Industries · Construction & engineering
A company that is really a portfolio of deadlines.
A contractor or engineering firm is a set of concurrent projects, each with its own budget, programme, subcontractors and contractual dates. Cost and schedule control dominate every other consideration, and the head-office systems only matter to the extent they reflect what is happening on site.
This page describes how the sector works and which of Noble’s capabilities apply to it.
How the sector runs
Most of the information that matters originates on site — progress, variations, materials received, plant hours, snags — and it is captured by people whose connectivity is intermittent and whose hands are full. An application that requires a stable network and a keyboard is an application that becomes a WhatsApp message and a spreadsheet.
Project accounting is where the sector’s reporting difficulty concentrates. Committed cost, certified value, retention and variation status have to reconcile between a project-control system and a finance ledger that were rarely designed together, and the monthly argument between the two is the reason most transformation programmes in this sector start.
What the estate usually looks like
Project control beside a finance ledger
Two systems that describe the same money differently, reconciled by hand at month end. Closing that gap is usually the highest-value single change available.
Sites that come and go
Temporary offices, temporary connectivity and temporary users, stood up and taken down on a project cycle. Provisioning has to be a repeatable operation rather than a project of its own.
Documents as the contractual record
Drawings, submittals, RFIs and correspondence, where the version that was current on a given date is itself a legal question.
Which services this reaches
- Software & Web EngineeringField applications that tolerate losing connectivity, and the interfaces that carry what they capture back into the systems of record.
- Digital TransformationProcess work where the change is organisational as much as technical — one definition of committed cost, and an approval route people will actually use.
- Data & AnalyticsReconciliation between project control and finance, and reporting a commercial manager can defend in a client meeting.
- Managed IT ServicesStanding up and closing down site IT on a project cycle, and supporting users who are not near a service desk.
Technology typically specified
- Mobility & field devicesRugged tablets and handhelds for people recording progress in daylight, dust and gloves.
- NetworkingTemporary site connectivity, wireless coverage across a compound, and links back to head office.
- Printing & imagingLarge-format plotting and scanning where drawings are still issued and marked up on paper.
Start with month end.
How long the reconciliation takes, and how many people are in the room for it. That answer usually contains the project.