PORTFOLIO
With 2 decades of work experience under my belt, the following projects are merely a small sample of the successful client engagements that have been completed. If you have a challenge and can't find something like it among the following, let me know and I can tell you more about projects I have completed that are analogous to your particular challenges.
The automation robot at work for Rodney, completing his Cost Management Reports at a blazing pace. He's affectionately named "Rod-Bot".
The automation menu showing 162 CMRs in the automation queue about to be built.
PROJECT 5:
CSI Cost Management Report Automation
Background
CSI had a manual process of building up Cost Management Reports for each of their active jobs. Prior to their company's explosive growth, this manual process was a weekly event requiring 4 to 5 hours per week to handle 40-50 active jobs. As the job numbers grew and grew, now exceeding 150 active jobs in a given week, the requirement to produce the CMRs was so burdensome that the main POC for this task would be at the office late into the night, finishing well after midnight, and literally camping out in his office instead of going home after midnight. This missing of one night at home would continue week after week for years. Imagine the relief that came to Rodney when he learned that all of his CMRs could be completed before the end of a normal workday and have him home in time for dinner.
Challenge
-
Potential proprietary solutions did not match up with CSI's business process and nomenclature
-
With the growth of the company, cost management reports were increasingly important to make sure all projects were getting completed under budget.
-
Building up the Cost Management Reports was a manual, error-prone process that involved references to the previous week's CMR and the impacts of Change Requests. Errors introduced in early weeks had the potential to throw values off in the successive weeks.
-
Data validation needed to be more proactive to identify issues with unexpected cost overruns / underruns.
-
Delays in having an accurate Cost Management Reports results in Project Managers working from stale financial data.
Solution
2 partial screenshots seen at left. Solution consists of an Microsoft Access database connected to a SQL Server database with Microsoft Excel templates for the CMRs which include the following features and benefits:
-
SQL Server holds the existing financial data for all executed jobs.
-
The active and tracked jobs are managed via Access user forms to define the following:
-
-
Current Project Manager and Key Personnel
-
CMR Template to use (multiple templates available depending on job type)
-
User defined key-value pairs of attributes defining the job (used in other job-related reporting)
-
Rod-Bot log of previously exported CMRs
-
-
Standardized templates serve as the error-free data structure used in building up the Cost Management Reports
-
CMR creation time is dependent upon the amount of data to process, but single-digit times measured in SECONDS were typical.
-
Automated validation of unmatched Cost Codes where costs were applied against a line item with no budget
-
Detailed Automation Progress Notification shows jobs completed and elapsed time, the current automation action for the worked job, and the pending jobs remaining in the queue
Implementing this solution had all of the tangible benefits of fast & accurate CMRs but also had the intangible benefits of worker morale being improved. Rod-Bot does his job so that Rodney can do other important tasks and still have a healthy work-life balance.
Client Testimony and Stated Benefits
"I would like to give a huge thanks to Domenico for changing the course of my weekly work life. For years one day a week I would run companywide cost reports that would get sent out to our Project Managers, Project Engineers and Estimators. Our Cost Management Reports or “CMRs” were built in excel and required a lot of hands-on work from myself. Every week I would download data and begin building out all the reports manually. This was a very time-consuming process. I would run maybe 35-40 reports a week and email each report out to the appropriate people which would take me into the wee hours of the morning before I would get done. I would actually sleep in my office one night a week in order to get all of the reports out on time. It was grueling… then in steps “The Maestro”!
Domenico was able to build a software program inside of Microsoft Access to do the work for me. What used to take hours and a cot in my office to run 40 reports now takes less than an hour to run over 160 reports. After uploading my weekly data the “RodBot”, as it was named, grabs the fresh data and begins building reports. It pulls in Change Orders, Jobsite Quantities and a Previously Submitted CMR then takes all the reports and consolidates them into emails grouped by Project Managers for me to send out. It is incredible! Domenico was able to give me back more time with my family which is priceless. I have watched our company grow from 55m in 2008 to over 500m in 2022. There is no way I would have been able to physically continue the process I was using before.
Domenico your knowledge, personality and great work ethic all fit together to make things happen! I thank you, along with my wife and children, for all your hard work and determination to get everything just right to change our lives! God Bless"
Rodney M.
Financial Manager