OnTrack Engineering sat down with Jeff Holloway, President of Pipeline Technologies Inc. (PTI) to discuss how using OnTrack has made a difference in the way they do business, and in the positive outcome of their projects. His insights on PTI’s experience are summarized here.

What problem were you trying to solve that led you to investigate OnTrack Project Manager?

The need for a software program to handle both purchasing and cost control.

It is often quite difficult to convince operating companies that there is a need for cost control. Large capital projects can not accurately be tracked using accounting systems. I often refer to project tracking with accounting systems as a ‘forensic approach’. You find out after the fact what you have spent.

Why did you select OnTrack Project Manager?

OnTrack Project Manager keeps the paper trail intact. It forces all of the t’s to be crossed and the i’s to be dotted. It does not allow shortcuts to be taken and keeps everything in good shape for the auditors.

It allows reports to be manipulated into the format that upper management requires and produces the reports instantly based on the information in the system at the time of printing.

With OnTrack, as soon as you know what something will cost, you can put it in the forecast – long before you issue a Purchase Order. This allows more time to correct areas that seem to be heading outside of the approved budget.

OnTrack is a ‘project’ solution. You can use it for the duration of a project and then simply turn it off. This is very appealing to companies that do not have constant ongoing capital projects.

One of the problems I’ve run into is that even if the client understands they need cost control, corporately, they don’t wish to buy another software package. With OnTrack; outsourcing the IT function is less expensive.

What other benefits are you seeing from using this solution?

Projects are often spread over a large geographic area – the ability to have users in different locations working on common files is very beneficial.

I understand you refused training – and told the President at OnTrack Engineering, that if you couldn’t use it without training that meant it wasn’t intuitive enough and you wouldn’t recommend it. Did you give in or did he?

I’ve been using it for seven years – ran it from day one without training.

Aside from the training, how has the service been?

On my first project I phoned Mike every week with suggestions for modifications - at the end of that project CostTrack was pretty good. OnTrack will do custom work and charge for it, but if you have modification suggestions that will improve the basic program those will go in at no cost – including creating reports. The tech support is very good – same day turn around. I have no complaints.