Four ways integrating cost and

schedule improves your project lifecycle

Improve forecast accuracy, progress tracking and

change management

Four ways integrating cost and schedule improves your project lifecycle 1
How can owners start to see better results
today for their projects?
Capital asset owners continue to grapple with challenges around predictable project execution.
For many projects, scheduling and cost management are functions completed in silos. The
lack of integrated processes and resulting data makes it hard to make completely informed
decisions. This can put construction projects at risk of being less efficient, becoming more
expensive, and missing critical completion dates.
That’s why industry leaders have adopted integrated solutions to improve planning,
procurement, resourcing, scheduling, and cost management. With integrated solutions,
you can complete schedule-based forecasting and tie measurable milestones to schedule
activities. This can better inform decisions, improve the ongoing monitoring of project
health, and help increase control over the cost and schedule impacts of unforeseen changes.
Increased competitive pressure and challenges around supply chain disruptions, materials
shortages, and rising costs all point to an elevated need for integrated cost management
and scheduling functionality. Project managers, project controls managers, and leaders
of operations, finance, and capital planning must rethink how they operate, address new
challenges, and become a strategic part of their companies’ competitive advantage as the
global economy changes.
Native integration between Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Portfolio Project Management
(EPPM) and Oracle’s Primavera Unifier can help owners better track progress against budget
and schedule to keep projects on track. The integration can speed up pay application
approvals by checking milestones related to schedule tasks to verify work completed. This
improves relationships with supply chain, assists with cost and resource loaded schedules,
and supports better decision making with integrated cost and schedule data. Based on
a brand you can trust, Oracle’s integrated solution is built on decades of proven cost and
scheduling applications and APIs, and Oracle’s own middleware and hosting.
The integration of these offerings also supports integration of cost and contract management
with schedules. This provides better access to complete data, reduces approval times, and
improves contract management. Approved changes can flow through to update contracts and
schedules through the cost breakdown structure. For example, a large chemical manufacturer
saw a 60% reduction time to update schedules by implementing Primavera P6 EPPM and
Primavera Unifier as an integrated solution. This ensured the project team was working with
the latest schedule information and also saved days every month on payment approvals.
Four ways integrating cost and schedule improves your project lifecycle 2
Four ways to improve project planning, execution, and
operations with integrated scheduling and cost management
1. Improve forecasting accuracy by having visibility of the forecast to actual
in relation to the schedule
Construction projects demand budget accuracy. Using an integrated solution that
supports both budget and schedule-based forecasting helps you develop more
accurate forecasts and track actuals to forecast on an ongoing basis so you can
take corrective action in a timely manner. Integrated cost and schedule data helps
prevent surprises so you can keep your projects on schedule and within budget.
You don’t want to find out that you’ve overspent on a project once you’re three
quarters complete. Identify any potential overspending before it happens. The
integration of Oracle’s Primavera P6 EPPM and Primavera Unifier solutions allows
you to see how the actual work completed and funds spent on your projects are
progressing against your planned schedule. The integration also allows you to
manage contracts, changes to those contracts, and the associated cashflow and
schedule impacts. That automation increases accuracy, timeliness, and reduces time
spent on monthly cash flow reporting. You can see the work that’s been completed
against your plan and also see your spend against forecast on the project to help
avoid going over budget or falling behind schedule.
Many projects also must follow specific compliance requirements depending on
industry and location. Primavera Unifier tracks and reports on activities to help ensure
compliance requirements are met and a clear project record exists. Compliance
requirements are often tied to the project schedule and specific activities and
milestones, so integrated cost and scheduling allows organizations to have greater
assurance over their compliance adherence, reducing risk of penalties or delays.
Worried about potential issues for the project that could result in project delays or
additional costs? Identify red flags early and course correct to keep your projects
on schedule and within budget. With Oracle’s integrated platform, owners can make
informed decisions and take action before a project experiences negative impacts.
Four ways integrating cost and schedule improves your project lifecycle 3
2. Tie measurable deliverables to schedule activities

Are you tasked with assessing construction project work completion against
the project schedule? Tying the progress/percent complete on the schedule to a
contract line item provides visibility into the work that has been completed and
informs the associated payment due. By accelerating work validation and payments,
and reducing the risk of under or overpayment, relationships with your supply chain
are strengthened. You also can start dependent tasks with confidence, reducing
the risk of costly idle crews. The integration of Primavera P6 EPPM and Primavera
Unifier provides you with improved control and accuracy, and helps you prevent
unnecessary disputes over vendor payments.

Four ways integrating cost and schedule improves your project lifecycle 4
3. Connect cost and change management to the schedule

Unexpected changes are part of every construction project. But how you handle
the unknowns and when you become aware of changes as they arise can have
significant impacts on your project.

With integrated Primavera P6 EPPM and Primavera Unifier, you can make better
and more timely decisions by having complete, updated, and trusted information
on how both cost and schedule are impacted by potential changes.

Being able to update schedules faster will keep team members in the field on
track, ensuring they are always working to the latest schedule, reducing costly
rework, and preventing crews from becoming idle. For example, when a change
order is approved in Primavera Unifier, the project’s cashflow in Primavera Unifier
and schedule in Primavera P6 EPPM can both be updated, helping to ensure that
both are updated in a timely and accurate manner as you monitor your project
health. Visibility into potential and actual schedule changes can also help you make
other tradeoffs to minimize impacts to the overall project success.

Four ways integrating cost and schedule improves your project lifecycle 5
4. Connect data to reduce risk of surprises “The Los Angeles County
Sanitation Districts tackled
The explosion of big data and the Internet of Things is giving construction firms the
opportunity to harness and leverage data like never before. But you can only make their data challenge with
sense of your data and make intelligent decisions based on that data if it’s collected a Primavera P6 EPPM
in a strategic manner, housed in a single system, and accessible to those who need and Primavera Unifier
it, when they need it. From there, you can leverage system intelligence to provide
integration. The sanitation
insights. For any construction project, having incomplete, dated, or siloed data can
lead to risks and suboptimal decisions for the project. Avoid surprises by aligning your districts implemented
data sources, centralizing your data repository, and adding intelligence so you can Primavera Unifier to help
spend your time analyzing and taking action instead of collecting and parsing data. them manage more than
50 of their business
The integration of Oracle’s Primavera P6 EPPM and Primavera Unifier helps to mitigate
challenges around siloed data. processes, 98% of which
are workflow based.”
For example, the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts tackled their data challenge
with a Primavera P6 EPPM and Primavera Unifier integration. The sanitation districts
implemented Primavera Unifier to help them manage more than 50 of their business
processes, 98% of which are workflow based. They also implemented Primavera P6
EPPM for project scheduling, helping enable them to look ahead on planning and
scheduling by three years, including key milestone dates. Compiling this critical data
into an integrated solution continues to keep the sanitation districts’ projects on track.

Four ways integrating cost and schedule improves your project lifecycle 6

Ready, set, integrate
Ready to integrate planning, procurement, resourcing, cost,
and scheduling for your construction projects? Get started
today with Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Portfolio Project
Management (EPPM) and Primavera Unifier solutions
to improve your construction operations with improved
assurance, increased capital asset value, and decreased risk.
When capital program management meets your growing demands
What do you get when you integrate planning, procurement, resourcing, cost, and
scheduling? Oracle’s integration of Primavera P6 EPPM and Primavera Unifier offers you more
control, comprehensive data, and actionable insights so you can execute projects efficiently
and get the most out of all your projects’ budgets.
The integrated solution offers access to reporting, views into historic and current project—
and portfolio—level budgets, forecasts, actuals, cashflow, schedule milestones, and decisions.
Oracle’s integrated solution allows you to:
• Record and review historical data on budget to actual as it relates to schedule
• Create more detailed and accurate time-based forecasts
• Gain earlier insight into risks and issues using predictive insights
• Track schedule milestones and their associated deliverables
• Manage cost and schedule impacts of changes
• Improve relationships with supply chain by providing clear and timely
information on requirements, timing, and changes
Four ways integrating cost and schedule improves your project lifecycle 7
Portfolio management: planning and oversight with integrated cost and
scheduling management
• Increase forecast accuracy with schedule-based forecasting
• Improve visibility into progress against schedule
• Gain additional control over change management
• Improve control and accuracy over cashflow
• Reduce risk caused by siloed data and lagging indicators
How owner integrated cost and schedule management helps organizations optimize
their capital budgets
1. Synchronize systems and processes to drive consistency to gain control across your portfolio
2. Connect organizations, and become an integral and consistent part of your project teams
3. Harness integrated data to empower decisions and actions across your portfolio
Four ways integrating cost and schedule improves your project lifecycle 8
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Four ways integrating cost and schedule improves your project lifecycle 9