Web-based Portfolio Management
Marc Jaude, founder and president, PMWeb, pmweb.com, Wakefield, Mass., sat down with Constructech to discuss how to leverage technology to reduce risk and control cost.
Constructech: How has your product evolved in the past year, and what is coming next?
Jaude: In late 2016, PMWeb announced a major software release of its industry-leading software. Capital project owners, facility managers, program and construction managers, and contractors in industries such as aviation/ports, construction/design, education, energy/resources, government, healthcare, infrastructure, retail/commercial, among others, all benefit from the system-wide improvements in Version 5.0.
Constructech: How will your product help builders improve business in 2017?
Jaude: As the construction industry evolves and becomes more and more technology-driven, PMWeb will continue to lead the industry in 2017 and beyond by empowering forward-thinking companies to save time, improve communication, reduce risk, and control costs between all companies involved with a project. PMWeb’s out-of-the-box ready, single source of truth database solution encompassing planning/design, estimating, cost controls, engineering forms, document controls, scheduling, asset management, and visual workflow keeps projects on budget and on schedule.
Specifically, owners get project-wide visibility across the complete plan, build, operate the lifecycle of their construction projects, allowing them to identify problems and control risks that could otherwise lead to delays and cost overruns.
Construction and program managers benefit from efficient information flows between project managers, consultants, subcontractors, and their clients. And powerful dashboards and business intelligence reports provide them the status of bids, submittals, RFIs (requests for information), etc. in realtime, providing a comprehensive management tool for progress and performance tracking.
Subcontractors and trade professionals have direct Web-access to a centralized database for plans, specifications, and information that thereby minimizes delays. Workflows keep reviews moving and conflicts quickly resolved.
In summary, PMWeb gives its clients a competitive advantage by providing transparency and control from the moment a project is conceptualized through construction, close-out, handover, and operations.
Constructech: What makes the product unique? How are you different from your competitors?
Jaude: PMWeb is a Web-based portfolio, program, and project management solution combining multiple business processes into a single easy-to-use interface. Through a single login, users can access functionality for portfolio planning, funding, estimating, risk management, online bidding, scheduling, visual workflow, engineering documentation, project management, document management, asset management with maintenance and work orders, lease management, timesheets, business intelligence reporting, etc. This functionality is interrelated and can be bidirectionally linked within PMWeb. Because of this a single data entry form, such as a timesheet, can update dozens of records in realtime. This also allows for initiative or project data to be entered once in the initial stages and the data remains with the project for the duration. The reduction of data entry helps mitigate human error and creates productivity improvements throughout the lifecycle of the project. PMWeb’s Custom Form Builder provides for unlimited new functionality with custom-designed forms and documents that are instantly available for visual workflow and reporting.
PMWeb’s ease of use is rooted in its single interface. Users do not need to familiarize themselves with multiple processes and interfaces to manage the complete lifecycle of a project. Clients can customize unlimited visual workflows with PMWeb’s Interactive Visual Workflow designer, thus providing the client with the power to establish and customize all their business processes. International clients may employ PMWeb’s powerful multi-language and multicurrency functionality. PMWeb’s multicurrency functionality extends from the project to the record and all the way down to the line item and out to five decimal points. PMWeb is packed with user-friendly features such as customizable email/visual workflow templates, user-definable home page, conceptual estimates, digital takeoff, automatic creation of contracts from estimates, online bidding, and unlimited user-defined fields.
