Ghella monitors the progress of the Tunnel Boring Machines with a web application.

From Excel to a web app for planning investments, resources, and assets of Ghella.

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Advantages gained

Advanced planning of investments and resources with a positive impact on turnover.

Drastic reduction of human error in data entry.

Ease in managing information with time and resource savings.

Ghella can now access commercial negotiations that require details on past years' production data.

Context and needs

Founded in 1894, Ghella is today an international leader in the construction of major public works with Tunnel Boring Machines. It specializes in underground excavations (subways, railways, highways, and hydraulic works) and in the development and construction of renewable energy production plants.

Ghella owns construction sites around the world, managing men, resources, and equipment for each of them. To monitor and plan work in each country, it previously used an Excel file in which plant managers manually entered data. This could lead to a high rate of input errors, loss of information, and unintentional modifications. Therefore, it was essential to have a tool that was easy to use both during data input and during consultation and analysis phases.

Solution and Technology

After analyzing Ghella’s needs, SoftJam designed and developed a web app, based on the Microsoft Azure platform, that is accessible from any device. Through the use of this application, each site manager can now upload a series of parameters related to the progress of the work.

The project also included the integration of the web app with dashboards created in PowerBI to enable real-time visualization of work progress on a global, country, or individual site scale, to promptly intervene in case of critical issues, and to carry out precise planning of investments, human resources, and equipment.

The dashboards also allow Ghella to view trends that have characterized the company’s last 50 years of work, something that was not possible until then.

Video

In this video, Matteo D’Aloja – Head of External Relations & Communication at Ghella – and Gilberto Millan – Web & Multimedia Coordinator at Ghella – discuss how the web application solution, developed in collaboration with SoftJam, has enabled them to abandon manually updated Excel files and replace them with dynamic PowerBI dashboards based on Microsoft Azure. These dashboards allow for real-time data tracking on the progress of the TBMs and proper planning of future activities.