Construcciones Yamaro: Kapitol scales planning with Asta

Kapitol project managers use Asta Vision to check out programs and update status. (Image: Serhii/stock.adobe.com)

Kapitol is using Asta to underpin both pre-construction planning and project delivery, supporting more than 50 users across the business.

Kapitol is an Australian builder operating across multiple sectors, including data centres and critical infrastructure, residential, commercial, education, sports projects and, recently, modular construction. The business runs 10 to 15 projects in Asta at any one time, alongside a new business pipeline in Victoria and the Northern Territory.

Garret Jackson, planning manager, joined Kapitol in January 2023 to lead pre-construction planning and support on-site delivery teams with standardised programs. With more than 10 years’ experience using Asta, as well as exposure to Oracle Primavera P6 and Microsoft Project, he was tasked with modernising Kapitol’s planning tools and workflows.

The challenge

Kapitol needed to keep pace as programs became more detailed and its project portfolio grew. The company needed an intuitive tool that project managers and coordinators could learn quickly, not just specialist planners.

It also needed cloud-based program management to support multi-project visibility, portfolio reporting and a single source of truth, as well as integration with existing Power BI dashboards so program performance could sit alongside design, procurement, quality and workplace health and safety reporting.

Kapitol also wanted a platform that could evolve with the business, including APIs, AI capabilities and mobile progress capture.

At the same time, the company wanted to avoid disruption and tool fatigue when moving teams away from familiar software. Any new solution had to be easy to adopt and beneficial for both office and site users.

The solution

Drawing on his experience, Jackson led a review of several options before recommending Asta as the best fit for Kapitol. After a short internal trial, it became clear that Asta offered the right balance of power, usability and value for money, with a roadmap aligned to Kapitol’s digital strategy.

The rollout followed a phased approach:

1. Migration: Live and historical projects were converted into Asta Powerproject, with new tenders created in Asta from day one.
2. Planner-led foundation: Jackson initially used Asta Powerproject as a standalone tool, building templates and standards for both tender and delivery programs.
3. Transition to the cloud: Kapitol then implemented Asta Vision so programs could live in a controlled, cloud-based environment, forming a single source of truth across the project portfolio.
4. BI integration: Asta Vision was integrated with Power BI, allowing program data to feed into Kapitol’s existing dashboard suite alongside design, procurement, quality and workplace health and safety.
5. Enabling project teams: Using Asta Vision, project managers now check out programs, update status and publish changes back to the central dashboards, with planners providing auditing and hands-on support where needed.

Tailored training and responsive support from local Asta partner Solid Support were critical to the change program. Kapitol’s onboarding model gives project managers training first, then access to an Asta licence, building confidence and reducing the perceived leap to a new system.

Adoption and ways of working

What began as a planner-led initiative has grown into an organisation-wide deployment. Around 50 users now access Asta across Kapitol, including the planning team, project managers, assistant project managers, project coordinators, site teams and senior management.

Project leaders are responsible for regular status updates and using dashboards in reviews, while site teams use Asta outputs to understand sequence, dates and constraints on projects.

Senior management reviews weekly performance via Power BI dashboards fed from Asta Vision, with a view of project status, remaining work and emerging risks.

Asta Powerproject’s ability to import and export Microsoft Project and P6 files means planners can work natively in Asta while still exchanging programs in agreed formats with clients and partners. This allows Kapitol to support existing project-based workflows without sacrificing the benefits of its new Asta-centred planning environment.

From better tenders to smarter delivery

Asta has delivered benefits from tender stage through to project completion.

For new business, Asta’s presentation flexibility is a standout feature. Jackson uses dashboard programs and task-per-line views to produce one-page, branded schedules that tell the story of design, procurement and construction across complex schemes. This has enhanced the quality and impact of Kapitol’s tender proposals and supports more compelling conversations with clients at an early stage.

With programs stored and controlled in Asta Vision, Kapitol now has a single, auditable source of truth for every project. Controlled editing, where planners manage core logic and project managers update progress, protects data integrity while still empowering project teams.

Bi-weekly reviews use Power BI dashboards connected to Asta Vision to assess project health, remaining work against remaining time, and critical path movement across the portfolio.

By shifting routine progress reporting to project managers via Asta Vision and Asta Siteprogress, planners have been able to focus on higher-value activities such as major program revisions, scenario planning, risk analysis and improving templates and standards.

Clear processes and internal planning guidelines now set out how to check out programs, update them and complete weekly or bi-weekly reporting. These efforts are helping raise planning capability across the business.

Kapitol highlights the responsiveness and hands-on nature of both Solid Support and the Eleco team, from troubleshooting through to workshops on Asta Vision and APIs. Trial periods for new capabilities, along with training content and user groups, have helped the business adopt features such as Vision and dashboard integration at its own pace.

Looking ahead, Kapitol sees Asta as a platform that can evolve with the industry. Planned and emerging capabilities around APIs, AI and deeper integration with other construction systems will further strengthen the single-source-of-truth model and support data-driven decision-making.

Why Kapitol recommends Asta

When peers in the industry ask about planning software, Jackson’s message is clear: Asta provides a one-stop ecosystem for program management that balances ease of use with enterprise-grade capability.

For organisations seeking a single version of the truth, strong BI integration and tools that both planners and project managers want to use, Jackson says Asta has proven to be a future-ready choice.

“From a future business perspective, having that one source of truth and the connectivity through APIs and BI is huge,” he says.

The post Kapitol scales planning with Asta appeared first on Inside Construction.

View Source