The Digital Construction Awards will celebrate the most pioneering projects, teams, and individuals championing innovation and technology in the built environment, whether at the bleeding edge of technology and digitalisation or exploring digital technologies and processes for the first time. The awards run in partnership with Digital Construction Week, BIMplus, Construction Management and the Chartered Institute of Building with 13 prestigious categories. RFL Capital Projects have been shortlisted for two Categories – Best application of technology and Digital excellence in a construction Small management enterprise for the development and implementation of the Royal Free London Capital Programme Reporting Tool using Microsoft PowerBi.
The reporting tool was developed for Projects, Estates, IT and MEB who are responsible for delivering £70m of Capital and Backlog Maintenance Projects each year. Each team was using different project reporting tools, there was no automation with Trust finance data and no automated way to pull all of the project data into one place to see the overall programme position on cost, schedule, risk and planned vs actual spend. Systems were manual entry, time consuming and presented scope for human error. There was no ability to analyse forecast spend to see if we were on track to achieve our annual allocation from NHSIE North Central London (NCL) to deliver our Capital Programme. Failure to reach target spend means Trusts are less likely to be awarded their full requested allocation for future years when they bid for available Capital within the Integrated Care Systems (ICS) Sector. We needed to develop a PMO (Programme Management Office) reporting tool and process to manage our Capital Programme, it needed to be automated and standardised across all teams, easy for staff to use and versatile enough to allow presentation of data at project team level right the way up to finance director and the Chief Executive.
We looked outside of the healthcare sector to aviation and the water industry and spoke with leading consultants running Capital PMO’s for other clients. We realised that not only did we need a tool that could present data in a visually interesting way but the reports the team filled in each month needed to be digitally transformed also. We assessed a number of factors when selecting the most appropriate technology for the reporting tool. We were operating on Windows 2007 and Office 2010 with upgrades to Windows 10 and Office 365 pending so we had to use software that would be compatible across differing versions of operating system. We had to consider integration with our Trust finance systems to meet the brief around automation. We had to consider the scale of the change and training for the teams using the new reports, if it was too complex or time consuming it would not be adopted easily. We looked at options for database systems however we decided to utilise Microsoft Excel to develop a workbook as the basis of a monthly project managers report and Microsoft Power Bi Desktop to transform the data from the excel workbooks into visual reports, all of which was free within our existing Trust Microsoft software packages.
The main challenge was trying to implement the new tool when the organisation was transferring to Windows 10 and office 365 however we overcame this by installing a temporary plug-in to Excel. The new reporting has up-skilled the teams project planning and financial management skills and we are all now working in a consistent way. Monthly project review (MPR) meetings are in place for each project team to discuss finance, risk, programme and change, not only does this drive consistency but it has also helped improve communication, team working and wellbeing particularly where some project managers are delivering projects on remote sites outside of the main hospital who don’t get frequent opportunities to engage with the rest of the team.
The challenge to develop one standardised reporting system used by multiple teams across Capital and Estates has been achieved. The automation with Trust finance systems means reports can be turned around in minutes saving 8 hours per week, every month across 25 members of staff which equates to over £120,000 per year. We now have up to date, accurate and transparent evidence based reporting which allows timely informed decision making. We can see where delays, scope or specification changes are occurring or where we are delivering opportunities and savings. Its flexible and can capture changes in priorities and quickly identify project cost pressures. We can analyse trend data and identify common programme risks and lessons learnt for better planning of future projects. As we approach the end of financial year our cashflow forecasting is giving the Trust confidence we can achieve our targets which is crucial as we look to declare our Capital Programme for the next 3 years and bid for funds available for Capital within the NCL Integrated Care Systems (ICS) for 22/23. The benefits are not only realised by the Trust but also across NCL as the new digital reporting system builds confidence in our Capital Programme and supports investment decision making.
The awards will take place at The Brewery on 12th July 2022 and we are up against some of the biggest names in construction such as Vinci, Taylor Woodrow, Skanska, Sir Robert McAlpine, Balfour Beatty, Mace and BAM so to have been shortlisted is a real success for the Capital Projects Team.
