The partners
Foster and Partners: London-based, 300-architect, 600-strong practice with an international reputation for design excellence and recipients of more than 260 awards, including the Queen's Award for Export.

Asta Development plc: headquartered in Thame, Oxfordshire, provider of mid-market enterprise-level project and resource management solutions with over 33,000 users worldwide in the construction industry, as well as in the high-tech, pharmaceutical, professional services, healthcare, engineering, public and utility sectors.

The challenge
A strong demand for Foster and Partners' expertise and services resulted in the expansion of the 100-strong team of architects to 300 within a space of just five years.
As the practice grew, it became increasingly difficult to manage the work of individuals and teams, particularly in relation to current and upcoming projects. With up to 70 live projects being handled at any one time, the challenge for the practice was to manage its internal resources in order to plan more effectively, optimise resource utilisation levels and, at the end of the day, maximise fee-earning potential.

Neil MacLeod, planning manager commented: "before Asta, our resource management was handled using manual paper-based systems. This was an effective process when we were a small team. But as we expanded, it became more difficult to keep track of what everyone was doing. It was also difficult to identify which individuals were fully utilised on project work, and to plan our future resource requirements accordingly. We knew that we needed a project and resource management solution that would consolidate all project-related data across the business.

The solution
Neil MacLeod continued: "I have been using Asta Powerproject since it was first launched. Back in 1988 it was the most innovative, user-friendly software tool for our market and, in my opinion, it has just got better and better."

He added: "For a company where the central concern is design excellence presentation is key. This is another reason why we chose Asta Powerproject. The software demonstrates resource implications in striking graphical representations such as resource graphs and schedules. This means that we can use these images in our presentations to clients, rather than having to create new ones."

With such a large number of Clients and Contractors also using Asta Powerproject it seemed sensible to MacLeod to use the same system in order to easily share information.

Customisation and integration
The company integrated Foster and Partners' proprietary timesheet accounts system to enable it to extract resource data into Microsoft Excel and then into Asta Powerproject where this information is converted into bar charts. Through these charts, the software identifies graphically the resources used in the project as well as highlights future resource requirements.

Neil MacLeod said: "with a single capacity plan in place, I now have visibility across all current and future projects. I can quickly and effectively allocate resources and forecast for future requirements thus ensuring our resources are optimised and our business is running at maximum efficiency."

Resource management is critical Neil MacLeod concluded: "at Foster and Partners, we recognise that the design and architect professionals we employ are the key to our success and underpin our world-class reputation. So managing their workload, and creating realistic yet challenging schedules is a critical business process for us. With Asta Powerproject, we have a professional tool that helps us manage our resources, increase fee-earning income and provides us with the visibility we need to make our planning decisions with confidence."

Foster and Partners has utilised Asta Powerproject to handle the Millennium Bridge, Swiss Re and Great Court (within The British Museum) projects.