Business Services · Results
Work that held up.
Three recent projects Andrew led, some as an employee and some as a Vibrant Blue consultant, told plainly. Names are withheld; the work, the scale, and the outcomes are real.
Project controls for a municipal utility-scale solar project
Northeast Ohio municipality
The challenge
A municipal owner needed one place to see budget, contracts, invoices, schedule, and decisions on a multi-year solar build, without buying an enterprise project-controls platform.
Result: Andrew put the whole project, about $50 million, into one connected system tracked line by line, with a live dashboard for the team and a print version for council and leadership briefings.
What Andrew built, in Smartsheet
- 17 connected data sheets covering budget, budget variance, contracts and change orders, quotes, vendor financials, invoices and EPC payables, forecasting, burn-down, schedule, milestones, deliverables, exhibits, stakeholders, and actions
- 16 reports that roll that data up for the project team, individual owners, meeting minutes (open actions and a schedule look-ahead), and problem-task tracking
- A live project dashboard plus a print version for council and leadership briefings: budget status, variance log, forecasted cash flow, burn-down, milestones, latest update, and photos
Contract crew management for a major investor-owned utility
Major investor-owned utility
The challenge
More than 130 contract crews, with no single, current view of who was working where, how far along the work was, or what resources the next months would need.
Result: crews went from "I don't know what my next job is" to a clear view of their work. Every contractor now sees its specific jobs for the next six months and its planned work for the next year. Leadership sees the five-year portfolio. "Probably about X crews" became a job-level plan.
What Andrew built
- Internal Smartsheet base sheets, reports, and integrations that pulled data in from other company systems
- Stakeholder and leadership reports showing the current state of work
- Controlled external access so contractors could update their own data points: crew assignments, percent complete, estimated finish dates, photos, and notes
- A weekly meeting cadence with each contractor and internal field oversight to clear material needs, schedule interruptions, and issues with external parties
Rebuilding three PUCO-regulated inspection programs
Major investor-owned utility, Ohio
The challenge
Three programs regulated by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (ground-line pole inspections, overhead line inspections, and underground equipment inspections) had drifted far out of balance. Some districts inspected 100% of their facilities in one year, repaired the next, then did nothing for the rest of the five-year cycle, causing major disruptions each time their turn came back around.
Result: predictable annual workloads for engineering, design, procurement, and operations, and an end to the boom-and-bust cycle.
What Andrew led
Andrew used historic equipment failure data plus geographic and equipment-demographic information to rebuild all three programs so every region carries an even share of the work each year.
Regulatory approval
Rebalancing meant inspecting some facilities earlier or later than the prescribed cycle for one round, which required PUCO approval. The plan was clear enough that the Commission readily understood the benefits and cost savings and approved it with few questions.
Facing something similar?
A 30-minute conversation is usually enough to tell whether Vibrant Blue can help, and how.
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