OnTrack Engineering’s Director of Marketing sat down with Dale Neufeld, P. Eng., Project Manager at EnCana Corporation, 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 EnCana’s experience are summarized here.

Why were you seeking a solution? What problem were you having?

This kind of system gives you data integrity you can’t get in a spreadsheet. We had a big problem with spreadsheets. They make it very tough to communicate and collaborate – everyone has their own format and style. When everyone is doing their own thing you have no idea what’s going on, and it’s enormously difficult to combine all that in one place, on one page, so you can have a quick snapshot of your project when you need it.

Why OnTrack Project Manager?

The reason we went to OnTrack, and the great strength, is the ability to bring in information from other systems. As long as you provide a consistent format you can let people work in the feeder system or in a spreadsheet or wherever they are comfortable and still have a central place to bring the information and get reports. We’d like everyone to work within the system but that isn’t always feasible. So integration becomes key.

What about the philosophy of how work is managed within the system?

Cost management is properly based around a budget and commitments against that budget. Very few programs take that philosophy. OnTrack shines at this. The Purchasing system is an integral part of cost management.

Every system claims to be real time. How does OnTrack Project Manager stack up?

If you are waiting in your cost system for commitments to come from an accounting system it’s not “real time.” With OnTrack Project Manager you can see them instantly, and how they affect everything else – your forecast, planning - because you create the PO within the system. It has an excellent purchasing capability. No other system I’ve seen is as complete. It takes you from RFQ to bid evaluation and award, a PO as the commitment and the whole expediting - receiving – inventory – warehousing cycle. OnTrack Project Manager completes the procurement cycle. Other systems capture only a part of it – they don’t have the data, they are essentially glorified Word documents. In OnTrack, you can issue an invoice and get electronic approvals – you can get information from many different groups and disciplines from within this system or import it quickly and easily in a format everyone can use.

How is the flexibility?

On Track is very flexible, so it can work the way you work. If you have processes and methods already in place, it’s very easy to configure the system to your processes.  They can also give you a set of recommended practices and a standard configuration or help you sort out what configuration would be best for your large or small projects.

You can have it inside or outside your firewall.

You can run your project entirely from within OnTrack Project Manager or bring data in from other systems very easily – the import capability is part of the software, not a separate interface or series of custom interfacing exercises.

You can use it to run a single project or group of projects or bring it inside as part of your operations as a company.

It works for engineering companies and for the owner, so the project team can collaborate and their cross team communications become more efficient -- not to mention less expensive. Fewer disagreements arise when you are looking at the same information and can see the audit trail, approvals, and so on.

How do your users access the solution?

OnTrack Project Manager is web based so that everyone has access at any time, anywhere they go. They don’t even need to carry a laptop. For us, Calgary is head office but the work is in remote sites anywhere and everywhere. As long as you have an internet connection you can go to any computer and find out what you need to know real time. Because project teams are spread out everywhere it’s critical to have it on the Internet. The online Help is one of the best Help features I’ve seen; it gives you immediate access to help wherever you are.

Any other benefits to OnTrack Engineering hosting?

On Track hosting this system cuts through an enormous amount of red tape. We ran this system in one of Alberta’s largest oil companies for two years without any internal IT help. OnTrack will maintain it, give you the upgrades and maintenance releases as needed on their end. No more waiting for the IT group to update all the servers with the latest patch. It’s all on one server and as soon as OnTrack has made a change, it can be implemented.