Case Study
MANAGING CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS EFFECTIVELY
A Leading University in New Zealand
Project at a Glance
This case study summarizes the business challenges, project learning and benefits of implementing a PeopleSoft Project Costing Module to manage the University’s construction project. Construction was spread over three years and encompassed many different project activities, multiple vendors and considerable commitment of capital.
THE CHALLENGE
The University’s back-office was managed by PeopleSoft Financials and PeopleSoft Human Resources. However, individual construction projects were being monitored and managed manually on excel spread sheets. This raised issues between finance and the construction project teams including:
- Lack of automated mechanism to monitor project progress.
- Manual process for actual Vs Forecast budget reporting.
- Inaccurate and delayed project reporting.
- Inability to accurately capitalization assets against the project cost.
The University decided to explore solutions to automate and integrate the project monitoring process.
TOOL SELECTION
After in-depth evaluation of various project monitoring solution, the University decided to implement the PeopleSoft Project Costing Module which met all the critical business requirement and integrated with existing IT eco-system.
SOLUTION IMPLEMENTATION
The University had awarded the construction work and some activities were already in progress. The University decided to limit project implementation scope to those construction activities in phase-1 with timelines of 8 weeks for the module implementation, data migration and users’ training. It was critical that the project be executed with a meticulous approach utilizing data migration tools for importing historical data. The implementation was accomplished within the allotted time period and budget constraints.
