Plexos

Based on the lean construction principles, Plexos is a BIM project management application that aims to facilitate efficient resource and cost planning. With its help, managers can keep track of used and available resources, locations, upcoming tasks and operations, relationships and, of course, the project's budget.

Plexos features a multi-panel interface that allows one-click access to the project's schedule, BIM objects, properties, relationships, and costs. Additional control tools are displayed in the ribbon-based toolbar, where users can manage activities, create schedules, publish the project, customize view modes, and more.

There are various visualization options in Plexos. The Gantt chart reveals all the upcoming, current, and completed tasks, while other types of charts and graphs show the data from a different perspective. Graph charts and calendars can also be used to organize the upcoming activities. Aside from resource management, Plexos can also analyze the data to determine the earned value.

Plexos comes with full support for BIMServer.Center, enabling users to connect to a server to load BIM projects or link models. Thanks to the integrated IFC manager, Plexos can open IFC BIM models, which can display complex construction-related data. It also features support for budget databases and BC3 cost management.

One of the advantages of Plexos relies in its activity tracker and manager. The application can create complex schedules with multiple activities and sub-activities, managing recurring tasks and relationships between tasks in terms of both time and production rate. Thus, delays can be managed much easier.

The working environment of Plexos may seem a bit crowded but to those who are accustomed with BIM project management tools, having all the options within reach is a good thing. On the downside, while the data can be printed, there are no reporting options. Nevertheless, the entire project can be exported as a Microsoft or a Primavera P6 project.