"Priceless" is the description Utpala Dubey gave regarding the return on Bechtel's investment in Pertmaster 7.82, a construction estimating and risk analysis program she has used for a year and a half to risk-analyze  schedules for construction projects and some business-development proposals. "A higher confidence level makes the client, investors and senior management buy-in into the schedule much easier. This is priceless," she said.

Before it bought Pertmaster, Bechtel seldom conducted risk analysis on its project schedules, but now that the company's construction contracts are usually more than $2 billion, Bechtel is using this construction estimating software for each project.  The software features three duration estimates, such as best-case, most likely and worst-case scenarios, and can drill down, identify probabilities and identifies confidence levels and risks, added Dubey.

"I personally like the schedule analyzer that helps clean up unnecessary open ends, constraints, etc. There is a templated quick-risk feature that allows one to define duration spread on some activities by a percentage spread, such as +15% or –10%," she explained. "This is especially useful when there is not enough time to model all possible risks accurately. Also, the risk register can help integrate new and typical industry-specific identified risks. Risks can be modeled, both quantitatively and qualitatively."

Dubey rated Pertmaster 7 out of 10.