PRIMAVERA PROJECT PLANNER (P3) USER REVIEW: LCO ASSOCIATES


REVIEW SUMMARY

LCO Associates, which provides cost-consulting services for commercial construction projects in North America, relies on Primavera Project Planner (P3) to meet the construction scheduling needs of both its internal teams and its clients.

"When a client requires us to produce a schedule we use P3 to create them effectively. The schedules we produce with P3 are easy to understand and easy to customize," said Selvan Assiskumar, who has been with the Ottawa-based firm for eight years. "We simply email them to the client, obtain feedback and quickly revise the schedule according to their requests."

This speedy turnaround improves customer satisfaction and employee productivity, he said. Despite Primavera P3's sophistication, it is relatively easy to learn, especially for people with existing scheduling experience, said Assiskumar. "People need training to do scheduling using P3," he explained. "But for the tasks we normally do with this software, I think a day or two of training would be enough to get a person with good computer skills up to speed "

Primavera Project Planner's documentation, coupled with LCO's resident experts, can generally answer users' questions, said Assiskumar. The software vendor's documentation is helpful, and LCO has rarely needed to take the extra step and call Primavera's technical support line, he said.

Assiskumar rated Primavera Project Planner (P3) an 8 out of 10.

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USER PROFILE
  User: Selvan Assiskumar
  Company: LCO Associates Inc.
  Location: Ottawa, Ontario
  Website: www.lcogroup.com
  Type of business: Project and construction management, including cost consulting
  Business size: Estimate projects of more than $500,000
  Experience: 10 years
  Software tools used: Microsoft Excel; Microsoft Word; Microsoft Access; Primavera Project Planner (P3); Palisade Corp.'s @Risk
  Tool & Version Primavera Project Planner (P3)

REVIEW DETAILS


What kinds of construction projects do you mostly work on?
 
How long have you been using this tool?
 
Where did you obtain it?
 
How much did you pay?
 
How are you using this product?
 
Why did you pick this product?
 
Did you look at other tools on the market before picking this one? What was it you didn't like about them (or made    this product better)?
 
Comparing the way you work now with the way you worked before you bought this tool, what has changed?
 
Can you give us an example of a job where this tool really made a difference?
 
Can you estimate how much time or money you saved or other measurable benefits your firm realized using this    tool?
 
What are the best features (for your business) in this tool?
 
Do you think it's a fair value for the price you paid?
 
What would you change about the product if you could?
 
Are there features that you don't use? Why not?
 
Who would you recommend use this tool?
 
How much computer experience do you think someone needs to use this tool effectively?
 
Did it take much training (or studying) to learn to use this tool?
 
Have you ever called the company's support lines and asked for help? What was your experience like?
 
How would you rate the user documentation? Is it helpful?
 
When the next version of this software comes out, will you upgrade to it?
 
Overall, on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate this tool?


What kinds of construction projects do you mostly work on?
LCO Associates provides cost-consulting services for commercial construction projects valued at $500,000 and more. The company is based in Ottawa, Canada.

How long have you been using this tool?

I have been using it for about eight years.

Where did you obtain it?

I am not sure, because it was in-place when I joined LCO.

How much did you pay?
Again, I do not know because it was already in use.

How are you using this product?
For construction scheduling, primarily activity scheduling, we use Primavera Project Planner (P3). To assess risk and contingency, we use Microsoft Excel with @Risk add-ins.

Why did you pick this product?
I am not sure because these were already being used when I was hired.

Did you look at other tools on the market before picking this one? What was it you didn't like about them (or made this product better)?
Again, I do not know because all these tools were being used at the company when I joined eight years ago.

Comparing the way you work now with the way you worked before you bought this tool, what has changed?
Initially, LCO Associates had the earliest version of Lotus 1,2,3 and WordPerfect, which were used only to produce the final reports and estimates. When the technologies changed, LCO started acquiring the latest versions of Microsoft Office versions.

Can you give us an example of a job where this tool really made a difference? When a client requires us to produce a schedule we use Primavera P3 to create them effectively. The schedules we produce with P3 are easy to understand and easy to customize. We simply email them to the client, obtain their feedback and quickly revise the schedule according to their requests.

Can you estimate how much time or money you saved or other measurable benefits your firm realized using this tool?
I think Primavera Project Planner (P3) and our other software tools may have minimized the actual cost by 75%. Each and every member of the office staff uses these applications and pretty much everyone knows the basics of P3. We sometimes consult advanced users for some technical help or assistance with advanced features or refer to the P3 books.

What are the best features (for your business) in this tool?
They are easy to customize, and data is easy to store, modify and transmit to clients or sub-contractors.

Do you think it's a fair value for the price you paid?
Not applicable.

What would you change about the product if you could?
I'd like the ability to produce customized reports with links and auto-updates. That would be perfect.

Are there features that you don't use? Why not?
Not really.

Who would you recommend use this tool?
In our industry, almost all consultants use these tools. We send our reports in these formats and, at times, we use Adobe Acrobat PDF files to retain our original formatting and advise our clients to have these tools to view and print.

How much computer experience do you think someone needs to use this tool effectively?
Most people already know the general Microsoft Office-type tools. An intermediate user or a person who has dealt with computers for about five years will be in a better position to get the most out of Primavera P3.

Did it take much training (or studying) to learn to use this tool?
People need training to do construction scheduling using P3. But for the tasks we normally do with this software, I think a day or two of training would be enough to get a person with good computer skills up to speed.

Have you ever called the company's support lines and asked for help? What was your experience like?
We rarely call them. Instead, we discuss it with each other or call our friends or colleagues for help. For each and every application we use, we have one or two in-house experts who are capable of guiding us through each program's advanced features, and we manage with that approach.

How would you rate the user documentation? Is it helpful?
We do refer to P3's documentation and find it useful. At times, Google helps us do quick research by guiding us to forums and discussion groups or the manufacturer's website.

When the next version of this software comes out, will you upgrade to it?
Although there are a couple newer versions that we haven't purchased, with our recently upgraded computer system we may decide to purchase the new systems.

Overall, on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate this tool?
8.