Fit-out and refurbishment projects are one of the many critical investments that cop do to maintain, improve and grow their business operations. Whether those projects were to remodel or upgrade existing or new showroom, store, office, bank branch, common facilities, movie theatre, fuel station, supermarket, pharmacy, surgery operation room among others, the successful delivery of those projects is critical to avoid disruption, interruption or delays to business operations. In addition, the variety of stakeholders who are interested to have insight into how those projects are performing are many due to the nature of those projects. Most of those stakeholders need a simplified performance report yet they need to be current, trustworthy and can be easily accessed and understood.
To achieve this, the team responsible for managing fit-out and refurbishment projects needs three core applications. The first is Building Information Modelling (BIM) software like Autodesk Revit to build the project model showing the project layout and scope of work and including furniture and fittings. The BIM model will not only ensure having the complete and coordinated design but will also provide project stakeholders with a visualization of how the completed project will be. Those BIM models can be rendered to provide the stakeholders the option of walking through the designed facility.
The second application is a project management information system (PMIS) like PMWeb which will be the platform that all entities involved in delivering those projects to manage, monitor, control and report all processes required for the project’s execution. Those are the processes needed to manage the project’s scope, schedule, cost, quality, communications, human resources, health and safety, risk and issues, procurement, contracts, claims among others.
The third application is a business intelligence and data visualization tool like MS Power BI to provide project stakeholders with a real-time, single version of the truth monitoring, evaluation, and reporting of their fit-out and refurbishment projects. In addition to the graphical and tabular visuals that are common to MS Power BI, the 3DBI visual developed by KG-DEV called 3DBI (https://kg-dev.be/) allows project stakeholders to include the BIM model in their report to improve their understanding of how the project will be as well as associate the project’s BIM objects and elements with the project management processes data captured in PMWeb. As an example, The Interior Fit-Out Submittal Status Log displays the BIM Model for the office fit-out along with the status details of all technical and shop drawings submittal done by the contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers.
PMWeb submittal module will be used to manage the submittal process. Those will include all required submittal types including but not limited to product data, material samples, shop drawings, certificate, schedule, test results, method statement, mockup, operation and maintenance manuals, qualification documents among others. Other data will include WBS level, project schedule activity relevant to the submittals, CSI specification section, supplier name among other needed details.
To ensure the data associated with the BIM model, two user-defined fields will be added to PMWeb modules that need to be visualized along with the BIM model. Those are the “GategoryName” while the second will be “Parameter.Type.ID”. The category name which will be a predefined list will have the values of Casework, Furniture, Doors, Columns, Electrical Fixtures, Furniture Systems, Mechanical Equipment, Plumbing Fixtures, Specialty Equipment, Windows, etc. For the Parameter. Type, ID which are specific objects or items for each category could include for example Casework 1, Casework 2, M_Chair, M_Chair-Corbu, M_Urinal-2D among others.
For each submittal item, the attachment tab will be used to attach the supportive documents such as drawings, catalogs, certificates, test results, supplier prequalification, guarantees, operation and maintenance manuals, pictures of mockup among others. It is highly recommended that all supportive documents be uploaded and stored on the PMWeb document repository in their designated folder or subfolder. In addition, links to other transactions for the different project management processes can be added as well as links to imported MS Outlook emails.
In addition, a workflow will be assigned to the submittal module to map the sequence for the review and approval tasks as well as assign the role or project team member to each task and the duration of the task. In addition, conditions can be added to each workflow to incorporate the approval authority levels associated with the workflow.
The submittal process information captured in PMWeb will become available to be reported on using MS Power BI. MS Power BI can be set to read PMWeb data from the database directly as long as the right credentials are provided. This information can be set to be refreshed automatically. The “GategoryName” and “Parameter.Type.ID” fields will be used to associate PMWeb data with the BIM model objects data. This will enable the project stakeholder to select the items that relate to a certain category such as “Furniture” for which the BIM model will automatically adjust the BIM model view to only display those objects. In addition, the PMWeb submittal information displayed in the tabular log will be automatically filtered to show only furniture items. 
Project stakeholders can further drill down to locate specific objects or objects that are in the BIM model. For example, the BIM model objects can be further refined to show the Parameter.Type.ID value of M_Chair. Of course, the stakeholder can zoom in and zoom out the BIM model to have better visualization of the selected object or objects. The same approach can be replicated for other project information managed in PMWeb such as Request for Information, Procurement, Cost, Schedule, Work Inspection Requests among many others.
For corporates that are responsible for managing a portfolio or a program of fit-out and refurbishment projects, MS Power BI can be also used to create a consolidated dashboard that provides a summary of the key performance indicators (KPI) for each one of those projects. Those could include schedule, cost, quality, and other measures that are needed by the project stakeholder for which they are managed using PMWeb. Nevertheless, what is important in this portfolio dashboard is that in addition to the tabular and graphical visuals, there is a map visual that will be used to detail the location of each project as per the latitude and longitude values captured for each project in PMWeb. The data displayed in the projects’ portfolio dashboard can be filtered to select a specific program or specific projects. The dashboard can be configured to allow drilling down to each specific project dashboard.
About the Author
Bassam Samman, PMP, PSP, EVP, GPM is a Senior Project Management Consultant with 40-year service record providing project management, project controls services, and project management information systems to over 200 projects with a total value over the US $100 Billion. Those projects included Commercial, Residential, Education and Healthcare Buildings and Infrastructure, Entertainment, Hospitality, and Shopping Malls, Oil and Gas Plants and Refineries, Telecommunication, and Information Technology projects. He is thoroughly experienced in complete project management including project management control systems, computerized project control software, claims analysis/prevention, risk analysis/management (contingency planning), design, supervision, training, and business development.
Bassam is a frequent speaker on topics relating to Project Management, Strategic Project Management, and Project Management Personal Skills. Over the past 40 years, he has lectured at more than 350 events and courses at different locations in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and South America. He has written more than 300 articles on project management and project management information systems that were featured in international and regional magazines and newspapers. He is a co-founder of the Project Management Institute- Arabian Gulf Chapter (PMI-AGC) and has served on its board of directors for more than 6 years. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI), a certified Planning and Scheduling Professional (PSP), and Earned Value Professional (EVP) from the American Association of Cost Engineers (AACE) and Green Project Management (GPM).
Bassam holds a Masters in Engineering Administration (Construction Management) with Faculty Commendation, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA, Bachelor in Civil Engineering – Kuwait University, Kuwait and has attended many executive management programs at Harvard Business School, Boston, USA, and London Business School, London, UK.