The TRACK Platform provides daily cost transparency at the work level, enabling companies to identify problems proactively and minimize cost overruns.
What does “daily cost transparency” mean? How about, "having actionable knowledge today of yesterday’s activities performed by internal (employees) and contractor resources and the costs to your project.” Another way of thinking about it is the phrase, “driving ahead looking through the windshield rather than the rearview mirror.”
We all have been criticized by bosses for making important spur-of-the-moment project decisions that came back to bite us. Discovery work/project scope additions that we hoped would fit into the total project budget. Contingency costs, weather delays, which blew out the project’s contingency budget (if any). And your favorite, contractor invoices that show up on your desk three months after the project is closed; after you've told everyone what the final costs were!
We all know that STO planning and scheduling work needs to begin months or years prior to Day 1 of the turnaround. That’s equally true for contract negotiations and contract signing. It's also true for the dozens of other important pre-turnaround activities (permits, engineering, and long lead time acquisitions). The truth is that all the important pre-turnaround work which has such a dramatic impact on turnaround execution is inter-dependent and in pretty constant flux. When one domino falls, another domino is sure to fall.
Turnarounds, Shutdowns, and Outages move forward at light speed. Good information about actual hours worked by activity and the costs of those resources (labor, equipment, materials, per diem) is never fast enough to stay up with the project. You end up doing the best you can but making decisions based on old, incomplete project hours and costs. Decisions that are often the best you can do but now good enough. There is a better way.
With actual burned hours by PO/WO, it’s absolutely possible to update the latest estimate of project total cost and duration. Most turnaround projects are comprised of many PO/WO packages. Tracking the real progress of PO/WO’s and real costs of work allows you to upgrade the quality of the estimate every day. Your “new daily forecast” is then based on the highest quality components possible and your new forecast allows you to answer definitively that age-old question: “When are you going to finish and what’s it going to cost?”