Don Kingsberry, Head of the EPMO at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, shares insights from years of experience working at six of the fastest growing companies in the world. Hear this compelling talk about best practices for high impact EPMOs.

Companies in the oil and gas, utilities, chemicals and natural resource industries are facing an infrastructure crisis. Reliant on proprietary structures such as refineries, plants, oil rigs and mines, as well as power, water and gas networks to run their operations, these industries, in many cases, are working with decades-old structures that are beginning to break down.

Manufacturing is critical to the global economy. It is driven by innovation and operational excellence, which impacts the economy and international trade—all in a volatile and demanding marketplace; A global marketplace which over the last few years has been strained by economic, political and environmental stress.Economists describe the business climate as gradually improving but still very sensitive to market conditions and customer demands. Or is this really the new normal environment for businesses?

Putting information into the hands of the people closest to the action is not a revolutionary idea. When the action takes place at multiple locations and involves constantly changing conditions and participants, the flow of information becomes even more crucial. This environment is what most contractors have faced every day long before smart phones, tablets, the Internet, and even computing technology in general.

Today, we face something more than the emergence of a new technology. Three fundamental aspects of information management – mobility, computing, and software – are transforming together. And it is when technologies come together and reinforce each other that they have the biggest impact on the way people live and work.

The recently released Global Construction 2025 report, the third in a series of major global studies of the construction and engineering industry published by Global Construction Perspectives and Oxford Economics, provides accurate and reliable forecasts to 2025 for the global construction and engineering industry as well as for key regional and country markets.

“The process manufacturing industry is facing an unprecedented challenge: from now until 2035, cumulative worldwide investments of US$38 trillion will be required for drilling, power generation, and other energy projects,” Iain Graham, director of energy and process manufacturing for Oracle’s Primavera, said in a recent webcast. He adds that process manufacturing organizations such as oil and gas, utilities, and chemicals must manage this level of investment in an environment of constrained capital markets, erratic supply and demand, aging infrastructure, heightened regulations, and declining global skills.

The current political environment facing federal agencies is one of extreme uncertainty. The economic recession is still dragging on the economy, continuing to push the question of recession or depression. As has become the norm, Congress is locked in a bipartisan battle over taxes and spending cuts, leaving agencies stuck in limbo as legislators try to pass a federal budget. This disagreement has recently reached new intensity, resulting in 1.2 million dollars in federal cuts spread across ten years, commonly referred to as the Sequester. These economic woes have made it increasingly likely that when the next round of budgets are due federal government agencies will be under tremendous scrutiny to ensure that scarce tax dollars are spent wisely. This pressure is transferred directly unto the Project Management Office (PMO), which is responsible for monitoring and administering increasingly complex, mission critical, government IT projects.

Hunter Contracting Co., an industry-leading, heavy-civil contractor serving the Southwest since 1961, was looking to reduce project risk and increase project accuracy and efficiency. Hunter needed a simple, effective way to leverage historical information to increase the accuracy of project bids. They wanted to remove multiple, manual data entry points between the field and the accounting office. Hunter also wanted to increase the transparency provided to owners looking for greater detail in their project estimates.

"By integrating Oracle’s Primavera solutions with Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and Oracle CRM On Demand, we’ve created a platform that will enable us to achieve new levels of project management precision—and competitiveness—going forward." – Justin McFarland, Director of Applications, Aegion Corp.

We are excited to introduce the Employee Kiosk (EK) module in Spectrum version 14–the latest module from Dexter + Chaney!