Blair Pardy, Vice President of Corporate Development for IMV Projects, a Calgary based EPCM firm focusing primarily on the heavy oil segment of Canada’s oil and gas market, discusses how using OnTrack Project Manager has benefited his business. His insights are summarized here.

What problem were you trying to solve, that led you to investigate project management software?

We wanted to get away from the spreadsheet aspect of procurement and get into a database solution for procurement and cost tracking. 

Why OnTrack Project Manager?

We were aware that OnTrack had the features we wanted. At the time we were small enough that we didn’t want a search to impact our daily business, and we were aware that OnTrack’s system was fit for purpose, having been developed for these kinds of projects. We wanted the right functionality out of the box, something that was easy to use, and we were looking to avoid lengthy implementations or expensive customization.

We have a resource constrain in the industry today, with more junior people being pressed into roles that were traditionally being done by engineers. What’s the impact of using OnTrack Project manager with regards to resources?

Because there are a number of users of the system in Calgary, it has been easier to find people with experience running the software than it would be for some other systems. We’ve got a handful of highly knowledgeable users on the system and they can do a lot of our internal training themselves. Junior people can learn the software and be up and running on it quickly. We use it in the field for receiving material, without problems. 

You’ve grown quite a lot since you first started using CostTrack, from about 100 employees back in the early days to over 700 today. Has the system supported that growth?

It has grown with us. It was affordable enough that we could invest in it when we were small, and as we’ve grown it has been very economical to add seats. We have many more projects now, and the system has the capacity to handle multiple projects, and to facilitate us taking on more projects.

On Track is comprised of integrated modules that “talk to each other” and take you from RFQ / bid evaluation through to expediting and warehousing in one system - and can take data from feeder systems. It can be run over the Internet or inside your firewall, on small or large projects. How do you use the system?

We use it as a procurement and cost tracking tool. We also use it to do material management and expediting, and we do invoice verification in OnTrack as well. We run the software inside our firewall with a few exceptions in remote locations, where we run it over the Internet via Citrix. We are typically running at least 5 or 6 large projects - $500M to $600M each- at any one time, and we use it on every one of those, as well as on the majority of our smaller projects. Any project with a procurement aspect to it, we use OnTrack.

What benefits are you getting from using OnTrack Project Manager?

Among the benefits are that it’s well templated, easy to train people on. The report structures are pretty good and if we need customization we can get that easily and quickly. We have a number of similar projects, clients who tend to order the same piece of equipment or material and being able to reissue POs quickly is a benefit, you don’t have to start from scratch with every project a one-off. Essentially, the benefits are from more intelligent management of information.

How would you rate OnTrack in terms of incorporating your suggestions and your clients’ requirements in product development?

Very good. We have a good relationship with the development team, as they are located here in Calgary, and we’ve worked with them for many years. Over the years we’ve paid for a number of upgrades that are now part of the overall system.

What is it like getting support?

I’d have to say the technical support and customer service in general is excellent.