By synchronizing the Critical Path Method with the Last Planner System® using Touchplan and P6, Jacobsen Construction efficiently managed the complexities of building Utah’s tallest structure, delivering a landmark that redefines upscale urban living.

Soaring above the Salt Lake City skyline, the Astra Tower stands as a $250 million, 40-story luxury apartment building, offering 375 units. As Utah’s tallest building, it has become one of Salt Lake City’s most prestigious residential addresses. The tower features various apartment floor plans, underground parking, and over 40,000 square feet of amenities, including an 8th-floor “urban park,” a 20th-floor swimming pool, and a rooftop terrace with 360-degree views of the historic downtown.

Quoted in Multifamily Dive, KIC CEO Ed Lewis stated during the groundbreaking, “Astra Tower will show what Salt Lake City is going to become in the future. This building will be remarkable for much more than its height. Its completion will set a new benchmark for upscale downtown living.“

As the project neared completion, Layne Hess, Corporate Director of Planning and Scheduling for Jacobsen Construction, noted, “Urban construction is never easy, but this was an especially complex project with a very tight schedule. We also had to contend with supply chain and labor availability issues. High precision, real-time planning was paramount.“

For the Astra Tower project, Hess and his Jacobsen team implemented a planning process they had honed over five years of successful projects. They seamlessly synchronized the critical path method-based contract schedule in Oracle’s Primavera P6 software with the Last Planner System-based digital production plan in Touchplan® from MOCA Systems, Inc.

This approach enabled the team to capture and share detailed, timely as-built data from the Astra Tower job site, ensuring that the contract schedule was accurate and up-to-date. By communicating critical details about supply chain deliveries, workforce allocation, and other elements in the master plan to the production planners on-site, they continuously reduced schedule, budget, and safety risks. As a result, Jacobsen was able to double the number of units available for rent in the first phase of the development without altering the schedule.

With 41 years of construction experience, Hess and his team, after six years of optimizing over 240 projects using Touchplan, have developed a reliable, repeatable formula for planning success. They are now eager to share this approach with trade partners and even competing general contractors, driven by a simple reason.

As Hess explains, “When everyone plans this way, the entire industry improves together.“

In the following, Hess outlines his approach to synchronous construction planning and its benefits for the Astra Tower project.

Planning Precision: How Process Paves the Way for Success

Initial Breakdown: When starting the project, Hess instructs his superintendents to break down the long-duration tasks into manageable components using Touchplan. They are tasked with studying Touchplan data alongside trade partners to create realistic and accurate schedules.

“It’s important that field teams stop and study their plans in Touchplan,” says Hess. “Superintendents need to sit with all their trade partners, think through the details, and make sure they are accurate. If it’s not right, I’ll have a meeting with them to make sure they make the necessary adjustments to get it right in Touchplan first because it’s so easy to use. Then, once the right information loads into Touchplan, it is easy to integrate it into the P6 format.”

Validation and Import: Once the Touchplan schedule is finalized by the superintendents, Hess reviews it for accuracy. He then holds meetings to import the schedules into P6, ensuring all logic and dependencies are correctly placed.

“I bring the superintendent back, compare Touchplan on one screen and P6 on another, and walk through the schedule together,” says Hess “This process refines the plan through multiple phases, ensuring accuracy and alignment”

Continuous Updates: Hess performs bi-weekly meetings to update the master schedule. The detailed Touchplan data allows for quick and precise updates, minimizing guesswork and ensuring alignment with on-the-ground realities.

“That’s how I make one brain out of two systems,” he concludes, underscoring the synergy between Touchplan and P6 in delivering successful construction projects.

The Last Planner System® is the Critical Path to the Master Schedule

The Critical Path Method (CPM) and the Last Planner System (LPS®) are often viewed as disparate planning methodologies. CPM is typically seen as a broad, top-down approach to planning where schedulers use tools like P6 to determine the shortest possible project duration. In contrast, LPS is seen as a field-level, action-oriented approach that offers a detailed, bottom-up view of project planning.

While many workflows involve creating the high-level critical path before digging down into the detailed production plans, Hess’s approach creates a unified system by using Touchplan to pull in the knowledge from those who will be doing the work (the Last Planners) to create the critical path before it enters P6.

“When you have the bottom-up knowledge base and collaboration, you get the intelligence of the professionals doing the work,” says Hess. “I have to have the people in the field involved with creating the critical path and calibrating it in the right direction. They know what’s really going on, and their insights help us refine the schedule.” 

This bottom-up approach to scheduling results in a more reliable and refined master schedule as it integrates the expertise and real-time feedback of those executing the work. This ultimately aligns daily operations with the overall project timeline. By engaging the field teams early in the process and leveraging the collaborative fundamentals of LPS, the Touchplan-P6 synchronization ensures that on-the-ground insights shape the master schedule. 

“Touchplan is the critical path to the master schedule,” says Hess. “If you don’t get the critical path right on the daily work, you don’t have a master schedule that’s right.”

Breaking Down Silos: Enhancing Schedule Accuracy through Real-Time Information Flow

Silos between the back office and field teams can extend beyond just determining the critical path and affect the accuracy of the master schedule throughout the project. As issues and necessary changes inevitably unfold, a continuous flow of real-time information between the granular production plan in the field and the contractual master schedule in the office is critical. 

Hess works to break down this silo by working directly with his superintendents and holding them accountable for providing accurate data in Touchplan before adjusting the master plan. He frequently shuts down meetings if superintendents are uncertain or lack timely data in Touchplan, requiring them to provide precise information before proceeding. This strict adherence to providing accurate data ensures the integrity of the scheduling process.

“The best thing I can ever hear in a meeting is ‘hold on, I have to open up Touchplan,’” Hess says. “The platform holds the trades and the superintendents accountable for their work and keeps them from guessing and shooting from the hip.” Hess concludes, “We must remember that schedules are living organisms that expand and contract, so if I’m not seeing changes in Touchplan, I get worried fast.”