Challenge

TNMP is in the midst of enhancing their facilities across their vast service territory and was looking to develop a comprehensive Project Controls, Material Management, and Construction Management program for their transmission line engineering, substation engineering, and construction projects. TNMP was looking to develop a robust, scalable, and efficient Project Controls, Material Management, and Construction Management program with an overall stated goal of improving engineering and construction operations and business intelligence.
TNMP's needs were as follows:
  • TNMP wished to optimize the collaboration with their engineering department and field teams in a seamless manner.
  • Also, communication of issues related to material, right of way, permitting, and other construction challenges back to the design and project management teams needed a process improvement.
  • TNMP also wanted to resolve common challenges of providing field teams access to the latest documents and drawings and getting the updated as-built drawings from the field to the engineers. Essentially, TNMP wanted to achieve a simple goal that the project manager needed to know what's happening in real-time.

Solution

TNMP wished to optimize the collaboration with their engineering department and field teams in a seamless manner. Also, communication of issues related to material, right of way, permitting, and other construction challenges back to the design and project management teams needed a process improvement. TNMP also wanted to resolve common challenges of providing field teams access to the latest documents and drawings and getting the updated as-built drawings from the field to the engineers. Essentially, TNMP wanted to achieve a simple goal that the project manager needed to know what's happening in real-time.

Think Power's unique combination of services and software products have provided TNMP with real time project progress tracking and ability to compare that with actual project schedules developed by Project Controls team through the Think Power ONE dashboards. Think Power ONE also provides an overall system view of TNMP's projects and their financial and schedule impacts.

Progress in the field is being tracked by qualified Think Power personnel using Think Power LOGS, a geo-spatial field data collection mobile app that can seamlessly work with ESRI ArcGIS software, to directly feed the input information into Think Power ONE. Access to project documentation in the field is provided by Think Power DOCS, an enterprise file share solution.

Resolution

How does the final solution stack up against the slated goals? TNMP feels that Think Power Solutions has provided a very helpful solution. The data collection, business intelligence, and documentation tools have improved TNMP's ability to run their projects. Think Power's overall solution has been very useful for their field staff, project managers and engineers with providing real-time insights to management.