Trifecta has exclusively licensed the ProjectPartner project management code base for the infrastructure management space, and has worked with ProjectPartner.com to extensively customize our code base to meet their very specific product needs for managing infrastructure assets – roads, water, and property. The resultant product is called Trifecta Project Management (TPM), and it is a core component in Trifecta’s breakthrough suite of Web 2.0 geospatially enabled asset management tools. These tools are specifically designed, using the latest in browser-based Adobe Flex code, to efficiently automate the entire infrastructure management process chain for consultants, contractors, utility companies, and government entities at both the state and local levels – basically anyone who is involved in repairing infrastructure assets day to day, and in doing the preventative “Forward Works” to keep those assets – bridges, roads, etc. – maintained at optimum levels.
We believe, with Trifecta, that asset and infrastructure management represent a major new vertical market for project management tools, but that no other project management products to date have really been able to meet the very specific needs of this market. Trifecta and ProjectPartner.com worked very closely on the development of TPM to meet those very specific needs, and have worked side by side with a New Zealand city, Palmerston North, to vet the resultant design. Palmerston North is very well regarded in New Zealand for their expertise in asset management. Trifecta made the business decision to license ProjectPartner.com’s base code because it embodied over 12 years of very rich intellectual property in project management expertise, and it would have taken Trifecta several years of development time and millions of dollars of development expense to try to re-invent our functionality from scratch.
Comments from:
David Down, Building Asset Officer at Palmerston North City Council (“DD”) and
Neil Warby, Senior Engineering Officer Asset Management at Palmerston North City Council (“NW”)
TPM was implemented on July 1, 2009 for Palmerston North City Council (PNCC).
DD: As project managers there were some major challenges that lead to searching for a better application than that which we were using (Microsoft Project). The first was giving ourselves the ability to view all or some projects in a simple shared way that gave flexibility to grouping projects, changing views, making selected changes and being able to report on a number of different levels depending on the level in the organisation which was receiving the reports.
In conjunction with this we are also looking to replace some ageing maintenance costing and reporting tools built into other applications in use. Our desire is to implement Trifecta PM gradually until we reach a point were we can make a change from our existing building maintenance application to Trifecta PM.
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The works programming method is also clumsy and inefficient. At present, works programme meetings are held monthly with all departments. Reports are printed in 28 pages of A3, in three different groupings of time, responsibility and resource. Only capital and renewal works are recorded, even though many maintenance items are of major expense, are planned or recurring, and could easily be represented visually in Trifecta PM. Location-based projects are hand drawn on a perspex overlay on a non-movable map of the city. (Refer photo at left, click for a larger view.)
Identification of projects which conflict in terms of both time and location relies on visual recognition, whereas with Trifecta PM we have carefully recorded our projects in a way that will allow future automatic recognition of such conflicts.
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NW: Our 10-year forward work program was in excel and when after weeks of effort it was printed out it consistently took up five A1 sheets of paper and was out of date as soon as it was printed. A picture of this programme in our boardroom is attached. Using TPM there is no need to print out the program as any person wishing to see it or with the correct permission to change it can do so and those changes are immediately available to the next users of the application. (Refer photo at right, click for a larger view.)
DD: Trifecta PM gave us a number of opportunities we did not have with our existing products including:
NW: We were attracted to Trifecta because after viewing their product preview in November 07, we had to started considering the needs of our future users and as a council we are always supportive of Kiwi innovation.
DD: The Property section has not yet used Trifecta PM in a “live” daily way. It is unfortunate that at the time of purchase, management was heavily involved with review of firstly the three-year Asset Management Plans, followed immediately by 10-year Long Term Council Community Plans, our highest-level city planning document. Even during this process, however, it became clear that by the time of the next three-yearly review of both these key organisational documents, Trifecta PM was going to shorten the planning and costing process immensely. With proper use, it will give us the ability to look back at what was intended to be done vs what was deferred or what was completed, what was achieved above cost vs what was achieved below, and then enable us to alter projects on the fly to better hit our financial targets.
We have already come across instances where the sharing of information will help non-project people understand our projects. Within the Property team, for example, I can already provide our commercial and residential tenancy staff timelines for major works affecting our rental properties. This has helped me set out for them when works are taking place around lease expiries and renewals, and has lead me to believe that lease terms might be able to be set out in Trifecta PM or that it may be possible to connect to our lease management system so that we can access lease details at the point of scheduling works ahead.
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NW: At the present time, there is close to 300 asset management projects loaded into this software application. By using the Trifecta Project Management software (TPM), my Roading Asset Management unit has been enabled to identify where there are any possible clashes with any planned projects right across the whole spectrum of local Authority assets. (Refer screenshot at right, click for a larger view.)
On Friday November 7th, council began entering planned projects into TPM, these programs included roading and water projects which meant entering Capital works (Capex) and routine operating renewals (Opex). While this data was being entered, a clash was identified on Pioneer Street South: where a smoothing treatment was to be applied to the existing pavement surface at a cost of $215,000 and planned to start next month, by using TPM this project was shown to precede a planned water main replacement in the next financial year.
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The ramification being, that my Roading Unit would have ripped up the existing pavement and relaid a new pavement surface at great expense, only to have our water unit come along one year later and dig a trench right through this new pavement to lay a new water main. (Refer screenshot at left, click for a larger view.)
As this would have happened only one year after a new pavement was laid, the public outcry at a time when we’re looking everywhere we can for savings would be deafening. My manager said that by being able to pick this up before any work had gone ahead, TPM had paid for itself on day one.
Trifecta has a unique spatial approach to infrastructure management, however since we have gone live, it’s become clear that TPM is a real tool made by civil and industrial engineers for engineers. It’s provided the leverage for far greater efficiency through visibility to meet our present needs and those leading into the future.
DD: One of PNCC’s key goals in the current financial year is to ensure that we end the year with each project within budget. We have now captured a range of key projects in the system and continue to add the remainder. With these projects recorded each task can then expensed so that we are able to track each projects budget vs cost.
We also intend to improve the transparency of projects within one portfolio (e.g. Roads, Water, Property) to projects within others.
NW: Our goals in our Roading unit are to ensure that we have the most advance asset project management system, that will enable us to mange our stakeholders assets and dollars in the most efficient manner.
Palmerston North City is a provincial city of 80,000 people in the North Island of New Zealand. The local Council is responsible for basic community infrastructure of roads, water supply, wastewater, stormwater and solid waste disposal. Council also holds a number of land and building properties providing for operating activities, residential housing, commercial retail space, and cultural and sporting activities such as libraries and theatres, aquatic centres and the regional sports stadium. PNCC has one of the highest ratios of open park and sport field space and number of community housing units per head of population in New Zealand.
PNCC’s total asset portfolio has a replacement valuation of NZ$1,257 million dollars.
