Resource Planning and Controlling for Construction Sites in Mechanical and Plant Engineering
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1. What is the current situation for planning and controlling construction sites?
Projects on construction sites in mechanical and plant engineering are rarely routine. Project durations range from a few weeks to up to two years, involving teams of three to fifty people—often from different locations and with an international background. Tasks range from classic new system installations to complex modernizations and retrofits. Personnel, vehicles, tools, and service providers are often brought together on a project basis from all departments and external partners.
2. What are the main challenges in planning and controlling construction site projects?
Media disruptions, widely used Excel sheets, paper-based protocols, and multiple versions of documents lead to errors, duplication, communication problems, and delays.
Projects that span several locations or business units are particularly challenging. Silo planning occurs and important personnel or material bottlenecks become visible too late. The right level of planning detail is often unclear: How granular do tasks, phases and milestones really need to be? Who takes on the responsibility for ongoing coordination and updates?
Two key positions work together:
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While the project manager in the back office tries to calculate budgets and determine optimal resource deployment, the true feasibility on site often remains unclear.
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The site manager working on the customer site, on the other hand, rarely has the most up-to-date information: Who is working when and for how long on the project? Are all required qualifications and certificates available, current, and documented? Are all tools, vehicles, and materials in the right place?
The consequences of these problems affect the entire company:
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Resource shortages or overbooking—especially for projects planned across multiple locations
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Delays due to insufficient or confusing communication about open tasks, responsibilities, and dependencies
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Loss of time and frustration among site managers due to tedious manual documentation and lack of digital support
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Poor error analysis, since relevant evaluations or report data must first be painstakingly gathered from different sources
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Lack of transparency regarding budgets and actual utilization. Critical information for project controlling, billing, and post-calculation is missing or incomplete
3. Why is this topic especially relevant right now?
Companies in mechanical and plant engineering are operating in a market with a growing proportion of service work, increasing cost pressure, and a real shortage of skilled workers. Competitiveness directly depends on how reliably they can manage large and complex projects—including all locations and business units. Those who plan their resources flexibly and transparently and detect bottlenecks early can react faster, work more profitably, and effectively relieve their teams. Especially in complex construction projects, the quality of planning, implementation, and documentation determines economic success and customer satisfaction.
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4. What characterizes a holistic solution for major projects in mechanical and plant engineering?
Companies need a central, digital platform that works across locations and departments. The following functions are key:
Resource Management
Resource Management
Dynamic, flexible, and crossing all locations and departments: With a clear scheduling board that always shows which teams, vehicles, tools, or external partners are available.
Adjustable Level of Detail
Adjustable Level of Detail
Mapping of phases, milestones, and tasks, including dependency management: Clear visualization of all critical paths and processes so that a bottleneck or delay does not trigger a chain reaction.
Capacity Planning and Forecasting
Capacity Planning and Forecasting
Early identification of personnel, material, and machine bottlenecks—including provisional reservations even before the official assignment.
Integrated Skill and Qualification Matrix
Integrated Skill and Qualification Matrix
Continuous control and automatic updates, ensuring that only authorized and qualified employees are deployed.
Digital, Mobile Job Folder
Digital, Mobile Job Folder
Easy-to-use checklists, reports, photo documentation, and time tracking in an offline-capable app.
Relief for Site Managers in Documentation
Relief for Site Managers in Documentation
Standardized templates, digital signatures, central data storage. This means: Less time for documentation, more focus on the actual job.
Controlling and Reporting
Controlling and Reporting
Dashboards showing progress, open tasks, causes of project delays or errors, and all relevant data for rapid realignment.
Single Source of Truth for All Stakeholders
Single Source of Truth for All Stakeholders
All project data, status reports, documents, and certificates in one central location, always up-to-date and available for authorized personnel.
5. What can you directly adapt in your service organization?
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Define which level of detail and which tasks are truly decisive for project success—and use this as a foundation for your resource plan and capacity forecast.
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Implement a central, cross-location scheduling board for coordinated alignment with all stakeholders.
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Collect and structure all relevant documents, checklists, evaluations, certificates, and status reports in one location and make them accessible to all employees.
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Put your existing processes and documentation to the test. How can you relieve your site managers with simpler documentation?
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Frequently Asked Questions about Resource and Construction Site Planning in Plant Engineering with fieldux
With the digital, central scheduling board in the fieldux Planner, the availability of all relevant resources becomes instantly visible—across all locations and departments. Bottlenecks or overlaps can be identified visually at an early stage and easily rescheduled. Updates happen automatically, making follow-up questions and double bookings a thing of the past.
Project phases, milestones, and tasks are clearly displayed on the scheduling board, with dependencies visualized transparently. You control the level of detail yourself: from a high-level project overview down to detailed task assignments with checklists on site.
In fieldux, skills, certificates, visas, and more can be stored for all employees and service providers, including expiration dates. When planning assignments, you can immediately see whether only authorized and qualified teams are assigned to the respective job. Missing documentation or expired certificates are flagged automatically.
How can the system be integrated into existing structures?
fieldux works with open interfaces and can be flexibly connected to your processes and existing IT systems (e.g. ERP, HR, or time tracking). The onboarding process is structured, allowing for a quick start—and you decide which integration levels you require. Learn more about interfaces here.
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