Construction Project Planning
Construction project planning is a vital link in integrating all construction activities and phases needed to complete a project at a given budget and within the time frame.
Resource scheduling, on the other hand, translates the project plan, its scope, budget, time, and quality, into an operational calendar. This includes detailed project specifications, engineering drawings, fabrication, a requirement for human and non-human resources, procurement policies, risk, communication, and project SOP’s.
Along with a project plan and budget, project scheduling can be regarded as primary instruments for project execution and control.
Construction project planning characteristics
Project planning starts right from the bid stage. As part of the bidding process, contracting firms are required to submit a request for proposal and high-level project plan. This project plan gets refined further post-award and gets tuned periodically in the execution phase. At a high-level, project planning can categorise into three areas, each influencing the other.
Strategic Planning
Well defined project objectives are critical to the measurement of project success. Laying down project goals, harmonising it with the overall vision of a firm, goes a long way in establishing project charter and its priority in the overall list of initiatives.
Operational planning
Mobilisation is a big phase in project planning; resources are organised, designs are put on paper, and schedules prepared.
Schedule planning
This is where the tyre meets the road. It involves preparing and enforcing detailed project plans, monitoring, and steering plans to meet operational and strategic objectives.
Project planning Dynamics 365
Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers a unique product ecosystem to meet all requirements for project planning in the construction industry.
Dynamics 365 for Finance & Operations and D365 Customer Engagement, together, provide an integrated means to cater to all requirements for construction operations in the construction industry.
Dynamics 365 Field services (CE) serves as a great tool for all things related to scheduling and booking. The ability to build work breakdown structures, and its integration with work order booking and resource scheduling, offers a very automated solutions to all the tasks that take place in field service.
Dynamics 365 Finance and operations (FO) serves as a system of record and a single source of truth for all your books. With a number of functionalities and sub-ledgers catering to different industry verticals, such as manufacturing/cost accounting, projects/ project accounting, financial accounting, finance and operations, serves the needs of businesses for accurate bookkeeping and financial reporting.
Power BI and Power Platform: We understand the reporting and business intelligence needs of a firm are far beyond just financial reporting. Power BI, with its inbuilt functionality to assimilate with any database, can produce meaningful information for business consumption.
SIS Construct 365 (SIS IP): The construction industry has a unique set of requirements pertaining to document storage and its retrieval. Project quotations and agreements, construction drawings, insurance, and compliance documents are perilous pieces of a project award and execution phase, and hence data security of their storage and retrieval are critical to the success of a project.
SIS through its industry enabling IP offers a dependable solution for the construction industry developed by leading experts of the construction industry with over 25 years of experience as a firm.
Construction focused Project Accounting/Job Cost functionalit: The SIS PCM Module manages project budgets, revisions, change orders, subcontracts, reporting, and more to give contractors much-needed ease of use, with the ability to manage projects profitably. SIS Construct365 PCM has been certified by Microsoft for Dynamics 365 and is available on Microsoft AppSource.
Payroll integrated to Projects, 365 Payroll, HR, AP, and GL: This is built to manage and process all payroll information, all automated and simplified at the point of time entry. Construct 365 Advanced Labour has been certified by Microsoft for Dynamics 365 and is available on Microsoft AppSource.
If your company is looking for a comprehensive & efficient Construction ERP solution, contact SIS to arrange a requirements discussion or demonstration.
About Abhay Agarwal, MBA, MCP – Dynamics 365 Senior Construction Operations Consultant
Abhay Agarwal is a veteran in the ERP industry with over nine years of experience implementing enterprise applications across industries. A finance professional, Abhay has proven his knowledge of Dynamics products and has led delivery teams to success on multiple occasions.
