debut services

Asta Powerproject Deployed To Handle £1 Billion MOD Upgrade Of The Armed Forces Single Living Accommodation

Debut Services leads £1 billion upgrade of the armed forces and has selected Asta Powerproject as the core program, project planning and progress collection software tool.

Code-named Project SLAM (Single Living Accommodation Modernisation), this £1 billion programme is central to the MoD's aim of improving the quality of life for personnel in Britain's armed services. Debut Services, a joint venture comprising Bovis Lend Lease and Babcock Support Services, will manage the five-year first phase, involving some 16,000 bed-spaces at over 50 bases.

After assessing the requirements of the scheme and the products available on the market Asta Powerproject was selected as the best technical and commercial solution.

The worst of the current single persons' quarters will be demolished and rebuilt to provide entirely new accommodation. The oldest of these buildings were constructed at the time of the Crimean War. Other more serviceable buildings will be stripped, reconfigured and re-fitted. The common aim throughout will be to improve the quality of accommodation, together with extra space and facilities that will make life more comfortable for service personnel.

Construction work began on the first phase of Project SLAM in April 2003 and will concentrate on bases in the North East, East Anglia, South East and South West Britain.

After assessing the requirements of the scheme and the products available on the market Asta Powerproject was selected as the best technical and commercial solution.

The whole SLAM scheme is broken down into 4 main areas and the projects within each area are planned in detail. All the information is held in a single database and Asta’s Powerproject Enterprise software manages multi-user access centrally.

Each project is planned in terms of its activities, logical sequence and durations and a critical path of events calculated. When this is agreed the costs of the project are imported from Hummingbird – the central Cost Management system – so that the activities are cost loaded. This allows project, region and scheme cash-flow analysis.

Each week the Regional Program Manager clicks on a single button in Asta Powerproject and the Project Manager for each active project receives a Microsoft Excel Turnaround Document in his email In-Box. This is completed in terms of what progress has been made on each activity and is returned by email each week.
The Regional Program Manager then clicks another button in Asta Powerproject and all projects are updated automatically. This progress information is used to update the Central Cost Management system – Hummingbird – and payments are made on those stages that are 100% complete.

the unique combination of the original software capabilities, hands on development people, and the modest extensions that Asta were able to rapidly provide, met the precise requirements of a collection of projects.

Martin Chambers – Debut Project Director said that “the unique combination of the original software capabilities, hands on development people, and the modest extensions that Asta were able to rapidly provide, met the precise requirements of a collection of projects. It provides integration with the Cost Management system and consolidated reports within the framework of an accessible and familiar user interface, which were key factors in our selection of Asta Powerproject for the SLAM project”.