In the book, “How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between” by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner, it is said that less than two per cent of all large projects, such as capital infrastructure projects, entirely meet their goals in all three dimensions of schedule, budget and scope.
“The owner’s dilemma is they have to pick two: you can have it on time and on budget, but it’s not going to meet expectations; or you can have it meet expectations, and be on time, but the budget is going to be larger – it’s the so-called ‘Iron Triangle of Project Management,’” said Tim Negris, chief marketing officer for MOCA Systems Inc.
Headquartered in Boston, Mass., MOCA Systems Inc. (MSI) is a small company that services large, complex government and commercial construction projects of all kinds worldwide, representing hundreds of billions of construction value-at-risk at all times. MSI operates as a full-service provider of construction management services for owners and a software development firm serving the design and construction industry around the world. The company provides innovative services and technologies for owners, designers and contractors to create execution plans, manage the construction process in real-time, and ensure projects are on-time, on-budget and delivered on all owners’ expectations.
According to Negris, while there are many factors that can cause a project to fail to meet its schedule, budget or scope, it can mostly be summed up to for primary reasons: overoptimism, insufficient collaboration and transparency, inability to respond to real-time changes and events, and a lack of adequate digitization of project planning and management.
“We are constantly seeing increased complexity in project scopes while timelines are becoming more compressed and there are changes in the way projects are being funded – all these combined can make it difficult to catch up once a project starts to fall behind,” he said.
The good news is that MSI can help with services like MOCA911 – the only service you need on speed dial when your project goes sideways.
When in trouble, call MOCA911
Leaning on MSI’s more than 20 years of interdisciplinary expertise in owner’s representation, cost estimating, program and project management, facilities condition assessment, production planning and guided collaboration, MOCA911 helps to reduce and even eliminate many of the risks that can potentially lead to a project’s derailment.
Launched in July 2024, MOCA911 is a rapid response service designed to control project risks in non-residential construction projects. The new service combines deep, integrated expertise throughout the project lifecycle including cost engineering, scheduling, planning, project controls, production management and facilities condition assessment to help owners address or anticipate the operational and organizational challenges that threaten on-budget and on-time project completion.
“We use a technique that could be called pre-forensics using a variety of investigative and statistical procedures to isolate the interdependent attributes and patterns in spending, scheduling and sequencing contributing to excessive variance from industry standards and the project plan,” said Negris. “We then work closely and narrowly with the appropriate stakeholder experts to devise and apply adjustments and corrections.”
MOCA911 begins by isolating the problems impacting a project and their causes, and then applies the appropriate expertise and/or technology to solve them. Every troubled project and the combination of skills and software that MSI brings to each engagement is different.
“We get the best intel quickly and then act with the speed and precision needed to complete the mission of saving the budget and schedule and fulfilling the owner’s vision for the project, as well as enabling all stakeholders to succeed.”
Sandy Hamby, MSI
“The MOCA911 team delivers rapid construction project recovery,” said MSI CEO, Sandy Hamby. “We get the best intel quickly and then act with the speed and precision needed to complete the mission of saving the budget and schedule and fulfilling the owner’s vision for the project, as well as enabling all stakeholders to succeed.”
In providing early identification and assisted correction of out-of-band project conditions, MOCA911 optimizes operational productivity and efficiency by removing impediments and waste, improving communications, and growing trust among stakeholders. This helps to assure a smoother, more balanced transactional interaction between the various stakeholder organizations.
The value of MOCA911 is hard to overstate. In projects where MOCA911 has played a tactical supporting role, success in achieving schedule, spending, and scope goals can be improved by up to 40 per cent. When MSI acts as the owner’s representative, projects success across all three dimensions can reach high as 90 per cent or higher.
And the service is only improving. As in most modern process and technology systems, MOCA911 continuously evolves and is updated to incorporate knowledge gained through each engagement. This enables MOCA911 to respond to the myriad of ways the construction industry is changing, especially in its increasing adoption of new technologies and more sophisticated business models, as well as its need to respond to ever more complex regulations.
A full slate of services
MOCA911 should not be confused with a project management service – rather it is a project problem-solving service.
For project management, clients turn to MSI’s proprietary project planning and delivery solution called the Continuous Alignment System™. Continuous Alignment helps clients align their building projects for success by becoming engaged at the very beginning of each project and then combining the project’s qualitative and quantitative elements, such as quality, scope, cost and time.
“With the Continuous Alignment System, we can bring our advanced analytics and systems integration technology for enhanced project control and visibility, fostering and maintaining a greater level of trust, collaboration and information sharing between all stakeholders,” said Negris. “This ultimately fulfills the owner’s vision while still adhering to budget and schedule.”
Helping projects stay the course is Touchplan, MSI’s cloud-based, real-time software platform for intelligent construction planning that enables general contractors and specialty contractors to have the collaboration to prevent budget slippage and enhance safety. Owners also benefit from Touchplan’s instant insights and ability to track progress and anticipate problems on all types of projects.
“Touchplan is – by far – the most comprehensive product in the realm of production planning,” said Negris. “When a project is having trouble, the owner often doesn’t know why other than the master schedule is out of synch with the production schedule. Our Touchplan software shows owners exactly where their risk points are, as well as what might be going well and where things are coming apart for their project, and then empowers them to adjust as needed.”
To learn more about MOCA911 or for more information about what MSI services might be right for you, visit mocaservices.com.