One of the key challenges that face those involved in capital construction projects is how fast they can be alerted of any event that could lead to a change in the project scope, schedule and cost. Whether you are a capital project owner or a contractor, having a process to capture all types of potential change events enables you to better review and analyze those events and their impact on the project’s scope, schedule, and cost to decide what response actions need to be made to avoid, mitigate or accept those changes.
You need to have a process that can be accessed anywhere, anytime using any device by every single individual who is formally obliged by the contract agreement to report those change events as soon as he or she becomes aware of the event. Those potential change events usually include Early Warning Notification, Engineer’s Instruction, Extension of Time Request, Claim Notice, Request for Change, Value Engineering Proposal among others. The process needs to enable the individuals submitting the potential change request to upload and attach all relevant supportive documents as well as provide the information needed for each type of change event. The process should identify the sequence of workflow steps needed to review and approve or reject the potential change request for which it could differ depending on the type of change event. The cost data associated with those potential change events should become immediately to report on as well as detail their impact on relevant awarded commitment contracts.
Using a Project Management Information System (PMIS) like PMWeb, the process for potential changes is one of the many ready to use cost management processes that are available by default in PMWeb. Being a 100% web enable, responsive zero foot print application, PMWeb can be accessed anywhere, anytime using any device. Unlike other cost management modules in PMWeb where a FULL NAMED license is needed, the potential change requests module needs a GUEST use license which could be NAMED or CONCURRENT. This means that giving access to project individuals to submit potential change requests has negligible financial implication on the PMWeb investment.
Project individuals, who have been authorized to access PMWeb potential change order module, need to provide the project name (in case they have access to more than one project), commitment contract affected by the potential change (in case they have access to more than one contract within a project) which automatically picks the company name, type of potential change event (EWN, EOT, EI, RFC, Claim, VEP), title, date, cost details each linked to its relevant cost account as per the approved cost breakdown structure (CBS), number of delay days among others. If the reason for the potential change event is a known risk that has already been identified in PMWeb Risk Analysis module, then it is recommended to link the risk analysis record to the potential change event.
For each type of potential change event, there are additional details that are specific for each type of change that needs to be provided by the individual submitting the change event. PMWeb specifications or user defined fields allows creating the additional fields to capture this information. Those fields could be text, currency, date, value from a predefined list, Boolean and number. Those user defined fields are grouped by the type of potential change event they belong to.
All supportive documents for the potential change event including drawings, pictures, videos, specifications among others can be uploaded direct on the form or uploaded on PMWeb document management repository before they are attached to the form. Of course, links to other PMWeb forms as well as imported MS Outlook emails can be also done.
The last step for the individual submitting the potential change event is to click on the “Submit” button to formally start the process of reviewing and approving or rejecting this request. The PMWeb workflow includes conditions that are aligned with data submitted in the potential change event such as the category filed which could have the values of EWN, EOT, EI, RFC, Claim among others. Those conditions and others automatically channel the workflow review steps to the assigned project team member. The workflow steps become the basis for changing the change event status from draft to approved or rejected.
The last step for the individual submitting the potential change event is to click on the “Submit” button to formally start the process of reviewing and approving or rejecting this request. The PMWeb workflow includes conditions that are aligned with data submitted in the potential change event such as the category filed which could have the values of EWN, EOT, EI, RFC, Claim among others. Those conditions and others automatically channel the workflow review steps to the assigned project team member. The workflow steps become the basis for changing the change event status from draft to approved or rejected.
The captured potential change events data become the basis of generating a real-time single version of the truth register of all early warning notifications (EWN), request for changes (RFC), engineer’s instructions (EI), extension of time requests (EOT), claim notices (Claim), value engineering proposals (VEP) among others. The report provides a real-time alert of all potential change events even for those who are not part of the assigned workflow process who are automatically notified when a potential change event is submitted. The report can be designed to include the visuals that can best analyze and report on the captured change events data with the option to drilldown to each specific potential change event.
