PROFESSIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE FOR THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY. Version 8

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1 Easy to use. Excellent presentation capabilities. Full range of features. Comprehensive support services. Used in 70% of successful UK construction projects.* PROFESSIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE FOR THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY Version 8

2 2 Call us on for more information ASTA POWERPROJECT IS THE NUMBER ONE PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE FOR THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY. EASY TO USE, YET POWERFUL, IT HELPS YOU DELIVER PROJECTS CONSISTENTLY ON TIME AND WITHIN BUDGET. SIMPLE, YET POWERFUL Create a basic plan and bar chart in minutes. First-time users find Asta Powerproject easy to learn and are able to produce professional looking plans in minutes. More experienced project managers use Asta Powerproject to perform sophisticated project planning functions such as logic linking and analysis. Links between dependent activities can be drawn quickly with the mouse. Full critical path analysis is performed at the click of a button. Multiple tasks can be shown on one row, such as different floors of a building. EASY TO USE Creating your first project plan with Asta Powerproject is easy with a range of features designed to get you up and running fast. Tasks on the critical path are outlined in red. Start planning immediately construction specific templates are already set-up. Draw tasks directly onto the chart it works the way you do. Same intuitive look and feel as a Microsoft Office application. Build your skills with the online tutorial. Get quick answers to your questions using the contextsensitive help. Fix any mistakes multiple undos can be made even after saving the project. Create multiple tasks on one row a must-have requirement for many construction project managers. THE TRAINING WE RECEIVED WAS VERY HELPFUL AND DIRECT AND HAS BEEN TAILORED TO MEET THE SPECIFIC NEEDS OF STAMFORD HOMES. Brendan Blythe Production Director Stamford Homes I HAVE BEEN USING ASTA POWERPROJECT SINCE IT WAS FIRST LAUNCHED. BACK IN 1988 IT WAS THE MOST INNOVATIVE, USER-FRIENDLY SOFTWARE TOOL FOR OUR MARKET AND, IN MY OPINION, IT HAS JUST GOT BETTER AND BETTER. Neil MacLeod Planning Manager Foster and Partners COMPREHENSIVE SUPPORT SERVICES Asta Development provides a comprehensive range of preand post-sales support services to enable customers to get the most out of Asta Powerproject. Accessible, expert Technical Help Desk team dedicated to solving your issues quickly plus online technical support. Training courses at our fully equipped premises as well as tailored, on-site courses delivered by people who understand construction. Comprehensive software maintenance and upgrade path to protect your investment. Construction-specific consultancy services to maximise your productivity.

3 Visit us at 3 EXCELLENT PRESENTATION CAPABILITIES Communicate your plans effectively to clients, colleagues and contractors. Asta Powerproject helps you produce impressive plans that clearly present project information. ASTA POWERPROJECT IS THE PERFECT SOLUTION TO HELP US WITH FORENSIC EXAMINATIONS THE LEGAL TEAM ALSO FIND IT EASY TO VIEW AND ANALYSE BECAUSE OF THE EXCELLENT CLEAR OUTPUTS. Calvin Payne Associate Director Cyril Sweett Everything in Asta Powerproject can be viewed or switched off you can hide the critical path, float, holidays, etc. Create customised company standard borders that incorporate logos, revision numbers, key project dates, notes etc. Annotate the project plan to highlight important tasks no need to export plans to a separate drawing package. Plans are completely scalable to any chosen size. You can also choose the exact position on the project plan to force a new page to start. Produce first rate, high quality output as electronic files or on paper. Simply the best output every time print it on one page. Sort information into any desired order. Powerful graphing facilities help you communicate important information quickly. REPORTING Example of a tabular report produced by the report generator. Project managers can report regularly on project progress and produce ad hoc reports to support decision-making. Any data in the system can be reported on. Standard reports for construction are included. The built-in report generator makes it easy to generate tabular reports. Bar charts, text reports, labour histograms and cash flow graphs can be generated from reports and filtered information. Report on planned versus actual costs & progress. Selection criteria for reports and filters can be saved in a library for future use. Categorise tasks and resources with colour coding then sort and filter the project to present information in a visually striking way. Reports can be output in many different file formats such as PDFs, HTML, MPX (the Microsoft Project file format) or exported to another system such as Microsoft Excel.

4 4 Call us on for more information SCHEDULING Manage long-term projects easily using up to three different date zones. Schedule projects with complete precision using Asta Powerproject: Plan tasks in units from hours, days, weeks, months, years, etc. Show the order in which activities should occur by drawing links from one task to another on the bar chart. Finely tune a plan with features such as link types, lead/lag, multiple tasks per line, multiple links between tasks, hammocks, link categories, critical chain, task splitting and task joining. The resource breakdown structure shows who s doing what. The red bar on the histogram shows that there are not enough bricklayers in June to complete the scheduled activities. View the dependencies between tasks using the standard linked bar chart, or tabular reports or via a precedence network diagram with Asta Powernet, a companion product to Asta Powerproject. Accurately schedule tasks and resources with sophisticated calendaring features e.g. assign different calendars to different tasks. Perform a full critical path analysis with just one click of a button and Undo! Plan backwards or forwards from immovable deadlines using constraint flags. Control the presentation of timescales on the bar chart with the powerful date zone feature. Use summary and expanded tasks to create a tree structure and bring order and structure to a plan. THIS IS THE ONLY SOFTWARE APPLICATION WHICH ALLOWS ME TO SCHEDULE MULTIPLE TASKS ON A SINGLE ROW. Teresa King-Dillon Master Planner Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company Michoud Operations Louisiana, USA RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Asta Powerproject helps you plan and manage your direct labour and trade contractor levels accurately, ensuring minimal wasted effort. All resource types supported labour, plant, materials etc. Each resource can be assigned its own specific properties cost and income rates, work rate, availability etc. Drag and drop resources to assign them to tasks. Produce reports that show who is doing what by assigning different categories of direct labour and sub-contractors to activities. Resource the plan at the beginning to work out the impact on preliminary costs. Identify the right mix of labour and plant for each job by testing different combinations to work out the most cost-effective option. See the combined total of labour via a resource histogram. Manipulate individual tasks to smooth out the peaks and troughs of resource usage. Use automatic resource-levelling to find the optimum position of tasks given a certain level of resource availability. Use resource modelling to simulate the effect of increasing or decreasing resources on task duration and gang size. See the impact on costs and the project end date. KEEPING TRACK OF THE STAFF AND LABOUR INVOLVED IS A KEY FACTOR IN PROJECT SUCCESS AND PROFITABILITY. WE CONDUCTED AN EXTENSIVE EVALUATION AND SELECTED ASTA POWERPROJECT AS THE BEST SYSTEM AVAILABLE. George Tomlinson-Howard Project Leader Information Communications and Technology NG Bailey

5 Visit us at 5 COST MANAGEMENT Asta Powerproject combines time and money to help you control project costs and accurately forecast cash flows. Create cost centres to match your company s internal account codes. Assign monetary values to tasks as either costs or income. Specify costs as either fixed amounts or variable amounts linked to resource usage. Accurately forecast cash flow by combining time and cost/income. For example, this allows you to predict future Monthly Valuation amounts. Record budgeted costs against the original project plan with the baseline feature, then track actual costs as the project progresses. Generate reports showing the variance between budget and actual costs/income. Earned value measures also available. Model different what if scenarios to locate the break-even point and optimise cash flow. The results are shown on the powerful, customisable graphs. Produce graphs to show monthly cumulative costs, breakeven point, actual v. budgeted costs and more. BASELINES A baseline is a record of a project at a particular point in time. You can take as many baselines of the project (or parts of it) as you need with Asta Powerproject. This enables you to: Take a baseline of the original project plan before work starts as a record of what has been agreed contractually. Keep a record of progress at any point in time (e.g. monthly) to provide an accurate audit trail. Freeze the current status of the project and then test out different scenarios for getting the project back on track. Undertake forensic investigations to analyse where the responsibility lies for project overruns. Run variance reports comparing planned vs actual data e.g. progress, costs etc. The jagged line shows which tasks are falling behind and which are ahead. The jagged line shows which tasks are falling behind and which are ahead. Collect progress updates from remote sites with Asta Siteprogress PROGRESS AND MONITORING To monitor the progress of your plan, you need to record progress against each task. With Asta Powerproject, you can: Enter progress values directly into Asta Powerproject or provide site managers & trade contractors with Asta Siteprogress, an easy to use tool for recording progress against tasks via the internet. Progress received from remote sites is then automatically updated in the main plan. Display progress as a jagged line to highlight which tasks are falling behind schedule and which are ahead. At any point in time, check whether you ll meet the completion date and if not, investigate how to get back on track. Highlight when a task was carried out using coloured progress periods.

6 6 Call us on for more information PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT Asta Powerproject enables multiple and/or large-scale projects to be managed from a single database, with the following benefits: Use Project View to navigate a hierarchical structure for programmes, projects and subprojects, resources, costs etc. Link tasks across projects regardless of their location in the project hierarchy. Define resource dependencies and relationships between tasks, projects and programmes. Enable multiple users to simultaneously access the same project data from a central database using the enterprise version of Asta Powerproject. Allows distributed progress updates from users working on the project. Analyse financial impacts across multiple projects. WE JUDGED ASTA POWERPROJECT TO BE THE BEST PRODUCT ON THE MARKET AND WE WILL BE USING IT ON ALL FUTURE PROJECTS. Andrew Anderson Head of Planning and Resourcing Laing O Rourke Navigate your project portfolio with ProjectView. View your portfolio of projects on the bar chart. SHARE PROJECT PLANS Sharing project plans is important in all sectors of construction. Clients need regular updates on progress against key milestones. Trade contractors need to know when they are required on site. Site managers need provide head office with regular progress updates. Head office needs to inform those in the field of any changes to the project plan. Asta Powerproject allows you to share project plans in the following ways: Send plans as PDFs, HTML files etc Enables third parties to view Asta Powerproject plans without purchasing any specialist software. Plans can be output in a variety of file formats, including PDF, HTML, WMF, etc. Book in/out Enables project managers to tag specific sections of the plan to send to third parties, so they can work effectively from the same data. Booking in/out can be done via or floppy disk. Updates received from third parties can be approved before booking back into the master plan. Asta MSP Link A free of charge module that enables you to share Asta Powerproject plans with anyone who uses Microsoft Project (2000/02/03). You can: Convert your Asta Powerproject file into the Microsoft Project readable format. Import Microsoft Project data into Asta Powerproject. Data can also be exchanged between Microsoft Project 98 and Asta Powerproject via the MPX file format (a MSP 98 file format). Asta Projectbrowser A companion product to Asta Powerproject that enables remote project managers to create and edit a project plan via a web browser with changes recorded automatically within the Asta Powerproject master plan. Provides management with realtime reports on project progress with the capability to drill-down for further detail. NB: Asta ProjectBrowser works in enterprise server mode only see back cover.

7 Visit us at 7 ADDITIONAL COMPONENTS Asta Powernet: create a network diagram to display the project. Asta Powernet Create a network diagram of all tasks in a view. New tasks and links can be added to the network diagram. These are reflected within the main project plan. Asta Progress Expert Enables project managers to compare total cumulative progress against a baseline. Shows the extent to which the overall project is behind/ahead of schedule. Results output as Excel graphs. Asta Riskanalysis Improve decision-making with Asta Riskanalysis, a decision support tool based on the Monte Carlo simulation method. Manage risk proactively using scenarios to evaluate deadline slippage and cost over-runs. Gauge contingency amounts and acceptable risk levels at any project stage. Asta Siteprogress allows users to update progress against tasks using a simple tick sheet format. Asta Progress Expert: shows cumulative progress versus the baseline. Asta Siteprogress Provides site managers, trade contractors and remote works with a quick and easy way to update progress against tasks via the internet. Current progress. Baseline 1 (asap). Baseline 2 (alap). Latest report date. Time Chainage Asta offers two software applications to help project managers visualise linear project work such as build and maintenance work on roads, railways, pipelines and tunnels. Asta Timechainage an entry-level product suitable for small to mid size projects of average complexity. Tilos a best in class product for managing the most complex engineering projects.

8 ASTA S TRACK RECORD ASTA POWERPROJECT HAS BEEN DEVELOPED OVER THE LAST 16 YEARS TO MEET THE SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS OF THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY. WITH OVER 35,000 USERS, THE SOFTWARE IS WELL PROVEN AMONGST ALL TYPES OF ORGANISATIONS IN CONSTRUCTION FROM CLIENTS AND PROFESSIONAL ADVISORS TO MAIN CONTRACTORS AND TRADE CONTRACTORS. ASTA POWERPROJECT IS USED WIDELY ON SMALL TO MID SIZE PROJECT AS WELL AS MAJOR PROJECTS SUCH AS THE LONDON EYE, THE EDEN PROJECT, THE GREAT COURT AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND MANY OTHERS. IT IS RECOGNISED AS THE NUMBER ONE PROFESSIONAL PLANNING TOOL FOR UK CONSTRUCTION*. TECHNICAL DETAILS Grows with your business Asta Powerproject is designed to work as a standalone system, over a Local or Wide Area Network or as an Enterprise system providing multiple users with controlled real-time access to multiple projects. Cost-effective licensing Asta Powerproject licenses are concurrent. This means that if you purchase three licenses, any three users can access the software at any one time across the network from a larger group of potential users. Take your licence with you Asta Powerproject makes it easy for you to take your licence with you from office to home to site. Licences can be moved from one machine to another and loaned out for specified time periods. Easily integrated Asta Powerproject is an open system and has been integrated with accounting, estimating, asset management and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems such as COINS, Hummingbird, MIMS, Navisworks 3, Peoplesoft EnterpriseOne, PlanWeaver, CMS Contractor and RIB. It can also be customised rapidly to handle customer-specific requirements. Technologies include: Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Asta Developers' Toolkit for rapid integration (an Active-X control allowing full access to Asta Powerproject s object model). Complete OLE automation interface. Relational database operation (uses ADO and ODBC technologies to work with most relational databases such as Oracle, SQL Server and Access). Asta Development plc Kingston House Goodsons Mews Wellington Street Thame, Oxfordshire OX9 3BX United Kingdom T +44 (0) F +44 (0) W E [email protected] * Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) awards, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, Asta Development plc Asta Powerproject is a registered trademark of Asta Development plc. All trademarks recognised. E & OE.