Industry Focus

Project Steering in Construction & Infrastructure

Several sites at once, the same site management and estimating team for all of them, a dozen subcontractors in the same place: construction projects follow their own rules. Steering them reliably takes more than a construction schedule in Excel.

Two buildings under construction, each with its own tower crane and scaffolding, as the background of the construction and infrastructure page.

In short

Project management in construction and infrastructure means steering several sites that share site management, estimating and work preparation, while coordinating the subcontractors and trades that work one after another in the same physical place. What matters is a connected view of schedules, capacity and dependencies across every running site. Linetrack from Stuttgart has supported over 4,000 completed industrial projects – STOLL Gruppe is the named reference from construction and infrastructure.

4000 +

completed
industrial projects

1512 +

projects managed
in parallel

91 %

named Excel and tool chaos
as their starting problem

10

working days to the
first self-planned project

*Figures from a full survey of all live Linetrack implementations across every industry, as of August 2026 — no separate figures exist for construction and infrastructure specifically.

The reality on site

Why construction companies with several sites lose the overview

The plans exist. They just sit in separate files, each with its own version and its own date of last update. Four patterns that repeat in almost every mid-sized construction company.

Every site has its own plan

The construction schedule lives in a file per site, usually in MS Project or Excel. How the sites block one another appears in none of them. That a crew is booked on two plans in the same week becomes obvious when it fails to show up.

Committing to dates without a capacity view

A job is taken because the estimate works out. Whether site managers, foremen and crews are actually free in the promised window is something nobody can answer at that moment – the load for the coming months isn't a number, it's spread across several heads.

Feedback from site arrives too late

Progress travels to the office by phone, photo and site diary. By the time it reaches the schedule, it is old. A plan that trails the build loses its authority – and with it its use to every following trade.

Subcontractors plan around the plan

Every trade keeps its own sequence. Coordination happens in the site meeting and by email; who needs which area and when appears in no shared system. When one of them shifts, the others find out at the next meeting.

Its own rules

Why project management in construction
works differently from elsewhere

Construction projects follow different rules than mechanical engineering or IT projects. Three characteristics make the difference – and explain why standard project management fails here.

One place instead of many

In mechanical engineering a project spreads across design, manufacturing and assembly in different places. In construction everyone works in the same one: the site. Two trades cannot occupy the same area at once. Arrive too early and you are in the way; finish too late and you block your successor. A schedule therefore has to carry sequence and handovers. Durations side by side are not enough.

More external than internal parties

In a mechanical engineering project it is mostly in-house departments doing the planning. In construction, clients, architects or main contractors coordinate a far larger number of subcontractors and trades. Firms that do not sit in your system and still hang in the same construction schedule. Much of the outcome depends on whether those firms can see the plan at all.

Standard sequence, changing packages of trades

The sequence repeats from site to site: site setup, structural work, fit-out, building services, acceptance. What changes are the packages of trades and their scope. The structure can therefore be kept as a template; the detailed planning underneath cannot.

Project types

Which Construction Projects Linetrack Covers

Three shapes that plan quite differently – one data foundation carries all of them:

Building construction and civil engineering. Contractors with several sites and a different package of trades on each project. The plan is structured by construction phase and trade, while the crews are shared across projects.
Infrastructure. Bridges, wind turbines, transport and grid infrastructure. Often with in-house manufacturing that supplies the site – plant and erection then hang together in one schedule.
Data centre and special-purpose builds. Projects with a high share of technical equipment and tight chains of acceptance. The bottleneck here usually sits with electrical, cooling and commissioning rather than the structural work.

A construction project from estimate to acceptance

Across the whole sequence – every phase with its dates, resources and dependencies in one system.

A construction project runs through many phases – from estimating through awarding subcontracts and work preparation to structural work, fit-out and acceptance. Each phase has its own dates, ties up its own crews and hangs off the one before: when structural work slips, everything behind it moves.

This is where separate tools fall short. Tendering software knows the bill of quantities, the ERP knows the billing, the construction schedule knows the dates. None of them holds the sequence end to end. In Linetrack it lives in one system, with every dependency between the phases. So it is visible what a delay in structural work means for fit-out, acceptance and the next site, and which people are needed when.

EstimatingBid based on the bill of quantities, rough date framework

AwardContracting subcontractors, anchoring trades in the schedule

Work preparationSequence, site setup, deployment of crews and equipment

Structural workExecution with trade handovers and interim inspections

Fit-out and servicesFit-out trades and building services, tightly sequenced

AcceptanceMeasurement, acceptance and handover, documented in the plan

The way out of Excel chaos

One data foundation for
every site, department and trade

The solution is not another Excel sheet, and not an add-on to the tendering software either. Estimating and billing know what was priced and what was invoiced – not whether the crew is free in March. Steering a build needs its own forward-looking view.

Check dates against the real load on site management and crews before committing to them

Capacity across every site: see where a crew is double-booked – and where capacity is sitting free

Every site in one system: from estimating to acceptance, without keeping three lists alive

Subcontractors and trades visible in the construction schedule instead of in email chains and meeting minutes

Simulate scenarios instead of debating them: when a trade slips, calculate what it costs the successors and the neighbouring sites

For the first time management, estimating and site management can see where things stand – without endless list keeping. And they can decide: on new tenders as much as on disruptions on a running site. The customers who stand by name for Linetrack are listed on the Referenzen page – STOLL Gruppe is the named one from construction and infrastructure. A dedicated case study from the construction side is in the works.

Excel estimating

Excel site management

MS Project

One data foundation for every site

Estimating

Site management

Foremen

Subcontractors

In practice

What construction companies achieve with Linetrack

The benefit shows where Excel lists and gut feeling used to rule. In practice status meetings halve: the current state sits in the system instead of being gathered before every site managers' round from calls, photos and site diaries.

Because bottlenecks and delays surface earlier, the ability to react to disruption rises noticeably. And because new jobs are checked against your own load, project costs fall: less subcontracted work bought in at short notice, fewer penalties from missed dates.

The most important effect doesn't fit into a single figure: management, estimating and site management can see for the first time where things stand – and can decide, on the next tender as much as on the disruption on a running site.

−50 %

status meetings

+25 %

faster reaction to disruption

−5 %

project costs through less short-notice subcontracting

100 %

clarity instead of gut feeling

*Experience values from live Linetrack implementations across every industry, as of August 2026 — no separate values exist for construction and infrastructure specifically.

Honest boundaries

Where Linetrack reaches its limits in construction and infrastructure

Three points that belong to an honest picture:

No BIM, no IFC. Linetrack carries the schedule and the deployment of people. It does not carry a building model: no IFC import, no clash detection, no model-based quantity take-off. That stays the job of the BIM software.
No claims management. Linetrack calculates task relationships and marks the critical path in the Gantt chart. What it does not do is the after-the-fact delay and variation analysis needed for contractual proof.
No time tracking. Actual hours from site come in through an interface from a time-tracking system, not from Linetrack itself.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Still have questions?

Book a time with our team.

What sets project management in construction apart from other industries?

In construction everyone involved works in the same physical place, the site. Two trades cannot occupy the same area at once, so sequence matters more than pure duration. Then there is the number of external parties: clients, architects or main contractors coordinate far more outside firms per site than a mechanical engineering project has suppliers. In complexity there is little between the two – if anything, the construction sequence is more standardised.

What kinds of construction projects does Linetrack cover?

Building construction and civil engineering with several sites and changing packages of trades, infrastructure work such as bridges, wind turbines and grid infrastructure, and data centre or special-purpose builds with a high share of technical equipment. Companies with in-house manufacturing plan the plant and the site in one schedule, because prefabrication and on-site erection depend directly on each other.

Why aren't MS Project or Excel enough for a construction schedule?

Both plan a single site perfectly well, but stay one file per project. They do not show which crew, which foreman and which site manager is already booked on another site in the same window. That cross-site view is exactly what decides whether a promised date holds.

Which companies in construction and infrastructure is Linetrack for?

For mid-sized construction companies and contractors running several construction projects in parallel with the same internal departments across all of them. Linetrack makes the biggest difference typically for organizations between 20 and 300 employees and up to more than 30 departments, without that being a hard ceiling. For a single construction project with no parallel work, the effort usually isn't worth it.

How are subcontractors and trades brought into the project?

Subcontractors and trades get their own access, limited to their sub-project: their own tasks, their own dates, no view of estimating data, other sites, or the rest of the project portfolio. The collaboration licence for this is free of charge. Because far more outside firms come together on a site than in a typical mechanical engineering project, a large part of the planning quality is decided right here.

Does Linetrack handle BIM or IFC models?

No. Linetrack carries the schedule and the deployment of people – dates, dependencies and capacity across every site. It does not carry a building model: no IFC import, no clash detection, no model-based quantity take-off. That stays the job of the BIM software.

Does Linetrack calculate the critical path for a construction schedule?

Yes. Linetrack computes the critical path from the dependency relationships and highlights it in the construction schedule; a shift ripples through the chain of dependent tasks. What Linetrack does not do is the formal schedule analytics required for contractual proof, meaning claims management and forensic delay analysis.

Are there reference customers in construction and infrastructure?

Yes. STOLL Gruppe is a named reference customer from this area and appears by name on the Referenzen page. Alongside that comes the experience from over 4,000 completed and currently 1,512 parallel industrial projects, which cover the same structure of several sites and shared departments. A dedicated case study from the construction side is in the works.

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