Future of Construction Project Management in the Cloud

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – The promise of the cloud meets the power of construction project scheduling with a recently formed new partnership. Catalyst, a U.S. seller and services provider for Asta Powerproject and Oracle Primavera, has joined forces with the cloud hosting company LoadSpring, to offer the software packages on reliable, access-anywhere cloud servers.

Hosted software is an inevitable and logical trend for growing firms, the new partners say. While the construction industry is notably risk averse and a latecomer to cloud adoption, the flywheel has started to turn and many more mid-to-large construction companies are seeing it as a competitive advantage.

LoadSpring’s chief strategy officer, Dean Edmundson, says the reasons for the shift are both functional and economic.

“Customers using the cloud have the flexibility to use any application they want for managing their projects while giving a disparate workforce access to those tools wherever they are,” says Edmundson. “It helps eliminate capital costs, streamlines performance and makes it easier to share information with other project team members and owners.”

Additionally, he says, IT departments are freed up from maintaining line-of-business software and can, instead, focus on core functions like ERP and email system management.

Steve Sudler, Catalyst’s CEO, believes better access to the software will encourage better project management practices throughout a customer’s enterprise.

“Projects that get scheduled almost always perform better and deliver higher profits than those that don’t,” he explained. “Our goal is to provide both the technology platform and a repeatable process for our clients that they can implement on all their jobs.”

In order to help construction firms master project controls, Catalyst also provides training, migration and implementation support, as well as consulting services.