Client

Our client provides multi-site, multi-year mine site equipment, process, testing and support services throughout Australia’s mining industry.

Brief

The brief was to develop a consolidated “sum-of-projects” planning model of the Australia-wide business, covering both the detailed operational and financial aspects of the forecast.

In addition to creating the core forecast of the business, the model and analysis also needed to:

• run an extremely detailed volumetric / operational case;
• facilitate optimisations of scheduling as well as warning of potential clashes;
• support the pricing proposal into delivery lifecycle of all projects;
• allow for long-term contract profit recognition, including for projects spanning multiple years; and
• distil a significant amount of complex data down into summary formats for the senior management to quickly digest.

Solution

Our solution comprised of a project as a workbook to allow for ease of access by a large number of different project managers. These models, once saved, then transferred the relevant data to a central resource planning model and consolidated financials model.

The project model included:

• the build-up of project expenses by work breakdown structure, comprising the forecast of weekly hours spent by employees on projects or non-labour based expenses;
• the ability to treat a project as a fixed revenue structure or on a time and expenses basis;
• analysis on comparing project completion from a work performed and an expense incurred basis; and
• project budget comparison to actuals and forecast.

The central resource planning model is used in weekly management meetings and allows senior staff to identify:

• resource use by project and employee type;
• resource clashes to help optimise resource allocation across all projects; and
• staff utilisation levels to help inform human resourcing on staffing levels and requirements.

Modano Benefits

From an end user perspective, the Modano software automated the following model development processes:

• weekly roll-forward;
• importing project database information, including detailed timesheet data;
• adding new work breakdown structures within projects to move with them as they evolve;
• adding new projects; and
• adding new staff members.