With UniPhi - Project 13 Digital Transformation for the Capable Owner is more than BIM and the Digital Twin

Sadly, most of the talk in the Project 13 arena around digital transformation focuses on digital design elements like BIM and the digital twin. We believe this is further paving of cow paths that has been the scourge of the construction and infrastructure industry for years. 

If you look outside of construction and infrastructure and see how other industries do projects, while not perfect, you will not see any of the debate and management theories prevalent in construction. Jira, Slack, Basecamp, Monday, Trello etc are all incredibly successful pieces of software used to manage projects. These products are worth significantly more than the most successful construction project management software products like Procore and Aconex and yet, these products are rarely used in construction. 

Digital transformation should focus on better collaboration aligned with traditional project controls automation

 

There is too much focus on the design model in construction. Most products that capture BIM and digital twin information do not work well with non-industry gurus who are the ones paying the bill and providing the outcomes required. Like a lot of construction software, the drivers of these products are few in number and the systems are often closed, accessible only on the machine installed. 

Even when published online, large file sizes, complex interfaces with little room for comment threading and issue/risk management mean that these models are great visualisation tools but do nothing to track how a design is evolving through new outcomes, requirements and capability conversations. It is these conversations that must be passed down the line to contractors and sub-contractors to ensure the outcome is kept in mind at all times of the build. This is the key elements of agile collaboration, sprints and value-based project management implemented by users of collaborative tools.

What is lost in the world that uses the collaborative tools referenced above is the control of program, cost and resource allocation. These elements, so heavily focused on in construction, could definitely be adopted by non-construction industries to assist them in delivering on time and within constraints of cost and quality. Combine these two elements (Collaboration and Project Controls) into one holistic platform and you now have the ability to create true digital transformation on any type of project, and this is what UniPhi has done.

The UniPhi platform can replace numerous systems and integrate with others to streamline the number of tools, improving the volume, quality and value of project information

 UniPhi brings the following use cases to the table of digital transformation:

1. Web-based access open to any stakeholder in any business
2. Captures and manages the version control of new design documentation
3. Links design documentation to design issues and the conversations that lead to their resolution
4. Links cost impacts on these same design issues to contract variations budget variances and change requests
5. Formalises the approval of original budgets via digital signatures based on delegated authorities
6. Formalises the approval of budget change requests via the same digital signatures on delegated authorities
7. Fomalises and controls the assessment of progress invoicing with one workflow from supplier to project manager to accountant and to accounting system via proven delegated authority digital sign-offs.
8. Automates the updating of cash flow and program based off signed off progress invoicing and earned value assessment
   
9. Automates the multi-functional reporting of project, program and portfolio cost, schedule, quality, risks, issues, resource and contractual performance, providing time for analysis and course correction
10. Eliminates the need for progress meetings to find out the status of tasks
    
11. Enables the collaboration around risk mitigation and the drawdown of contingency to meet emerging risk demand
12. Facilitates the communication of outcomes to new stakeholders as they are onboarded into the project/program
13. Transparent forward-looking utilisation of human resources across the value chain to identify bottlenecks in the supply
14. Captures time against tasks and assesses earned value for those tasks to generate real-time and accurate earned value performance reporting
15. Captures in field data including defects, surveillance, daily diaries, toolbox talks etc etc
16. Rolls this data up into trends and uses this information for early warnings on new projects via AI and machine learning
    

And, and, and, and.....

UniPhi's 11 standard modules that integrate with each other and provide a platform for true digital transformation

The integration of the 11 core modules to facilitate the above use cases is total blue ocean for capable owners who leverage this software to its fullest