TILOS Software | Linear Infrastructure Investment Project News | June, 2017

Each month TILOS Americas publishes Linear Scheduling News, a curated selection of articles about infrastructure projects, linear scheduling, and all things TILOS. This month’s news can be summarized in a lot of talks and agreements around Linear Infrastructure Investments.

Final Winter Construction Completed On First Public Highway to The Arctic Ocean.

Canada will at last be connected coast to coast to coast with the completion of the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk highway, which will be the first public highway to the Arctic ocean.

After four years of construction in brutally harsh conditions, the last 137 kilometres connecting Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk, on the shores of the Beaufort Sea are complete. 

 

Slated to open November 2017, this $299 million project is expected to decrease the cost of living and increase tourism in the remote areas of Canada’s north.

South America To Benefit From China’s Global Infrastructure Investment:

On May 14th & 15th the leaders of 27 countries met to discuss implementation of the Belt & Road initiative, Chinese President’ Xi Jinping’s proposed development strategy. Primarily designed to increase China’s global leadership through investment in infrastructure the development plan may extend as far as Latin America.

Chilean President proposed several options for Latin American involvement, such as a possible joint investment in “a Trans-Pacific optic fiber cable to improve digital connectivity or tunnels and highways across the Andes Mountains and ports to link South America to Asia.”

In 2015, Xi had pledged to double bilateral trade between China and Latin America to $500 billion and increase investment to $250 billion over the next decade.

 

Blackstone, Saudi’s PIF plan $40 billion investment fund to rebuild US “crumbling” infrastructure

During the Saudi-US CEO Forum 2017, May 20th, billions of dollars of deals were signed. US President Donald Trump participated in talks to to raise $40 billion in international investment, primarily for US infrastructure.

The Public Investment Fund, Riyadh’s main sovereign wealth fund, and U.S. private equity firm Blackstone said they were studying a proposal to create a $40 billion vehicle to invest in infrastructure projects, mainly in the United States.

The vehicle would obtain $20 billion from the PIF and with additional debt financing, might invest in over $100 billion of infrastructure projects – a political boon to Trump, who has said he wants to rebuild crumbling U.S. infrastructure.

The new fund “reflects our positive views around the ambitious infrastructure initiatives being undertaken in the United States as announced by President Trump,” the PIF’s managing director Yasir al-Rumayyan said.

 

Australian super funds “ready” to invest in Latin American infrastructure projects

Australian’s Industry super funds investments in European, North American and Australian airports, seaports, railways, highways and utilities total some AUD75bn, and now this powerful private capital organization is ready to reinvest in Latin America.

Stephen Anthony, chief economist of the Industry Super Association, told an audience of bankers and industry players from Chile, Mexico, Colombia and Peru that Australian industry super funds are ready to go to Latin America.

He named six countries as the “first targets”: Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, Argentina and Peru, naming the former two as the more mature markets.

 

About TILOS Americas

A favourite of leading infrastructure companies across the globe, TILOS linear scheduling software gives Project Planning Managers, Contractors, and Project Owners the ability to create and execute a reliable, comprehensive and easy to communicate linear project plan.

Trimble TILOS software was developed specifically to address the unique challenges of linear projects such as roads, railway, pipeline, bridges for professionals in the construction, engineering and energy sectors.

A few minutes with a senior scheduler at Parsons

Andy Fairbairn has been a project scheduler since 2002. Educated at the University of Boulder, Colorado, Andy has spent his career with leading infrastructure construction companies such as Flatiron and Kiewit.

Andy is currently a senior scheduler in the estimating group at Parsons.

Q: Andy, what kinds of projects do you work on in your role as scheduler?

Andy: “I primarily work on linear infrastructure projects like roads and bridges. Although he laughs, “I’ve dabbled in wastewater.”

 

Q: How long have you been working on linear infrastructure projects?

Andy: “My first linear project was in 2002.”

 

Q: Andy, what are you working on right now, and are you at liberty to say?

Andy: “We’re bidding on the I-25 design/build and working on the Missouri bridge replacement project. I keep pretty busy.”

 

Q: Andy, what challenges do you find are unique to linear projects?

Andy:  “Well, the stuff I deal with, in the bidding department, isn’t unique to linear projects. The needs we have go across all projects – to understand, plan and effectively communicate to the team.”

 

Q: What software tools have you used to manage linear project schedules?

Andy: “I primarily create the schedule in Primavera P6 and then transfer it into TILOS. Before I heard about TILOS I used to use something called Transcon Exposition, which I don’t think you can get anymore.”

 

Q: How did you find using these traditional project management software applications to manage the schedule of a linear project?

Andy: “In North America, most owner companies have a requirement to use P6, so all my jobs have been done in P6.  There are some jobs where I haven’t had the time to develop the schedule in TILOS and have just done it in P6. It certainly makes communicating the schedule to the team much more difficult. My team is used to receiving the TILOS schedule and when they don’t get one, they sort of stare at me blankly, so I try to do one one every job.”

 

Q: How would you describe TILOS scheduling software?

Andy: “I would describe TILOS as the most effective scheduling tool that I have to communicate what our plan is to build work. It gives me the framework where I can graphically display our schedule, it lets me check my work, make sure I don’t have any glaring errors, and talk to the team about it easily. It’s not a 100 page plot coming out of P6.

 

Q: What would you tell anyone who is considering using TILOS, but hasn’t quite decided yet?

Andy “ I would certainly recommend TILOS. If they’re not using it, they are not getting the benefits of it as a tool in their scheduling tool-kit”

 

Q: What are your Favourite Features of TILOS?:

Andy: “Lately what I have been using a lot is the subproject functionality in TILOS. When you look at a highway interchange for instance, which is 6 different roads and an interchange, it is not necessarily all linear in nature, but TILOS lets me show each component as 6 different projects.”

I used this technique for the most complex freeway project we worked on recently – the I-395 project in Miami and it helped me account for all the details.”

 

About TILOS linear project planning software:

 

TILOS is the globe’s preferred linear project management software, trusted by 4 out of 5 industry leaders.

TILOS automates the linear scheduling method, and with it, many of the repetitive tasks associated with planning, updating and presenting a linear project. It’s intuitive visual interface connect the plan to the physical project, making it easy to optimize, update and present to various stakeholders.
Click here to request a free trial and demo of TILOS.

An interview with a senior scheduler on a complex linear project in the USA:

Jared Taylor has been a project scheduler since 2004 and has 11 years of experience working on linear infrastructure projects.  

He’s spent his career with leading infrastructure companies such as Henkels and McCoy, HDR, Enbridge and consultations with Worley Parsons.  

Currently, Jared is a Senior Scheduler with Tutor Perini, one of the largest general contractors in the Unites States. At Tutor Perini, Jared is working on the Central Subway Project in San Francisco. Valued at just under a billion dollars, the Central Subway Project is considered a very complex linear project, due to the factors present in a dense urban environment.

Tutor Perini is contracted to lay 1.6 miles of track and build underground stations at Chinatown, Union Market Square and the Moscone Centre.  

Question: Jared, what challenges do you find are unique to linear projects?

 

Jared: “Linear projects are unique in that you typically do not have full control of the project site with outside limitations of operation, whereas, in other projects like building construction,  you typically have full control over the site. Linear projects create the need to work in multiple work places and optimize your resources for a smooth work flow.”

 

Question: Can you give us an example of the limitations that may occur with a linear infrastructure project?

 

Jared: “Sure, I was on a highway project where we had started construction and yet, there were still parcels of land in the right of way that had to be acquired and transferred over to the Department of Transportation.

There were a lot of moving parts and a lot of key information from scheduling, the real estate department, stakeholders and project managers that dictated how the project was going to be constructed.”

 

Q: What software tools have you used to manage linear project schedules?

 

Jared: “Outside of TILOS linear planning software,  I’ve used Primavera P6 as well as MS project.”

 

Q: How did you find using these traditional project management software applications to manage the schedule of a linear project?

 

Jared “Both P6 and MS Project do not have a linear scheduling report capability so you’re unable to visualize the project with page after page of activities in a Gantt Chart format.  

 

Q: When did you start using TILOS to manage the scheduling for linear projects?

 

Jared: “I’ve been using TILOS scheduling software since 2010.”

 

 

Q: What do you think of TILOS?

 

“I love the tool.

I really love how TILOS software conveys a lot of information and specific schedule on single page. I really love using TILOS because it is very visual. I am a visual learner myself.

A conventional way to display the schedule, using pages of gantt charts,  can be very disorienting.

TILOS is extremely customizable and can convey a lot of information: graphics, histograms, cost allocations, manpower, loading, and resource allocation to name a few.   

It’s powerful to be able to show complicated things in a graphical format, where it doesn’t require a lot of page turning. I think that speaks very well to management and decision makers for a well run project.”

 

Q: What percentage of time and money would you estimate TILOS saves, per project?

 

Jared laughs “I seem to specialize in projects that are behind schedule that need and a rescue.  I’m known in the industry as a project recovery specialist. I’ve been able to take projects that were well behind schedule and using TILOS, bring them back to meet the contracted end date.

I’ve worked on projects where delivering the project one day behind the Contract date costs $40,000 a day, and if you’re 6 months behind schedule, it could be hundreds of thousands if not millions in liquidated damages.

The ability to get the project back on course it could save millions of dollars.”

 

Q: What would you tell anyone who is considering using TILOS, but hasn’t quite decided yet?

Jared: “I would tell them, if you’re doing linear projects, TILOS is well worth your investment.

The potential savings to your company and the ability to best communicate to your staff and project team makes using TILOS software a very worthy investment.”

 

Q: What are your Favourite Features of TILOS?:

 

Jared: “Incorporating graphics, whether it be LANDSAT images or elevation profiles, resources and equipment into the schedule as well.”

 

 

About TILOS linear project planning software:

TILOS is the globe’s preferred linear project management software, trusted by 4 out of 5 industry leaders.

TILOS automates the linear scheduling method, and with it, many of the repetitive tasks associated with planning, updating and presenting a linear project. It’s intuitive visual interface connect the plan to the physical project, making it easy to optimize, update and present to various stakeholders.

Click here to request a free trial and demo of TILOS.