Case study / Tilbury Douglas
Consistent S-Curve Reporting Across Asta PowerProject and Primavera P6 for Tilbury Douglas
Background
One business. Two scheduling tools. Inconsistent programme reporting.
Tilbury Douglas is one of the UK's leading construction and engineering contractors, delivering complex projects across defence, education, healthcare and commercial sectors. Different parts of the business manage their construction programmes using different tools — some projects run on Asta PowerProject, others on Oracle Primavera P6.
Both are capable scheduling platforms, but they hold data in different structures and expose it through different integration approaches. The result was that planning teams using each tool had access to different reporting outputs — and the quality, depth and format of programme analytics varied depending on which tool a project used. Tilbury Douglas engaged Acumine to close that gap: to build the same programme reporting experience for both scheduling environments, so that project teams and directors using Asta projects and those using P6 projects received identical analytical output.
Two tools, inconsistent reporting
Asta and Primavera P6 each had their own reporting outputs. The quality and depth of programme analytics available to a project team depended on which tool their project used — creating an uneven experience across the business.
No work package S-Curves from either tool
Project-level S-Curves were producible from both tools with manual effort, but breaking performance down to work package level — to understand where within a project the programme was ahead or behind — required analysis that neither tool provided natively.
Manual effort and slow reporting cycles
Producing S-Curves required planning teams to manually export and process schedule data from each tool — a time-consuming task that slowed reporting cycles and reduced the time available for actual programme management.
Different experience for different projects
Project directors and leadership reviewing programme performance across multiple projects encountered different reporting formats, different levels of detail and different analytical depth depending on which scheduling tool each project happened to use.
Why S-Curves matter
A fundamental tool for understanding programme performance
An S-Curve plots cumulative planned and actual progress against time — producing the characteristic S-shape that reflects the typical ramp-up, peak and close-out of construction activity on a project. The gap between the two lines tells the story of programme performance in a way that few other charts can.
Project S-Curve
Overall schedule health at a glance
The project-level S-Curve compares cumulative planned progress against actual earned progress over time — immediately showing whether a project is ahead, behind or tracking to programme, and by how much at any given point.
Work Package S-Curve
Where the slippage is happening
A project-level S-Curve that looks healthy overall can mask significant problems within individual work packages. Work package S-Curves break the picture down — revealing which discrete scopes of work are ahead of programme, which are behind and where recovery is most needed.
Forecast and baseline
Understanding trajectory, not just position
Combining planned, actual and forecast lines on the same curve enables teams to understand not just where they are relative to baseline, but whether the current rate of progress will get them to completion on time — and how that forecast has moved over successive reporting periods.
The solution
The same report, built twice — one for each tool.
Acumine built two Power BI programme reports for Tilbury Douglas — one integrating with Asta PowerProject, one integrating with Oracle Primavera P6. They are identical in form and function: the same S-Curves at project and work package level, the same schedule metrics, the same layout and drill-down behaviour.
The technical approach for each is the same: a Microsoft Fabric medallion lakehouse architecture, with dedicated pipelines ingesting schedule data from each tool into Bronze and Silver layers before surfacing it in Power BI. The data structures from Asta and P6 are different, but the analytical output is not — project teams and directors using either tool receive equivalent programme intelligence in an identical format.
Architecture
Microsoft Fabric medallion lakehouse
Both integrations use a medallion architecture on Microsoft Fabric — ingesting schedule data from Asta and P6 into separate Bronze layers, transforming to Silver, then surfacing in Power BI. The approach provides a governed, scalable foundation that can support evolving reporting requirements as the business grows.
Integration
Separate pipelines, identical model
Dedicated data pipelines connect to each scheduling tool — extracting tasks, milestones, baselines, progress, WBS hierarchy and resource data. Despite the structural differences between Asta and P6, both pipelines produce the same downstream data model, enabling identical reporting output from each.
Reporting
S-Curves at project and work package level
Power BI reports surface project S-Curves showing planned, actual and forecast cumulative progress — alongside work package S-Curves breaking performance down by discrete scope. Available for projects using either scheduling tool, in the same visual format and with the same level of analytical depth.
Project S-Curves
Programme performance at the level leadership needs
The project-level S-Curve gives directors and project managers an immediate read on schedule performance — showing planned versus actual cumulative progress and a forecast trajectory to completion.
The baseline comparison makes trend analysis straightforward: has progress recovered since the last reporting period? Is the gap between planned and actual narrowing or widening? How does the current S-Curve compare to the original programme baseline versus the current working baseline? Because the report is built in the same format for both Asta and P6 projects, project directors reviewing multiple projects encounter a consistent analytical experience regardless of which tool sits behind each one.
Work package S-Curves
Granularity that tells project teams where to focus
The work package S-Curve is where the reporting becomes most operationally useful. A project that appears broadly on track overall may have specific work packages that are significantly behind — masked by strong performance elsewhere.
By breaking the programme down by WBS or work package and producing individual S-Curves for each, the solution gives project managers and planners a targeted view of where slippage is concentrated. This supports more focused recovery planning — rather than treating the whole project as a problem, teams can identify the specific work packages driving the variance and direct effort accordingly. This granularity is available from both the Asta and P6 integrations, in the same format.
Outcomes
The same programme intelligence, regardless of the scheduling tool
Consistent analytical experience across the business
Project teams and directors using Asta projects and those using P6 projects now receive the same quality of programme analytics in the same format — the scheduling tool in use no longer determines the reporting experience.
Work package insight enabling targeted recovery
Work package S-Curves gave project teams and planners the granularity to identify exactly where within a project the schedule was under pressure — enabling more focused recovery planning rather than a project-wide response to a project-level headline.
Reduced manual reporting burden
Automated data pipelines from both Asta and Primavera P6 via Microsoft Fabric removed the repetitive export-and-process work that planning teams had used to produce S-Curves — freeing time for programme management rather than report production.
A scalable reporting foundation
Built on Microsoft Fabric's medallion architecture, the solution provides a governed, scalable data foundation — capable of supporting additional metrics, deeper analytics and evolving reporting requirements as Tilbury Douglas's needs develop.
Technology
Microsoft Fabric, Asta PowerProject and Primavera P6 — into Power BI
Each integration uses a Microsoft Fabric medallion lakehouse — ingesting schedule data from Asta or Primavera P6 into Bronze and Silver layers before surfacing consistent S-Curve and programme analytics in Power BI. The same architectural approach for both tools produces the same reporting output for both sets of projects.
Work with Acumine
Managing programmes across more than one scheduling tool?
Whether your portfolio spans Asta and Primavera P6 or any other combination of scheduling tools, Acumine can build consistent, high-quality programme analytics for both — giving every project team the same reporting experience regardless of the tool they use.