Insights

Capital improvement planning, or CIP, is an extremely intricate and thorough process that comprises critical factors such as budget available, time, manpower, unexpected changes, among others.

If you're on the hook for prioritizing your projects and delivering to specific timelines and budgets, doing things manually could mean spending months developing spreadsheet-based plans that are still subject to change. What if there was a better way?

Here are a few capabilities we believe are useful to have when selecting a CIP solution.

• 1. Agility
  It is essential to have a solution that gives you the ability to replan and make changes to your capital improvement planning as you go. When disruption happens and your original plan goes out the window, you need to be able to respond quickly. Whether it’s changes to the budget, having less time to finish a project, or less allocated staff, go with an agile solution that accommodates your requirements.
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  2. Flexibility
  Select an application that allows you to prioritize projects based on their importance and build plans around those. When it comes to capital improvement planning, hundreds, if not thousands of projects need to be taken into consideration, so the ability to be flexible and identify which projects are of high importance when is key. Consider solutions that allow you to set up different project scenarios and evaluate different outcomes.
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  3. Data-driven
  Make sure your solution can read your data and then advise you on next steps. When doing things manually, it can take weeks, if not months to identify the key pieces of information that you need to achieve your goals. With the right solution, you can achieve this in just a few hours, obtaining results that maximize all your resources.
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  4. Visualization
  Being able to gain insights through smart visualization will not only make your job easier, but it will also empower you with tangible data to present to stakeholders. Your entire portfolio’s performance, both current and planned, can be visualized on the platform, giving you the ability to analyze the information more easily and communicate this with your team.
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  5. Self-reliant
  Last but not least, your CIP solution should require zero-to-minimal involvement from external parties such as consultants, or even your IT department. Having full control will not only increase the security of your data, but it will also mean that other members of your team can be easily onboarded and use the product.

With the help of Arcadis Gen’s Universal Visual Optimizer solution, your capital improvement planning can be optimized, and your projects prioritized in minutes. Our team of experts is available to take you through the platform and share with you how we can help you meet both your business and sustainable goals. Contact us today