Nureva has announced the formation of Nialli Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary focused on enabling SaaS-based collaboration. Nialli (pronounced NY-ALL-EE) will bring a suite of collaboration applications to market, the first of which launches Monday, Sept. 21. Called Nialli Visual Planner, it’s a cloud-based application that’s aimed at digitally transforming the paper-based planning processes used in lean construction. Nialli Visual Planner is modeled after the Lean Construction Institute’s Last Planner System (LPS), a production control system that follows principles such as just-in-time delivery, value stream-mapping and pull planning. Nialli Visual Planner can be used by all project stakeholders on any device and from any location, providing the flexibility of having any combination of co-located and remote participants during planning sessions. The solution can also be used on large interactive surfaces such as the Nureva Wall, to replicate the paper-based big wall experience with which many construction teams are familiar. By making the process digital, Nialli Visual Planner increases visibility into team progress, and the status of a single task or activity can be updated on the spot, with all data being captured for post-analysis.
Nialli’s objective is to make it easy for organizations to digitally transform their collaborative processes and achieve the associated gains in productivity and performance. The company is driven by a design process that is grounded in deep understanding of its customers and their ways of working, with the goal of creating applications that are completely intuitive and easy to adopt. Most recently, Nialli has been conducting research with a selection of global construction companies with the aim of moving what has been a completely paper-based process into the digital realm.
Nureva will remain focused on innovative audio hardware and software, driven by active research and development activities that continue to yield breakthroughs and new patents. It will add value and functionality to its product suite through firmware and software enhancements and expansion of its robust ecosystem. The capabilities of the company’s patented Microphone Mist technology will remain central to delivering customer experience.
A key principle of the Last Planner System is to support the conversations that take place between trade foremen, superintendents and management to identify milestones, spot issues early and keep projects on track. Nialli Visual Planner allows teams to keep those conversations going whether teams are in the same space, in a construction trailer or on the job site. Using a personal device or interactive display, teams can produce and track progressively elaborate work plans that outline what needs to occur each week. Digital cards can be marked done with a diagonal line or crossed out to close the task. Cards can be assigned a color to indicate the trade working on a task and can be tilted with a red line across to indicate the reason for variance — all to replicate the analog pull-planning process.
Nialli Visual Planner mirrors the analog Last Planner System in a digital environment that saves construction teams time by facilitating discussions to resolve constraints and eliminate waste.
Key product features:
- Plans — Plans can be created locally and online. Projects can have many different plans, depending on their size and complexity. In each plan, users can add the number of working days and holidays to the calendar and include reasons for variance. Multiple lanes can be created, and dependencies can be set across lanes. If things change, it’s easy to add, edit or rearrange lanes.
- Phase Pull Planning — Phase Pull Planning is used to map the work with a longer view of a project.
- Maps out the phases of a project at the superintendent’s discretion.
- Provides free format scheduling that can be viewed alongside the look-ahead plan.
- Identifies the longest path.
- Helps to identify and resolve constraints and eliminate rework.
- Can be transitioned into weekly work plan activities
- Adding trades and users — Once a plan has been created, trades and users working on the project can be imported from an Excel file.
- Trades can be assigned a color for quick identification.
- User permission levels can be set to view only, view my trade, edit my trade, edit all or as a plan administrator.
- Parking lot — The parking lot speeds up the planning process.
- Anyone working on a project can create an activity card from a laptop, tablet or phone at any time. Details, such as the trade or crew size, can be added. The digital cards are added to an accessible parking lot and can then be dragged to the correct lane and day.
- Dependencies — Stakeholders can easily see dependencies and not be caught off guard by mounting delays.
- Cards that are part of the same activity are automatically connected with green lines. Dependencies between independent tasks and across lanes can also be set. When a task becomes at risk, red visual cues prompt attention.
- Generating reports — Reports provide data on the progress of a project, helping teams see trends and drive continuous improvement.
- Real-time reports are available, including the percent plan complete and reasons for variance.
- Nureva Wall — The Nureva Wall gives teams the large horizontal space they need to visualize up to six weeks, spark simultaneous conversations and updates.
- The Nureva Wall is 7.5′ (2.29 meters) wide and combines a high-definition ultra-short-throw projector with a projected capacitive multitouch surface to create an expansive interactive working space to visually show entire phases of work and the connections and relationships to other work.
- Typically, multiple Nureva Wall systems are connected side by side to allow for a more expansive project view. The Nureva Wall is not required to be used with Nialli Visual Planner, but it enhances the immersive collaborative planning experience.
- Gestures — Gestures have been designed to enhance the system for use on large interactive surfaces and displays, to both speed user adoption and remove waste associated with the traditional analog methods of Last Planner System. For example, a simple two-finger twist of a card will change the status of a card to ‘done,’ shown with a line through the card. Multiple trades can status cards simultaneously.
- Pricing and availability — Multiple pricing plans are available for Nialli Visual Planner via the sales team at: nvp@nialli.com.