Trimble Construction

S M A R T M A R K E T BR IE F OWNER PERSPECTIVES Owner Perspectives OWNER PERSPECTIVES: FINDINGS OF IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS WITH OWNERS In addition to the quantitative survey of owners, four interviews were conducted by Dodge Data & Analytics with senior executives at owner organizations who are experienced users of a project management information system (PMIS): ■ Dennis Clausen, director of support services for facility management, Inova ■ Kerry Galbraith, executive director of capital project delivery, University of Chicago ■ Aaron Haas, executive vice president, design and construction management, Howard Hughes ■ Michael Rousch, program manager, University of California, San Diego These interviews explored many of the same questions as the quantitative study, but provided the participants with the opportunity to discuss the benefits and challenges of requiring contractors to use their PMIS and their experiences with improving multiparty workflows on their projects in greater depth. ADVANTAGES OF HAVING CONTRACTORS USE THE OWNER' PMIS Throughout the interviews, owners mention transparency for better oversight of large programs and consistency from one project to the next as critical benefits of using a PMIS. However, for the owner to fully achieve these benefits, the contractors must be on the same system. As Aaron Haas states, "We all share the same information through the same system, so theoretically, there should be no miscommunication about cost, change orders, RFIs, submittals: It's all one unified system." Most of the owners recognize that contractors face the challenge of double data entry and the difficulty of learning a new system. However, all four believe that the contractors also experience benefits from being required to use the owners' PMIS. Dennis Clausen points out that the transparency benefits the contractor as well as the owner because they can see, for example, if there is a holdup in processing an RFI that they submitted. Also, Haas notes that the same benefits about communication that the owner experiences are experienced by the contractor. The biggest advantage, though, is that they can pay the contractors far more quickly, especially since they have often linked their financial departments into the PMIS. The owners also discuss the benefit they experience from having all data on all projects formatted in the same way. Kerry Galbraith states that this is the biggest benefit of requiring his contractors to use his organization's PMIS: "All my contractors are working in the same way, same format. The invoicing comes through it, the RFP, bid documents, bid analysis: Everything goes through it." He describes the advantage of this: "Now we have the ability to do roll-up analysis on different projects to understand where we are as a program of work rather than as a series of individual projects." Michael Rousch also believes that the owners' ability © Dodge Data & Analytics w w w.construction.com Premier Par tner: e-Builder SmartMarket Brief: Connecting Owners and Contractors 21

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