Meridian Project Systems' Prolog Application Suite

Given the complexity of the process of building design, construction, and operation, even for a relatively simple project, it is not surprising that project management solutions have become an indispensable component of the electronic toolkit of an AEC firm. There are so many players involved in the average project, and so many different kinds of drawings, forms, reports, correspondence, and other documents that travel back and forth between all these players, that keeping track of all of them for even a single project can be an administrative nightmare. Multiply this by the number of projects the average firm deals with at any given time, and the situation becomes humanly impossible to handle.

Project management solutions have been developed to address precisely this problem. They work by capturing much of the domain-specific processes and documents, and allow a firm to streamline its workflow and administer and track projects much more efficiently. This issue of the AECbytes Product Review series takes a look at one such AEC-specific project management solution, the Prolog Application Suite, by one of the most established vendors in this space, Meridian Project Systems (MPS).

Overview of MPS' Project Management Solutions

MPS was founded in 1993, and during the course of its 10 year old history, it has evolved to provide project management solutions for a broad range of building related industries, including architecture, construction, energy, government, real estate, retail, and so on. It boasts of over 8,500 client companies, including well-known names such as DMJM, Turner Construction, KBR, Fluor, Skanska, Target Corporation, and Cisco Systems.

Operating on the philosophy that "one size does not fit all," MPS provides three distinct product offerings, as shown in Figure 1:

1. Proliance: Launched in 2003, this is MPS' latest enterprise-level Business Process Management (BPM) application, built using state of the art technologies such as .NET, Web Services, and XML, and specifically developed to be scalable across global organizations.

2. Prolog Application Suite: This is a suite of applications built around the company's flagship project management solution, Prolog Manager, targeted towards mid-size business and AEC organizations. It does have a Web component, but is essentially client-server based.

3. ProjectTalk: This is a hosted project management solution deployed in an ASP environment, providing most of the functionality of the Prolog Application Suite to those who do not wish to set up and run the application on their own servers.

The Prolog Suite of Applications

This review will focus on the Prolog Application Suite, which integrates several solutions addressing different aspects of project management. A brief description of each individual application in the suite is given below:

1. Prolog Manager is the company's flagship product with the core project management functionalities for handling bidding, buy-out, contracts, change orders, costs, document management, and field administration—all from a central database built on the Microsoft SQL Server platform.

2. Prolog WebSite is a web-based application that complements Prolog Manager and is intended for project collaboration across the extended project team, including the owner, architect, construction manager, general contractor, subcontractors, and suppliers.

3. Prolog Scheduler is another collaborative, web-based application designed for the entire project team to manage resources and schedules.

4. Prolog Pocket is an application designed for the field for use on a handheld computer to eliminate duplicate entries.

5. Prolog Exchange is an application that automates the collection, verification, and entry of paper-based and electronic data into Prolog Manager, intended to reduce administrative costs and minimize data entry errors.

6. Prolog LT is a less complicated version of Prolog Manager with less sophisticated system requirements, intended specifically for contractors and subcontractors to manage costs, documents, and daily construction activities. It can exchange the project information created with Prolog Manager that is being used by the entire project team.

While it is beyond the scope of this review to analyze each of these applications in detail, the key features of the integrated suite are presented in the following section.

Key Project Management Capabilities

The starting point for project management in Prolog is the Portfolio Manager. Here, you can create different project startup templates configured for different business needs, and then go on to create the individual projects based on these templates. All the projects handled by the company are stored and managed in a centralized database, and can be administered using a single form. Real-time project summaries showing budget, costs, and contract status can be instantly generated for any project. The Portfolio Manager also includes an Executive Dashboard module that can track key performance indicators (KPI's) across all projects to monitor all levels of company profitability, efficiency, and performance (see Figure 2) This "global view" allows a company to find trends and identify problems early before they impact the bottom line.

The Procurement Control module allows a company to manage competitive bidding process and analysis across multiple projects (see Figure 3). It includes tools for tracking detailed company information including qualifications, certifications and contract history; grouping buyout items into logical groups or systems for cost analysis; tracking addenda for all bid packages affected; performing multiple bid analysis using a single matrix; tracking all scopes of work as bid packages to manage buyout more efficiently; tracking the buyout items for each project; and logging all contract attachments that bidders are responsible to acknowledge. It also includes wizards for automating certain tasks: an Award Bid Package wizard that eliminates double entry in procurement and contract management; a Select Bidder wizard that searches for companies meeting the required qualifications; and a Send Notices wizard that sends bid invitations and quote requests via e-mail or fax.

Prolog Manager has a powerful cost control module for interactive cost management and reporting that facilitates accurate forecasting of construction budgets and costs (see Figure 4). It includes tools for updating the project budget based on recorded invoices as well as change orders, generating reports by account or funding source to determine the amount spent from each source, determining the impact of potential change orders on the budget, running tracking reports to determine revenue sources, and generating change requisitions, contracts, purchase orders, and other cost-related documents. A Budget Control Log helps to identify exposures, trends and budget transfers. A software development kit is also available for integrating the application with external accounting systems.

The document management capabilities include the ability to create and track drawing packages, specifications, RFIs, issues, submittal packages, meeting minutes, and other project-related documents. Revisions on all drawings and specifications can be logged and tracked. Drawings can be viewed and redlined in a built-in Prolog Viewer. Prolog Manager also includes a dedicated field administration module for managing daily work journals, crews & equipment, events, inspections, test, safety notices, punchlists and other quality control tasks in a centralized tracking system.

Report generation is a critical feature of Prolog, considering that the bulk of project management tasks involve getting the data out in a meaningful fashion compared to putting the data into the system. More than 400 different types of built-in reports are available, and these can be further customized to present the required data in a desired format. Reports can be generated in batches, filtered and grouped, exported in different formats, and distributed by email from within Prolog itself.

While Prolog Manager is for the more regular, daily user, the web-based collaboration application, Prolog WebSite, is intended for all users across the extended project team (see Figure 5). It has 15 primary feature sets focused on collaboration, document management, and field administration, compared to Prolog Manager's 30. Prolog WebSite connects project team members to one another and to the design drawings, jobsite photos, project schedules, reports, and database information they need, all in real time, and works as a complement to the offline project management capabilities of Prolog Manager.

Another handy complement to Prolog Manager is Prolog Exchange, which can be used to manage and exchange incoming and outgoing data used in critical project management processes. Faxed data such as responses to Invitations to Bid, Pre-qualifications, RFIs, monthly Contract Invoices, and other project information can automatically be input into Prolog Manager or other 3rd party databases. This data can also be received and posted via e-mail or web forms. The intent is to streamline the data entry process and eliminate manual and double entry.

Strengths and Limitations

The main strength of the Prolog Application Suite is its comprehensiveness. It started off being focused on construction but has evolved to serve the needs of all the players and addresses all phases of a building's lifecycle (see Figure 6). It can be used by all the project team members to perform the tasks specific to their roles: program management by the Owner/Construction Manager, construction administration by the Architect/Engineer, project management by the General Contractor, and supplier management by the Subcontractor.

Another key strength is flexibility, both in the software as well as in its deployment. Being a suite of several applications, it can serve organizations of varying sizes by letting them use only the modules that they need. MPS is the only vendor to offer fully dual deployment capability: the software can be self-hosting on customer-owned and managed servers with access to their users provided via Internet, extranet and intranets; or it can be hosted by MPS in the ASP environment of the subscription-based ProjectTalk service. Customers can start on ProjectTalk and transition to a self-hosted deployment over time.

Other big pluses are customizability, integration, and security. The Prolog Application Suite is very customizable and customers can write their own applications to configure it according to their needs, right down to the level of every pull-down menu. Even the nomenclature can be configured. This makes the application very flexible and easy to change, unlike many of its competitors. (For example, see my review of Constructware, where the limited user customization capability was definitely an issue.) There is good integration with other critical business applications such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Project, Prolog Scheduler, SureTrak Project Manager, Primavera Project Planner (P3), Welcom OpenPlan, Bentley's ProjectWise and other industry applications for scheduling, accounting/financial, estimating, and CADD. This allows the project data to be easily shared with other programs without the need for re-entry. A comprehensive Security Manager is available that allows individuals to be set up into user groups for which specific security settings can be created. Other security features include the ability to set permissions as needed, add many levels of security, lock down documents, and post private documents without the fear that they can be seen by others.

From an A/E design collaboration perspective, the biggest limitation of the Prolog Application Suite is that its design/document review and management capability is not as advanced as that of dedicated collaboration solutions such as Autodesk Buzzsaw, or even that of Constructware's relatively recent design collaboration module that was described in my review. Another limitation that the application suite shares with most project management solutions is complexity. A substantial investment of time and effort will be involved in setup and learning before the benefits of deploying the application can be realized.

The biggest limitation of the application, however—which it again shares with all its competitors—is that it is completely built around the dumbed-down 2D drawings concept. The AEC industry is slowly but surely moving to 3D building information modeling (BIM), but even the glimmerings of this transition are yet to be visible in currently available project management solutions like those of MPS. Thus, if a building were to be designed today using ArchiCAD or Autodesk Revit, the Prolog Application Suite would not be able to take advantage of the detailed building information captured in the model in 3D; it would work only with the 2D drawings generated from the model. Even the ability to simply browse through the model in 3D is not yet available within the viewing module of the application.

Conclusions

Before dedicated project management solutions became available, project management in AEC was done on a piecemeal basis, using various point solutions such as Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, Lotus Notes, and so on. In many cases, tracking was done entirely on the basis of hard copies of documents, needing dedicated administration personnel. Needless to say, errors and inefficiencies were abound. With a project management solution like the Prolog Application Suite, all the data related to a project, as well as the data related to all the projects being handled by a firm, is located in a single repository, minimizing redundancy, duplication, inconsistencies, and errors. This directly translates to improved performance, reduced risk, better management of projects, faster implementation, and reduced costs through improved visibility and controls.

Even so, project management solutions are a complex beast. Much of the current paperwork in building design is related to the use of traditional 2D drawings to design, construct, and operate buildings. The use of a 3D live building information model will involve new ways of collaboration and project management, possibly with drastically reduced paperwork and a more interactive way of working with the building data. It is highly likely that totally new project management solutions will emerge to work with the new modeling paradigm, and that existing solutions will have to be substantially redesigned. Vendors of existing solutions like MPS need to be ahead of the curve when it comes to implementing new and emerging technologies so that they can facilitate the transition process for the industry, rather than adopt a "wait and watch" approach and risk being left behind.

About the Author

Lachmi Khemlani is founder and editor of AECbytes. She has a Ph.D. in Architecture from UC Berkeley, specializing in intelligent building modeling, and consults and writes on AEC technology. She can be reached at lachmi@aecbytes.com.

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