards Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) or Design-Build-Operate (DBO), it is highly imperative that the owner finds contractors who will be responsible for design, procurement, construction and commissioning. So in the material planning level the owner will only be responsible for providing List of Goods (LOG) and List of Services (LOS) required for those main jobs which are identified in the previous steps. In some cases the owner is also responsible to provide a detailed bill of materials for each list of goods or in some cases the contractor will provide those. The most challenging job in material planning is to identify the delivery schedules, the cost component with respect to the specifications given, and to establish the design parameters with the system requirements as identified in the system planning level.

Using Softlean’s Material Planning module, the owner can identify the cost for each job level based on the items needed to be procured. The owner can maintain a predefined list of manufactures and their part lists with pricing that will provide procurement cost of material based on WBS.

  Budgeting and Estimation

Once the job classification and material planning is completed, the next step is budgeting and estimation against each main job or system. In that case the owner may have a price list based on its previous experience of similar project and material procurement list or the owner may hire a consultant who will prepare the estimate for the project. All those estimation needs to be carried out each system or main job levels with respect to List of Goods(LOG) and List Of Services (LOS) identified in the previous stage. The most challenging task in this step is to identify the budget resources which should be interlinked with the project schedule to eliminate unwanted capital cost like interest, pre mature withdrawal of funds from payor account or unforeseen costs because of faulty material planning and design etc.

Using Softlean’s Budgeting module, the owner can; allocate funds for each job and forecast financial requirements that are proportional to the actual job progress, and identify high cost and low budgeting or budget short comings in advance. That helps to monitor the project health and profitability.

  Project Planning

If success is measured by the ability to complete projects under budget, then establishment of project budgets during the planning phase is mandatory. Once defined, these individual project budgets must be summarized to create a total program budget that must then be baselined to ensure that an established reference point of measure has been set. Any changes to the budget, additions of scope or transfers of budget between projects must first be authorized, approved, documented and archived to establish the paper trail required for budget accountability. Without the ability to track actual program costs against an established program budget, an owner can never know if he has truly been successful.
So project scheduling and tracking is one of the challenging tasks for an owner to maintain cost and timeline.

Using Softlean’s Project Planning module, the owner can schedule each milestone and all tasks associated with those milestones along with resources and job progress regularly.

  Funding

Whether it is a large construction program of inter-related projects or a group of non-related projects within an organization, funding sources to complete these projects must be established and managed with extreme care. Large scale construction programs can include funding from; federal, state and multiple local sources. Each funding source may require independent tracking. Mismanagement of funds from a single funding source can shut down a program because, in most cases, funds from one source cannot be used to pay for work authorized under another source.

The management of draws from a particular funding sources is also a challenging exercise which can save or cost a program a substantial amount of money. Leaving funds in interest-earning accounts for as long as possible affords the owner the ability to maximize each construction dollar. Conversely, converting bonds into cash too quickly can cause a significant loss in interest earnings. In addition, if enough cash is not drawn down properly within specified cost periods, an owner can run out of cash to pay Contractors and the project can grind to a halt.

Using Softlean's Funding Module, the owner can track all financial resources available to a project and how much of the fund is already used against their budgeted resources.

  Change Management

The best sets of plans and specifications have never been able to produce a construction program that does not contain some number of changes. In fact, if a construction program is proceeding ahead of schedule and under budget, the wise owner will make changes that move excess money to other programs or interest-earning accounts that will better leverage the dollars. In any event, an owner must proactively manage changes and keep project personnel and financiers abreast of potential cost impacts so that positive cash flow is constantly maintained. Documenting change orders as they occur is reactive, not proactive change management. The tracking of the complete change process from issue identification, to formal change requests, to potential change orders, and finally to change order is mandatory if an owner is to stay on top of cash flow and positive/negative cost trends.

Using Softlean's Change Management module can track all changes that are associated with each task and their incumbent cost based on resources and material used. Softlean’s collaborative change management system helps to monitor and dispatch any changes to multiple employees or contractors to make the fastest execution and improve higher productivity.

  Relations Management

In a typical construction project multiple agencies and sub contractors work together to execute different jobs and it is challenging to communicate with those groups based on their day to day schedules, issues, problems arising at job sites, processing claims etc. So to improve the communication between multiple team members and handling their cases based on priority, this module acts as a centralized database where issues can be registered online and will be handled without errors and delay inherent with offline communication.

Using Softlean’s Relations Management module you can manage different job issues, design change requests (DCR), appointments, meetings, presentations, etc. Each user has a message queue for promoting communication between contractor, sub-contractor, or employee that improves faster issue resolution and improves productivity.