Victor is responsible for project management from permits to finish preparation for 500 to 1000 homes per year. He has to be able to determine the status of any project at any stage of construction instantly. He was using a paper system with progress bars and notes to keep track of his work.
A project management program was constructed which shows the overall status of any home using a progress bar on one screen and gives instant access to any stage of construction on other screens. Most data entries are one click entries. Projects automatically appear at the next stage of construction as the previous stage is complete. For any property there is an overall project report that is instantly accessible. The program was installed on a lap top computer which is removed from the construction office nightly.
Victor has instant access to the details of any project. Hydro inspection requests have been automated, saving time every day. The data for each job is now consistent from job to job. Victor is able to spend more time on site now as he is not tied to the office.
This program was commissioned and developed in the spring of 2001. As at current writing, May 2005, this program has been in continuous operation since that time. There have been some minor screen changes to improve work flow. Aside from this, the program has been maintenance free.
This program has been expanded to cover activities from permits to final occupancy and has been migrated from FileMker Pro 5-6 to Filemaker Pro 8.x. It is now being used by three people in the office over a LAN and by one person from home using a VPN. Reports that were taking over a day to generate by hand are now being generated in an hour or so.