Facing shareholder pressure to deliver dozens of new data centers, this public cloud provider needed a scheduling tool that could help it overcome risk, increase productivity, and uncover critical insights to accelerate delivery. The stakes were high, with each day of delay costing $1.4M.
The Challenge
As a market leader in public cloud technology, our client needed to build dozens of new hyperscale data centers as quickly as possible to increase its market capitalization. The company initially estimated that each data center would take 16 months to complete; in reality, its projects were taking almost twice as long to achieve final delivery.
Getting the company’s projects back on track was mission critical. At its current construction rate, the public cloud provider would not be able to meet the aggressive delivery targets that its shareholders anticipated. With many more data center projects in their pipeline, they needed to figure out a way to:
- Build faster and hit their 16-month delivery targets
- Eliminate delays and disruptive schedule compression measures
- Consolidate their sprawling internal and external supply ecosystem tools
- Streamline commissioning and “last mile” operations
The Approach
We quickly got to work providing the company with a proof of concept. Foresight ingested hundreds of the company’s Primavera P6 files and surfaced five key insights:
1. They could build faster
We were able to demonstrate that the cloud provider could deliver each project in 16 months, so long as they could sustain the increased effort it would take to do so. This information helped them set aggressive but realistic goals for their run rates.
2. They could resequence their master program with Foresight
The company was using a generic master plan for each project. We showed them ways they could de-risk their program and resequence activities to achieve a more efficient flow.
3. They could support their contractors more effectively
With Foresight, the company could provide its contractors a collaborative, streamlined tool to help manage complex procurement operations, detailed activity schedules, internal approvals, and more.
4. They could learn from past projects
Foresight was able to systematically analyze data from the company’s previous and in flight projects to pull out key performance insights. Then, we showed them how they could apply these learnings to their current operations.
5. They could prevent risks and stay a step ahead
We showed them how, using predictive analytics, Foresight could give the company the ability to see into the future and address upcoming risks and priorities before they became a problem.
The Results
After seeing the proof of concept, the cloud provider decided to on-board all 30 of its in-flight data center projects to the Foresight platform. This move has been transformational for the company, allowing them to achieve a number of positive outcomes such as:
- 10% increase in speed of delivery for its data centers
- Billions of dollars saved in avoided delay-related costs
- Increased share price with each data center that has come online
Given that each avoided day of delay saves the company about $1.4M, the ROI of using Foresight has been staggering.
The cloud provider now has a seamless, collaborative process to build the rest of its data center projects without the unnecessary friction and risk they were experiencing before.
ABOUT FORESIGHT
Foresight's construction project management platform helps owners and contractors deliver major projects on-time and on-budget by automatically identifying priorities, risks, and action plans in Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project schedules. We place the schedule at the heart of project execution, enabling project managers, controllers and schedulers to make data-driven decisions. Leveraging Al, machine learning and natural language processing, Foresight unleashes predictive insights about delay risks and work prioritization. Our secure, scalable and user-friendly platform revolutionizes your planning and execution by creating proactive 'look-ahead' action plans, igniting dynamic collaboration, staying head of risks, learning from past projects, and enhancing schedule visibility/reporting.
