Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) – a leader in developing and operating infrastructure around the world – is currently working on the multi-year revitalization project of a major metropolitan airport. PB, together with five other consultant firms, comprises a Construction Management team that manages a number of contractors working as an extension of the city on the airport project. Tracking the time and billing for six different consulting firms in a cohesive manner, with each firm managing multiple contractors and projects, proved to be a difficult task.

Challenge

Revitalizing a major airport requires PB and five other consulting firms to manage contractors working on approximately 50 projects including paving the airport runways and building new air traffic control towers. It is critical for the six-firm Construction Management team to maintain consistency for all time, billing and projects. The multiple firms must blend together into one team, headed by PB.

The difficulties that PB faces include each consulting firm maintaining a different pay schedule with timesheets ending on different days, as well as different pay days, pay frequency, etc. Early on, PB used Excel spreadsheets and manually merged all of the consultants’ time into one database, creating one single invoice for the city. However, PB soon found that the margin of error was too great and that spreadsheets were not conducive to such a large number of consultants tracking their time. PB realized that it needs a single automated mechanism for logging time.

Solution

Allyson Stavron, Lead Cost Engineer for Parsons Brinckerhoff, states that after reviewing many products in the marketplace, Journyx presents the most flexible and open database, fitting PB’s needs the best. Journyx allows each employee on the Construction Management team, no matter what consulting firm they work for, to track their time the same way on the same time schedule. Even though each consultant is still paid per their firm’s schedule, it doesn’t interfere with time tracking as long as the timesheets are on the same week and the firms are paying the consultants the correct amount. Journyx Timesheet allows each consultant to log their time by project from any computer, creating a much more streamlined process for PB to manage, yet still be paid by different firms on their own pay schedule.

Benefit

“Journyx more than met our expectations,” said Stavron. “We were able to shave a week and a half off of our normal invoicing cycle. This time savings equals $5 to $6 thousand dollars a month versus our previous method. The Journyx solution is highly configurable and helps us to manage this huge project very efficiently.”