Schedule Intelligence Bridge — The Missing Link Between Planning and Construction
The EPC industry's biggest blind spot isn't technology — it's the gap between what was planned and what actually happens on site. Here's how we bridge it.
The Problem Every EPC Project Faces
On every major FPSO, offshore platform, or industrial plant project, there are two worlds operating in parallel — and they barely talk to each other.
World 1: The Planner's Office
The main contractor — an SBM Offshore, a McDermott, a TechnipFMC — builds a Level 3 coordination schedule in Primavera P6. Thousands of activities. Engineering well-detailed. Procurement well-tracked. But construction? Generic. High-level. "Install Piping Module 3" is a single bar on a Gantt chart representing six months of work.
World 2: The Construction Yard
The subcontractor expands that single bar into a Level 4/5 detail schedule — hundreds of spools, each with 5-7 work steps (fit-up, welding, NDE, hydro test, painting). Progress is tracked per spool, per weld joint, per inspection. This is where reality lives.
The Gap
MAIN CONTRACTOR: "What's the progress on Module 3 piping?"
SUBCONTRACTOR: "We've completed 408 of 1,850 spools..."
MAIN CONTRACTOR: "...but what % is that against MY schedule?"
SUBCONTRACTOR: "...I don't know. Your schedule says 'Install Piping'
and my schedule has 9,250 work steps."
This conversation happens on every EPC project. The result is a manual, error-prone, weekly exercise of mapping field progress back to planning-level activities — usually in Excel. By the time the plan is updated, the data is already stale.
Schedule intelligence gets worse, not better, as projects get more complex.
Our Solution: Schedule Intelligence Bridge
Konnect xD solves this with a bidirectional integration between two purpose-built applications:
| KXD Planning | KXD Construction | |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Schedule intelligence, P6/XER analysis, analytics | Field progress, quality, material tracking |
| Data level | Level 3 — coordination schedule | Level 4/5 — construction detail |
| Users | Project controls, planners, managers | Supervisors, inspectors, engineers |
The Schedule Intelligence Bridge connects them — automatically discovering, mapping, and synchronizing data between the two levels.
How It Works
KXD PLANNING KXD CONSTRUCTION
┌─────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────┐
│ │ BASELINE EXPORT │ │
│ P6 Schedule │ ───────────────────────► │ S-Curve Planned │
│ (L3 activities)│ Time-phased plan │ Schedule context │
│ │ WBS hierarchy │ Variance tracking │
│ │ Baseline dates │ │
│ │ │ │
│ EVM Engine │ PROGRESS EXPORT │ Field Progress │
│ (Full picture) │ ◄─────────────────────── │ (Per tag, per step)│
│ SPI CPI │ Earned value │ Quality-gated │
│ EAC ETC │ Actual dates │ Weighted rollup │
│ Forecasts │ Quality status │ Cut-off snapshots │
│ │ │ │
└─────────────────┘ └─────────────────────┘
Four Phases of Intelligence
1. Discover
When a schedule is uploaded, the system automatically analyzes it:
- Detects the schedule level (L3 coordination vs L4/5 detail)
- Identifies discipline and area coding from activity codes
- Computes the time-phased baseline curve from activity dates and resource loading
- Extracts the WBS structure for mapping
2. Transform
Raw P6 schedule data is converted into construction-compatible format:
- Activity durations become period-by-period planned % curves
- Resource loading becomes budgeted manhours per discipline
- Calendar patterns are respected for accurate work-day calculations
3. Map
The system connects schedule activities to construction entities:
- Automatic matching by WBS code and discipline codes
- Manual refinement for complex mappings
- Coverage tracking — see which schedule activities are mapped and which construction entities are covered
- Support for 1:1, 1:many, many:1, and many-to-many relationships
4. Connect
With mappings established, data flows bidirectionally:
- Plan → Construction: S-curve baseline, planned dates, performance targets
- Construction → Plan: Earned progress, actual dates, quality status, remaining work
What Changes for Your Project
For the Project Controls Manager
Before: Spending every Friday afternoon in Excel, manually mapping subcontractor progress reports to P6 activities. The S-curve "planned" line is frozen from the original baseline with no way to automatically compare against field reality.
After: Open KXD Planning and see a live S-curve with Planned vs Actual vs Forecast — all three curves computed from real data. SPI and CPI update automatically from quality-gated field progress, not from someone's estimate. Drill down into any discipline to see exactly which activities are driving schedule variance.
For the Construction Manager
Before: The progress dashboard shows your team is 22% complete, but you have no idea if that's good or bad against the plan. You know your guys are working hard, but the main contractor keeps asking "are you on schedule?" and you can't answer with confidence.
After: The Progress Overview shows three numbers side by side: Actual 22.1% | Planned 28.0% | Variance −5.9%. You can see the variance is concentrated in Main Deck piping (the cold weather delayed fit-up) while lower decks are actually ahead. You export a progress file and the main contractor's schedule updates automatically.
For the Main Contractor
Before: You get a PDF progress report from the yard every week. Someone on your team manually keys the numbers into P6 or a separate EVM spreadsheet. By the time your monthly report is ready, the data is three weeks old.
After: The yard uploads their progress export into KXD Planning. Your EVM dashboard refreshes. You see that Module 3 piping earned value is $149,175 against a planned value of $189,000 — SPI of 0.79. The system flags this as a risk and you can trace it down to the specific work front that's behind.
Version Control: Every Change Tracked
Schedules evolve. Baselines get revised. Our system tracks every version:
Baseline 0 ── Original approved schedule [LOCKED]
│
├── Update v1 ── First monthly update [LOCKED]
│
├── Update v2 ── Second monthly update [LOCKED]
│
├── Re-baseline 1 ── Client-approved revision [ACTIVE]
│
└── Update v3 ── Current working schedule [CURRENT]
When a new schedule version is imported, the system automatically detects:
- Activities added or removed — new scope or scope reduction
- Date shifts — which activities moved and by how much
- Float erosion — critical path changes
- Impact on progress — how schedule changes affect the planned vs actual variance
The Earned Value Management Story
Neither system can compute full EVM alone. Together, they complete the picture:
| EVM Metric | Source |
|---|---|
| BCWS (Planned Value) | KXD Planning — from baseline schedule + resource loading |
| BCWP (Earned Value) | KXD Construction → KXD Planning — field progress weighted by budget |
| ACWP (Actual Cost) | KXD Planning — from P6 cost data or ERP |
| SPI (Schedule Performance) | KXD Planning — computed from BCWS and BCWP |
| CPI (Cost Performance) | KXD Planning — computed from BCWP and ACWP |
| EAC (Estimate at Completion) | KXD Planning — forecasted from current performance |
The key insight: BCWP (earned value) is only real when it comes from quality-gated field progress, not from someone's percentage estimate. That's what KXD Construction provides — progress that's been measured per tag, per work step, verified by inspections, and rolled up through a weighted formula.
Why This Matters
Industry Context
In a typical $500M FPSO construction project:
- 1% schedule overrun = ~$5M in additional cost
- 1 week of stale data = decisions made on outdated assumptions
- The manual L3↔L4/L5 reconciliation takes 8-12 manhours per week per discipline
- EVM reports are typically 2-3 weeks behind reality
What We Enable
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Progress data latency | 2-3 weeks | Same day |
| L3↔L4/L5 reconciliation | 8-12 hours/week manual | Automated mapping |
| S-curve accuracy | Estimated percentages | Quality-gated actuals |
| EVM source data | Manual entry | Computed from field data |
| Baseline change detection | Manual comparison | Automatic diff + alerts |
Technical Preview
The Schedule Intelligence Bridge uses a file-based data contract — a deliberate design choice for maximum compatibility:
- JSON interchange format — human-readable, versionable, debuggable
- No direct database coupling — each system maintains its own data sovereignty
- Schema-versioned files — forward-compatible as both systems evolve
- Works offline — exchange files can be transferred even without network connectivity
This architecture is designed to evolve. Today it's file-based manual exchange. Tomorrow it becomes a real-time API. The data contract stays the same — only the transport changes.
Part of the Konnect xD Ecosystem
The Schedule Intelligence Bridge is one piece of a larger vision:
Konnect xD Ecosystem
┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Konnect Core (Omega) │
│ Data engine • Ingestion • Analytics │
└──────────┬───────────────┬────────────────┘
│ │
┌──────────▼──┐ ┌───────▼──────────────┐
│ KXD Planning│◄──►│ KXD Construction Mgmt│
│ │ │ │
│ Schedules │ │ Progress & Quality │
│ Analytics │ │ Materials & Handover │
│ 4D / EVM │ │ Multi-discipline │
└─────────────┘ └──────────────────────┘
Both apps operate independently today. The Bridge connects them. In the future, Konnect Core orchestrates everything.
Built by engineers who've lived the L3↔L5 problem on real FPSO construction projects.