Vico Control™ is a unique, location-based construction management system which enables the creation of significantly compressed schedules without increasing risk. Vico Control is modular software – the combination of features can be tailored to customers’ needs. The Standard package includes Schedule Planning, Project Control, Procurement, and Risk Management. Advanced features include Micromanagement and Cost Control. Vico Control 2009 enhancements provide improved performance, additional reporting features, and enhanced compatibility with third party products.

 

Performance

 

Performance Optimization
Vico Control 2009 is scalable to large construction projects; performance is significantly faster even when there are hundreds of tasks and thousands of locations.

 

Schedule Planning

 

Vico Control 2009 is designed to create cost-effective and feasible plans for projects. It does this by helping schedulers visualize risk and opportunity, whilst effectively managing workflow and hence:

• Increase the productivity of on-site crews and subcontractors.
• Decrease project duration, cost, and risks
• Avoid interruptions and disputes

 

Gantt chart improvements
The Gantt chart view has been enhanced in Control 2009 with the addition of the ability to insert resource count as a percentage. This means that Control better supports ‘back office’ scheduling tasks where staff are often apportioned as a fractional resource.

 

Flowline
The Flowline provides a set of tools which will help you to increase productivity, decrease project duration, cost and risk, and avoid interruptions and disputes.

 

Task Drawing in Flowline
Vico Control makes the creation of baseline schedules easy. Simply draw tasks directly on the Flowline and get a baseline schedule. The baseline schedule can be refined later with actual resources and quantities.

 

Location Breakdown Structure Sorting Option in Flowline
Clearly present and communicate Tasks. Using the LBS, you can freely sort the display order of locations in the Flowline, including “mixing” locations. This feature prevents visual task splitting in the Flowline and simplifies the schedule structure.

 

Filter Accuracy of Shown Tasks
Using the hierarchy structure function, you can filter the accuracy of shown tasks and adjust the level of detail to the target audience. Tasks can be planned to a very accurate degree, but still presented on a less granular level.

 

Dependency Network
Illustrate the program logic in the network view and add any required dependencies between tasks. Dependencies can also be created and viewed in the Gantt chart and Flowline views.

 

Bill-of-Quantities
When creating quantity-based schedules, you can edit or report quantities with the Bill-of-Quantities view

 

Resource Histogram
The Resource histogram allows you to examine how labor and materials are used throughout a project. You can use this information to drive procurement and assess the feasibility of your schedule plan. The Resource Histogram can also be used to track project progress and to compare the baseline plan for usage of material or labor to actual or forecast usage. Vico Control 2009's enhanced Resource Histogram can be integrated with other views, and allows you to filter the data by tasks.

 

Location-specific Crew Count
Keep the schedule clean and readable. The Control 2009 location-specific crew count lets you change the number of crews in each location without splitting the task.

 

Project Control

 

Vico Control 2009’s project control tools allow your team to easily record and monitor the progress of a project, compare actual progress to the schedule, and to react to any deviations.

 

Control Chart
Get a quick feel of the state of a project through intuitive color-coding. The Control Chart is the main tool for inserting actual information to tasks.

 

Actual Editing Calendar
The Control user interface makes actual insertion fast and accurate by allowing users to insert the same information to several locations simultaneously. The calendar allows users to quickly insert multiple data items, such as start date, how many days the task has progressed, actual hours, and completion percentages. Inserted information will immediately update the schedule forecasts, and thus allow users to take any necessary corrective action.

 

Inserting Actual Information in the Gantt View
Inserting actual data in the Gantt chart view improves productivity and enables tighter collaboration with subcontractors. Simply copy/paste data from Excel, or type directly to the cells. Using this feature, subcontractors' information regarding the status of their tasks can be inserted into Control with just few clicks.

 

Forecasts
The actual information gives users a clear insight into how the project will proceed if work continues as it has done so far. Vico Control presents forecast information both in the Flowline and the Gantt chart views. Users can compare the actual and forecast dates to the planned ones.

 

Link Multiple Projects
Combine several projects into one file for the creation of reports, monitoring of actual progress, or for managing procurement. Projects can then be separated back into smaller entities, which project managers can then utilize.

 

Risk Analysis

 

The Control 2009 risk analysis tools allow planners to evaluate schedule feasibility. This allows users to define risk parameters for tasks and resources. Running a (Monte Carlo) risk simulation then uses statistical methods to evaluate the likelihood of achieving a project’s due completion date, or selected milestones.

 

Procurement

 

The Procurement feature allows users to ensure that any prerequisites are completed before starting a task. The Procurement schedule is automatically linked to the construction schedule through quantities. Procurement can also be used to drive the delivery of projects, as users can see the need times for each location and task. Record progress in a Control Chart specifically allocated for procurement events. The user will be alerted to overdue pre-requisites as they flash in the Gantt chart view.

 

Micromanagement

Micromanagement allows users to create current schedule plans that support the Master Schedule. The micromanagement tool can be used to make more detailed and accurate tasks, create weekly task plans, plan control action when the project is deviating from the original plan, and add new items to a plan.

 

Cost & Cash Flow

 

The Control 2009 cost features enable users to plan and control the cash flow of their projects. It also allows comparisons between schedule versions to assess the cost effects of different implementation alternatives.

 

Toolbar refinement

 

In Control 2009, only the necessary toolbars are shown for the active view. Redundant toolbars are hidden automatically. This makes it easier to find the relevant tools for each view.

 

Reporting

 

Look ahead Reporting
Control 2009 includes new Look ahead reporting functionality which allows users to easily generate reports for the following weeks. The reports filter the on-site actions that are projected for the selected time interval, and allow users to group the information per task, foreman, location, or trade.

 

Printing
Control 2009 offers better control over the printed output, including an editable print preview, improved graphic control, and batch reports.

 

Link to Other Virtual Construction Products

 

Control 2009 is seamlessly linked to other Virtual Construction™ products, enabling the user to gain the full benefit of the accurate quantities extracted from the model, and from cost data extracted from the estimate. The schedule data can then be exported to Vico Software 5D Presenter™, where users can visualize the construction project and examine in a 3D environment how the different trades will be working.

 

Constructor-Control Link Refinement
The connection between Constructor and Control has been greatly improved, and now includes:

1. Selective import of locations, thus the same XML file can easily serve multiple scheduling projects.

2. Automatic mapping of newly imported locations to an existing schedule. This new feature greatly reduces the time needed to update changes by allowing users to keep scheduling data while updating the project with new locations.

3. Schedule change report will help users trace changes in tasks when quantities are refreshed, or at any time after the import, in order to compare the differences to previous schedules, and to see how the changes in the model and estimate affect the schedule.

 

Creation of Crews Automatically From the Quantity Data
Vico Control saves time and effort by automatically populating and synchronizing task crews from quantities that contain Resources (i.e. labor or equipment inputs). The same Resources that are used in Recipes are also used in crews, making the process more transparent. Resource usage can be exported back to Vico Software Estimator™.

 

Integration with Other Scheduling Applications

Vico Control 2009 offers improved communication with other scheduling tools. The enhanced schedule import/export function allows the use of Control for optimizing imported schedules then seamlessly publishing the data back to third party software after having benefited from the advantages of location-based management.

 

With its seamless link to Vico Constructor™ this enhanced import/export functionality makes Vico Control 2009 an obvious portal for third party software users wishing to generate 4D construction simulations.

 

Primavera link
The bidirectional connection to Primavera enables users to create project schedules according to their preferred working methods:

1. Create the project schedule in Control and export optimized result to Primavera.
2. Create the project schedule in Primavera and import to Control for analysis and optimization.

The supported versions are Primavera P3(v5)

 

Microsoft Project and Other Applications Links
Control 2009 provides three different linking options to Microsoft Project: XML, Copy-Paste and the Control Excel template, which also allows linking from other scheduling programs. Using Control 2009 you can:

1. Create the schedule in Microsoft Project and import to Control (can include location coding).
2. Create/edit the schedule in Control and export to Microsoft Project.
3. Create the schedule in any system, copy/paste to the Control Excel template, or directly to the Gantt chart.

 

Language Support

 

In addition to English and Finnish versions, Control 2009 supports the Chinese and Korean languages, thus offering users in these countries an easy start point a shorter learning curve and a familiar working environment.