Case study

How Costain was able to make data-driven decisions during a fast-paced project using Nodes & Links

ABOUT Costain

Costain is one of the UK’s leading smart infrastructure solutions companies, with a track record of over 150 years in the delivery of complex projects. Costain deploys technology-based solutions across project lifecycles to create value and achieve complex outcomes for clients.

By The Numbers
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CHALLENGE

The timely and effective delivery of a nuclear reactor outage is critical, both financially and environmentally. A single day of delay can result in millions of lost revenue for the client. It also has a major societal impact, with one day of the reactor being out of service meaning up to 32,000 tons of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere.

With more than 22,000 activities that had to be completed in 45 days, the team wanted to use this opportunity to deploy novel technology that enabled fast project tracking and proactive risk analysis.

The sheer size of the schedule meant that progress tracking using traditional tools would take hours, leaving little time to focus on identifying early warning signals and risks. Daily reporting requirements meant that new project data was generated by 16:00 each day, and a report of both progress and risk was required to be shared with the team by 18:00, Costain knew that they needed to look beyond traditional tools to get the job done to the quality level that they wanted.

SOLUTION

The Costain team chose Nodes & Links as their Project Copilot to enable them to match their ambitious objective of generating insights around project progress fast and easily. All the team had to do was open their browser, log in to Nodes & Links and upload their schedule, immediately getting all the information that mattered to them.

The team was able to generate daily reports that captured progress using a range of sophisticated Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), along with a prioritised list of activities and milestones that they should focus on. Measures of productivity were easily shared in order to proactively manage workload. The team was able to isolate key activities and track changes in their progress and risk profile, enabling them to mitigate risks and deliver a successful project.

“Like for like, two hours of work becomes two minutes. 
As a by-product we are able to produce insights we never would have been able to.

Adrian Millsted, Costain, Senior Planning Engineer

Planners were able to develop reports and share it both within the Costain team and the client, helping everyone align on the activities that mattered the most.

Using the export functionality and unlimited usage access of Nodes & Links, the Costain team was able to share their work quickly and efficiently by giving controlled access to their secure environment, with reports reaching all the way to the executive level.

“This product is a boon for project managers as it provides an easily digestible set of information which provides great insight into a variety of aspects of the project lifecycle and delivery.”

Robert Jefferies, Costain, Senior Planning Engineer

RESULT

Given the success from using Nodes & Links to accelerate project controls, the Costain team continues to work with its clients to identify more projects where #ProjTech can help delivery across all functions within the Programme Management Office (PMO).

Nodes & Links have set the foundation to deliver advanced tools to the hands of not just planners and project managers but for all key stakeholders looking to extract great value from their project data.

“Nodes & Links enabled us to extract more value out of our project data. We were able to get ahead of risk & gather actionable insights from our existing project data, thus saving both time and money.

Leigh Wakefield, Costain, Civil and Nuclear Director

The best project teams understand and proactively manage their plan.

Nodes & Links is built for every member of your team to track, analyse and prioritise work to make great decisions.

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Try out our AI-Powered Schedule Management Platform for free now.

Enter your work email below to gain access to Nodes & Links, your intelligent automation toolbox for complex projects.