Using Analytics to Address
Cost Overruns

Cost overruns on capital projects occur regularly. Studies indicate that as many as 6 out of 10 major construction projects experience them. One huge contributing factor to this onslaught of overruns is due to a lack of actionable data during the pre-construction and construction execution phases of the project. Fortunately, connected analytics within advanced project platforms can now easily be surfaced to identify trends during the execution phase of capital projects, ensuring that projects stay on track and under budget.

Let’s take a deeper dive into this concept and provide further context into the background and genesis of connected data.

Greater Visibility = Decreased Risk

The concept of connected data is a holistic view of every ongoing project that allows the connectivity of project data from the start through execution, turnover and startup. It decreases project risk by tackling duplicate entry, process inefficiencies and other problems that arise when information is captured, stored and managed in siloed and disconnected solutions. Using an advanced connected data solution allows for the identification of projects that are in dire need of some attention and course correction. This real-time connected view drives continuity in operations without necessarily asking people to go on a seven-day research project together and figure out how to get a project back on track.

Through a connected construction data analytics solution, you can make real-time decisions because you’re gaining visibility into metrics, KPIs and trends from a 30,000-foot vantage point. The advanced dashboard view, such as those provided in InEight’s connected analytics solutions, lays it all out for you. A simple scan of the dashboards reveals pieces of information about projects, so you know where you should focus your attention. For example, you can view some high-level metrics, such as many projects you have, total number of employees, how much equipment you have, and financial metrics. You’ll be able to see your total costs to date across your portfolio of projects versus what you’re forecasting. If you’re forecasting to lose money, the dashboards provide the mechanism to drill down deeper into more information to figure out what’s going wrong, such as an underperforming crew. Filters allow for a multitude of views, such as active versus completed projects, percent-complete projects geographically located, and so forth.

You also have the ability to look at any demographic information about a project. Maybe you need to look at how a certain market is doing, for instance, earned versus actual costs. Are you having greater success in a specific market? Maybe you’re losing a lot of money in a different market. You could also look by client and determine your success rate — how much money overall do you have with one specific client? The software allows for a number of views and lets you slice projects based on different information and metadata.

Connected Data Is the Future

Lessening the amount of time looking through spreadsheets and instead having the data at your fingertips represents a monumental shift in construction. And most of these advanced, cloud-based solutions, such as the one from InEight, have mobile capability, so you can enter and retrieve data from the field. All of this allows for the quick consumption of project information and more timely course corrections to avoid surprises and those dreaded cost overruns.

To learn more about InEight as well as our connected analytics solutions, visit InEight.com today!