How students can develop career-ready, hands-on skills within the construction management field

In this episode, Tyra Peirce chats with Dr. Aziz, Associate Professor, University of Washington, a construction management industry expert, who discusses teaching and learning of construction management, including project methods and the benefits a robust software like Oracle Primavera P6 can offer.

--------------------------------------------------------

Episode Transcript:

00;00;09;03 - 00;00;34;12
Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy helps prepare our next generation's workforce.
 
00;00;34;14 - 00;00;57;07
I'm your host, Tyra Pierce. In this episode, I speak with Dr. Aziz, a professor in construction management at the University of Washington. Dr. Aziz and I speak about how learning P6 is helping prepare his construction students for careers. Welcome, Dr. Aziz. Thank you. To start off, can you give me a bit about your background and the class you teach at University of Washington?
 
00;00;57;14 - 00;01;17;26
But I thank you for having me again. It's a pleasure to be with you. I have a doctoral degree in civil engineering majoring in construction, engineering and management, and I'm an associate professor with the University of Washington. Before joining the academia, I used to work for a civil infrastructure company in Calgary, Alberta. But I had two roles to do.
 
00;01;17;26 - 00;01;45;11
A project analyst for mega projects and the project control engineer responsible for the development of construction schedules, for the company of projects which mainly were bridges and highways. So that was my main job with the company. In 2003 I joined the University of Washington to teach and research in construction management. Where now I am an associate professor along with teaching the university.
 
00;01;45;14 - 00;02;11;12
I prefer that we keep in touch with the industry. And so, to convey the latest information and this knowledge to our students of the classes and that's where I have a little bit side work for consulting and training on construction management training and Primavera and other software applications. I get to know Primavera, you could say, since the 1980s, the late 1900s, it is a very long time.
 
00;02;11;14 - 00;02;33;15
And that was during my studies in Egypt. And then later I used Primavera for several professional and training jobs. And when I joined UDAP, I started to work with Primavera through the Oracle Academy. I teach a number of classes UDAP. So, my first one is the planning and control, and that's for planning and control and scheduling of construction projects.
 
00;02;33;17 - 00;03;01;17
This is mainly the principles and practices of the critical Path method, the major method that we use in construction management. I also teach the construction computer applications. It's a hands-on lab for software use in the planning and control of construction. And then I also teach the certificate program classes, which also hands on technology is a software application for planning and construction.
 
00;03;01;20 - 00;03;24;14
Then I have a set of graduate classes for project economics and risk analysis and for the heavy construction estimating. So, you could see that the university keeps me busy with teaching mainly in the construction management area. So, that is a really interesting and unique background. I like how you are still involved in industry in making sure that you're keeping abreast of what is going on.
 
00;03;24;16 - 00;03;54;14
And so, which is I think while you're very qualified to give an answer to this next question that I have. What are some essential skills that construction management students need to learn? A great question. Construction management students are practical type of students. They are hands on students or learners. And so, in our department, to try to give them the skills that they need to be qualified was in order to practice and do the job quite well in the industry.
 
00;03;54;16 - 00;04;21;24
As you could see that there is kind of four essential categories of skills that they need to have. First one is to create cost estimates, construction schedules, safety plans. They should be very well and excellent in communication. The management side of the industry. Another one is to ability to have the ability to analyze construction documents, analyze construction methods and materials and equipment so that you will be able to select the proper ones for construction tasks.
 
00;04;21;27 - 00;04;47;13
You should be able to apply the electronic based technology to manage construction processes and tasks. And that's where the major software used by the industry. We teach them at the of the art department in our classes. And then finally, to be able to understand the construction accounting project control, risk management, our quality assurance, all these types of work that they will be working with in the industry once they graduate.
 
00;04;47;15 - 00;05;18;16
And that is so interesting that there's all these different types of skills, whether it's accounting or scheduling or project management or even time management that is just kind of really essential to construction management, which kind of leads onto my next question How does studying software packages and maybe in particular Primavera help to teach students these skills? Well, as I mentioned, the construction management in our program uses in several classes a suite of software applications to teach our students various disciplines.
 
00;05;18;17 - 00;05;40;01
We have planning and control, we have cost estimating, we have virtual reality. And so, applications like the Revit for BIM on the screen and blue beam for quality take off Comfortline for cost Estimating Primavera and Project for planning control. Several other applications. We have to get them be ready for that. And so, in some of my core classes primavera the focus.
 
00;05;40;01 - 00;06;13;28
And so, in my undergraduate construction computer applications, the professional certificate classes and in the capstone graduate class, they need to work with the software to do the work of planning, scheduling and so on. The and the CM, the construction management field. The students need tools to help them with hands on practice. And so specifically on the planning and control area, the students need to have software application that can implement the technical rules of the critical path method CPM as the main measure method that we use in the management of project.
 
00;06;13;28 - 00;06;46;16
And so, they need to be able to work with the software that implement to that. They need to be able to generate construction schedules and reports, facilitates updating of projects, generate progress reports, major performance like using the earn it value analysis method and carry out risk analysis. We also need to have a resilient application that can communicate with other software application such as Excel and Project and many of those other applications that are used by the industry as well are Primavera and the add ins provided that to me as an educator.
 
00;06;46;18 - 00;07;14;01
And so, since 2005, after two years from joining the university, I started to contact with the Oracle Academy, where I received the 100 of licenses of Primavera. That was like a grace for me to have Primavera where to be used in the classes since I used to work with it in the industry. And so, it becomes very a great opportunity to get them to learn a software that's being used by the industry as an educator.
 
00;07;14;01 - 00;07;40;10
Also, I then more than the technical, the scheduling capabilities that the students need to know, which is managed by the software itself, but they also get to work with the Enterprise project, the structure and the organizational structure. These are constructs in Primavera I use them to develop a structure for my classes, so I develop work areas for my students who are each student in a class.
 
00;07;40;10 - 00;08;02;14
I have access to one specific work area to create projects, to create resources separate from all other students. At the same time, I have an instant access to all that the students do in the work areas so I can interactively fix errors that might have in their projects and I keep the integrity of the class so no one would copy the work of others.
 
00;08;02;20 - 00;08;36;15
And so, the enterprise project, the structure and the OVS allowed me to generate that. It also allowed me to generate and create collaborative areas where multiple students could actually work on the same project. This collaboration is great when we do capstone projects and join a project, and it also allowed me to create quizzes and exam areas. Many are working in an exam setting and then you have your own specific area that you are working in Primavera, and the next students are also working on the same software, but they cannot copy from each other and shoot using the apps and the ops.
 
00;08;36;15 - 00;09;02;07
I was able to create that environment where everyone is responsible about the project that they do without having to work or to deal with any other student in that class. I think that's really interesting