Olympics Construction Fails Showcase Importance of CMIS

A robust Construction Management Information System helps keep big projects on track

ConstructionThe 2014 Winter Olympics got off to a rough start, with hordes of reporters arriving in Sochi only to discover that all was not ready for their arrival. Images and tweets soon flooded the internet and the hashtags #SochiFail and #SochiProblems were born. Viewers back home saw hotels with unfinished lobbies, open manholes in half-paved streets, workers spray-painting the grass green, and wild dogs carousing on corners. Bathrooms were a particular source of fascination, as athletes encounteredmirrored ceilings, urinals with no water hookups, rooms of toilets with no dividers, and pipes that intermittently produced non-potable water.

Fortunately, many aspects of the massive $51 billion Sochi development project did turn out perfectly, and the spirit of the Olympics soon took over, with athletes, spectators, and journalists focusing on the events rather than the accommodations. The Russians were even able to make fun of their own “fails,” referencing a moment from their opening ceremonies when the fifth Olympic ring failed to appearduring the closing ceremonies.

Things ultimately turned out well in Sochi, but would your own construction project be able to recover so easily from similar construction problems? It’s probably best not to find out. ECL Software’s Construction Management Information System can help you maintain close control and oversight of your project to help you prevent problems and respond quickly to changing project parameters or delays. Here are two important ways that CMIS could have helped Sochi developers.

Complete Cost Estimate and Proposal Writing Functions

The original estimate for the improvements needed to transform the tiny resort town of Sochi into an Olympic host was $12 billion—at least that’s the amount Putin pledged to devote when bidding for the Games back in 2007. The final bill was $51 billion. Of course, preparing a city for the Olympics is a “megaproject” that no city has ever successfully estimated the cost for. The average host country ends up spending 3 times the initial bid by the time opening ceremonies begin. Still, using a detail-oriented piece of software such as ECL Software’s CMIS can help generate more accurate proposals when fed accurate data.

Detailed Work In Process Reporting System

ECL Software’s CMIS includes a Work In Process reporting system that is the most detailed in the industry, with the ability to track nearly 1,000 data points. Had individual hotel and venue developers used such a system, it would have been easier to keep on track of project objectives and progress, hopefully preventing issues such as reporters being shown to hotel rooms with no doorknobs.