Client
A development and PropTech corporation, one of the Russian top 5 in terms of construction volumes. It is included in the list of systemically important enterprises. As of April 2023, he is working on more than 50 large-scale projects.
Problem: the client finds out about construction problems late and loses money
The developer's main task is to deliver the property on time. Each day of delay at one construction site costs about 200,000 rubles, and the city administration imposes additional fines.
In addition to direct losses, construction delays hinder business development. The developer does not receive money for the apartments sold immediately, but only after the house is finally delivered.
Problems that lead to an increase in the delivery period can occur at any stage of construction. For example, it will take five days to repair a broken excavator, but the developer will have time to make changes to the process and make up for the delay if he finds out what happened right away. He can arrange the prompt delivery of a new excavator to the site or attract an additional construction team to the next stages of construction.
In order for the developer to be able to solve problems at the sites in a timely manner, he must have reliable information about the current situation and a realistic forecast for the timing of the remaining stages of construction.
How the client manages construction and deadlines
Before starting the construction of any building, the developer draws up a phased work schedule that includes all information about the upcoming construction:
- the start and end dates for each stage of construction (for example, on May 15, builders complete the preparation of the pit, fill the foundation on July 1, and the walls of the first three floors must be built by September 20);
- the timing and volume of supplies of construction materials to the facility;
- the number of construction teams at different stages of construction;
- list of required equipment.
During construction, real data is entered into the plan, on the basis of which the forecast of all further stages of construction is calculated.
Scheduling and forecasting were accompanied by the following problems:
- According to established practice, employees schedule work in three different programs simultaneously — Microsoft Project and the developer's internal IT services;
- data on the real situation at the construction site is updated manually every few weeks — and only after personal communication with the contractor constructing the building;
- The timing of the same stage at the facility, calculated by the systems used, does not coincide, since each of the three systems has its own computational logic.
As a result, the developer found out about the difficulties at the construction site with a delay of several months, when nothing could be fixed. Wanting to completely get rid of this problem, the company turned to KT.team.
Objective: to create an automated system for planning and controlling construction work at the facility
The functionality of the system developed by KT.team should ensure the smooth implementation of the following processes:
- obtaining data on construction progress and other parameters directly from the construction site or from the client's other IT systems;
- forecasting the completion date of construction and each stage separately based on information obtained directly from the construction site;
- timely notification of emerging problems and changes in construction dates.
Result 1: the client learns about emerging problems and changes in construction dates in real time
How it was
Once a week, the contractor was required to report on the progress of construction. This data was manually entered into Microsoft Project, and a forecast was made based on them.
In fact, information from contractors may have been received with a delay, for example, once a month. The assessment of construction progress was periodically inaccurate. For example, the contractor realized by eye that half of the pit was dug, but in fact only a third of the work had been done. Or the project team decided to polish the report by slightly “adjusting” the data.
Employees updated the forecast manually, monitored changes in deadlines, and reported problems to the project team.
Problems were often not identified in a timely manner, which was why construction dates were postponed by several months.
How did it become
Contractors report on the progress of work through a special application. The frequency of reporting has changed: instead of several times a month, twice or three times a week. In addition, the client controls each construction site using cameras and drones that video record the situation at the site.
All information is automatically added to the system developed by KT.team, after which the forecast is adjusted. The project team sees a change in deadlines, which makes it possible to solve the problem at an early stage.
The second result: the business logic of construction forecasting has become the basis for all the client's IT systems
How it was
The client had three systems that predicted the timing of the project: Microsoft Project and two internal IT services: the first was for tracking construction stages, the second was for monitoring the stages of legal and informational support for the entire process (working with project documentation, obtaining permits, etc.).
The computational logic of the services involved did not coincide: processing the same data, they issued three contradictory forecasts. The rules in Microsoft Project differed from those in other systems, and the rules in the developer's internal services were drafted by different teams of IT specialists: the developers sewed them directly into code without providing the company with any software documentation.
How did it become
KT.team has studied hundreds of use cases using real objects as an example and, together with the client, finalized the formulas to bring them into line with the developer's methodology. Having become basic, these formulas began to be used in all client systems, which made it possible to stop using Microsoft Project. The data obtained on the deadlines predicted by the system have become a reliable source of information for making decisions on the supply of materials, hiring contractors, issuing working documentation, and much more.
