Utilizing Mobility to Streamline Construction Project Management

⇨ Commercial construction projects require careful management of various moving parts to ensure timely delivery and high quality, necessitating effective tools for project managers and foremen.

⇨ SAP's Business Technology Platform (BTP) Field App offers a cloud-based, low-cost solution for construction sites, enabling seamless management of processes and procurement without needing an existing SAP infrastructure.

⇨ The successful implementation of the Field App by Platinum DB Consulting included essential features like a Project Navigator and Daily Diary, enhancing project oversight and improving field data management.

If you have ever visited a commercial construction site, you would be amazed at all the moving parts that must be streamlined to ensure the timely delivery of a project of the highest quality. From raw materials to construction processes, a foreman and project manager at these sites must be attentive to all aspects to avoid potential project delays and mitigate risk.

Cloud systems like the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) Field App help construction sites keep their processes and procurement in order. However, SAP pre-sales and engineering construction customers increasingly demand a mobile field application to ensure a site’s work is done on time. Such an app should ideally follow these requirements:

• It should be cloud-based
• The app must be low-cost since it is standalone and loosely coupled
• It can be built for an SAP platform but doesn’t necessarily need an existing SAP infrastructure
• Low-cost implementation: data model and annotation-driven

SAP partner Platinum DB Consulting recently implemented such an app for a construction client leveraging SAP Fiori.  The implementation was presented at SAPPHIRE 2023. The goal was to include features like a Project Navigator and a Daily Diary Navigator for the client.

The Project Navigator’s features include a project status dashboard that can be accessed on an iPad and allows the user to drill down into the project form. The latter lets users edit project data and create cost code updates for materials and services installed in the field.

The Daily Diary form, as integrated with the SAP Project System’s structure through Build Process Automation (BPA), lets users view material and service KPIs and pictures of field activity. A daily diary report can also be published after approval.

Post SAPPHIRE 2023, Platinum DB’s BTP journey began designing, developing, and migrating the Field app to the BTP platform, at its own expense, to ensure the Field App’s success.  It used Platinum DB’s core SAP BTP architecture, which included SAP S/4HANA with SAP Build Process Automation (BPA).