asta powerproject is a key tool for mace

Mace uses Asta Powerproject as a key project management and communication tool

Leading consultancy and construction firm Mace uses Asta Powerproject as both its standard project management software and also an invaluable tool for communicating project information to the board, to clients and to contractors.

Mace - the business

Mace is one of the world’s most accomplished consultancy and construction companies, with a reputation for finding the best solutions to complex property and real estate challenges. Mace strives to do things better, faster, more safely and more efficiently, and to champion best practice wherever it can.

Mace and project management software

Since its inception over 16 years ago, Mace has seen project management software as a vital part of its business offer and a key means of delivering best practice. Its reputation has been founded on an ability to control and manage projects and build them on time and within budget.  

Asta Powerproject is easy to use and provides a very good communication tool for people actually implementing and delivering the work

“The right project management software is essential. It is the core way of controlling any project. You need to have a plan, you need to know timescales and you need to know how and where people input to the process.  The only way to do that is with a project management software tool which gives you proper control over the timing of all activities.”

"Asta’s project management software, Asta Powerproject, has become the standard because traditionally a lot of the higher-end project management software on the market needs a very careful coding process and a very long-winded period of preparation before you can actually start planning.  With Asta’s project management software you can start pretty much within an hour of getting an understanding of how the software works because the interface is so intuitive.  And crucially, Asta Powerproject offers the same, if not more power, than many of the competing higher-end products.”

The benefits of Asta Powerproject to Mace

The benefits of using Asta Powerproject extend right across the business at Mace. Not only is the software used to run most projects, it is also an invaluable tool for communicating internally right up to board level on the progress of a project. Client communication is also enhanced as Asta Powerproject can produce bespoke reporting.

"Asta Powerproject is used by all of our planners. It is used for planning about 90% of the projects we do. It is easy to use and provides a very good communication tool for people actually implementing and delivering the work.”

“Asta Powerproject has become one of the key management tools within Mace. It is used on all of our major projects and in doing so it gives us a consistent tool which our people use as they move between different projects. This means they always understand the output they are seeing and how it can be used to manage a project. Asta Powerproject is vital to us.”

Since Asta Powerproject was launched, ease of use has been an important feature ensuring that planners can spend their time planning rather than setting up and managing the software. The simple interface also enables planners to pick up other projects and understand them quickly.

"Asta Powerproject is our standard planning tool. It’s become important to us in that it is very easy for people to understand. It is very easy for a planner to pick up another planners work and to convey messages to people using the filters and colour coding features. We work with simple communications tools but need the detail behind them to prove that the plan is realistic and Asta Powerproject gives us that capability.”

Communicating with clients

Regular communications together with transparency are the basic requirements of client contact. Being able to provide detailed as well as summarised progress reports that are factually accurate is key to keeping clients satisfied.

 “Our clients expect us to be able to report to them factually and give them an accurate picture of where we are and where we’ve been on a project. So it is essential that we have a sound system for producing progress reports. Asta Powerproject is ideal for dealing with changes and coping with those inevitable situations when things don’t go to plan.”

Communicating with contractors

With construction projects becoming ever more challenging and building techniques and practices adding new levels of complexity, projects require more thorough communications with contractors.

Asta Powerproject is ideal for dealing with changes and coping with those inevitable situations when things don’t go to plan.		Mace has found that it is vital to have contractors who can develop the detail and sequencing of a programme and provide that input in an electronic form. Mace can then feed the information into Asta Powerproject with the aim of integrating the two levels of planning to ensure a clear understanding of all potential bottlenecks and problem areas.
"Where contractors use Asta Easyplan, (Asta's simple project planning software), it makes life far easier because it allows them to transfer data directly to us. It allows us to integrate their programmes into ours on complex projects. In a situation where they don’t, we lose some of the logic and detail in their thinking.” Asta Easyplan provides contractors with a low cost, simple project planning software tool that integrates seamlessly with Asta Powerproject, a professional project management software solution.   “We can give contractors templates created in Asta Powerproject that they can open up in Asta Easyplan which means that their plans match our own program, with the same calendars and structure. We can then feed their plans back into our programme in Asta Powerproject without any problem, making the whole process much more streamlined. The future of project management software at Mace  “We are looking at what people call 4D planning which is where a 3D image of the building being constructed is linked to the bar chart. This enables you to see how the building will look at different points in time. We are trialling a number of 4D planning systems linked to Asta Powerproject on six or seven of our projects at the moment. This allows us to go onto those projects and see real time video of the project being built and Asta have been working with us to develop the systems.”