A whiteboard in a data center construction trailer is covered with colorful, neatly arranged sticky notes, each showing a critical element of the project plan. The door opens, and an invasive wind gust sends one not-so-sticky note fluttering to the floor unnoticed. Picked up by a departing worker’s boot heel, the project detail is lost to muddy ground outside.
The planning meeting ends, and the day’s plan changes are captured. Images of the board are sent to the back office for transcription to the master plan. However, the plan is now missing a critical task, constraint or expectation, delaying the project by weeks.
Data center construction projects are complex, often costing hundreds of millions of dollars with incredibly tight deadlines. To address these realities, projects require a digital single source of truth that reduces risk, keeps all stakeholders abreast of changes and allows teams to collaborate easily.
The Need for Speed
Large data center owners and contractors embrace digital transformation for their accounting, communications, logistics and other core systems. However, the last mile of their journey — project planning and management in the field — is often still analog.
As the pace of new data center construction accelerates, so do the schedule risks that analog planning brings to project delivery. It creates slippage, costing data center owners millions of dollars in lost revenue.
To eliminate schedule risk in data center construction projects, general contractors, specialty contractors, engineering firms and owners must replace inefficient, error-prone analog planning with collaborative, real-time, digital construction planning software.
Planning Software for Lean Construction
The Lean Construction methodology and its related Last Planner System® became increasingly popular in recent years for planning and managing large construction project types, including offices, hotels, apartments, factories and warehouses, to name a few.
In keeping with the traditional charrette methods, Lean Construction is most widely realized today with planning boards and group meetings in construction trailers. With this process comes the risks of misplaced notes, poor penmanship, fuzzy photos and incorrect data entry.
This crossroad creates a clear need for planning software that reduces the risks of analog processes while maintaining the many benefits of Lean Construction. In recent years, the market responded with the emergence of software solutions, including Touchplan from MOCA Systems, Inc., which accomplishes this very goal.
The significant scale, complexity and urgency intrinsic to data center megaprojects requires a solution with features like:
- Mobile compatibility with highly secure user access
- Real-time data capture and sharing in the cloud
- Accelerated Lean Construction process implementation
- Intuitive use by nontechnical personnel
- Ability to share and re-purpose plans across multiple projects
- Rich visual analytics for executives and managers
- Simplified collaboration capabilities between owners, designers and contractors
Envisioning the Digitized Last Mile
Rather than leaving urgent activities, milestones and constraints at risk of falling to the dusty floor, imagine a digitized Lean planning process that assures timely project completion.
The whiteboard in the trailer is replaced by a flat-screen TV connected to the superintendent’s laptop running the digital planning software. The superintendent collaborates with the gathered trade managers to sequence activities, identify dependencies and schedule materials in the digital plan.
When someone asks about the details underlying a plan item, a quick pinch-zoom on the laptop touchpad instantly reveals all. With a few more clicks, the activities convert to the next look-ahead schedule, a process that once took hours of manual data entry.
In the data hall, a trade worker notices a potential issue with an electronic expansion valve and uses the phone to status his planned activity. The superintendent can quickly re-sequence the plan to give the electrical contractor the time and space needed to replace the valve.
In the office, this equipment issue populates a dashboard that indicates the reasons for variances impacting the schedule. This real-time data ensures all stakeholders can clearly understand the issues causing potential delays and course-correct them quickly.
From the site to the back office, the digitized Lean planning process creates predictable production plans, promotes effective handoffs between disciplines, and optimizes the flow of the project to avoid delays that can cost the data center owner millions of dollars in lost revenue.
Plan for Project Success
There is too much at stake with data center construction projects to rely on analog planning methods. By digitizing the last mile of construction, everyone involved benefits from greater organization, less confusion, more collaboration and, ultimately, hitting project deadlines. The hard work that goes into a project will materialize faster with drastically reduced risk.
Learn more about how the right solution can replace inefficient, error-prone analog processes with collaborative, real-time, digital construction planning.
To eliminate schedule risk, general contractors, specialty contractors, engineering firms and owners must digitally transform their planning in data center construction projects and save the sticky notes for less critical tasks.
