Gateway to the Arctic: The first EHAB-Safran Integration being piloted by Pomerleau in Northern Ontario

Introduction

In a groundbreaking collaboration, EHAB, Safran, and Pomerleau have successfully completed a pilot project that not only introduces a new client and continent but also incorporates a new integration and feature within EHAB's advanced weather risk management platform. This case study aims to shed light on the significance of this pilot on the Weeneebayko Area Health Authority Redevelopment Project, the role of each company, and the importance of accurate weather data in the Quantitative Schedule Risk Analysis (QSRA) process.

The Companies

• EHAB: A leader in weather risk management, offering an advanced weather model, planning tools, smart contract solutions, and parametric insurance.
  
  
• Pomerleau: Established in 1964, Pomerleau is one of Canada's largest construction companies, with close to $5 billion in revenues in 2023. It delivers buildings, infrastructures, civil engineering works, and major projects using collaborative models. Pomerleau integrates innovation in more than 70% of its projects and works in a sustainable way to build the living environments of tomorrow. The company has over 5,000 employees and workers at over 200 sites from coast to coast.
  
  
• Safran: Founded in 1997, Safran is the preferred software provider for project control professionals around the world who are searching for the tools they need to manage complexities with ease. The company specializes in QSRA solutions and has a weather module that EHAB has integrated with to enhance the Safran QSRA process. 

The Importance of Weather Data in QSRA

Quantitative Schedule Risk Analysis (QSRA) is a sophisticated technique used in project management to identify and assess potential risks that could impact a project's timeline. By employing statistical methods, QSRA allows project managers to quantify the likelihood and impact of various risks, thereby enabling more informed decision-making.

In the construction industry, QSRA is particularly valuable because projects often involve multiple variables and uncertainties, including weather conditions. Accurate weather data is crucial for effective QSRA. It allows companies like Pomerleau to anticipate delays and disruptions, thereby optimizing schedules and reducing costs. EHAB's advanced weather model plays a pivotal role in providing this data.

The Locale: Moosonee, Canada

Moosonee is situated at a latitude of approximately 51.3° N, making it one of the northernmost communities in Ontario, Canada. The area experiences long, harsh winters with heavy snowfall, averaging around 226 cm per year and rainfall averages 703mm per year. Summer temperatures can be mild but are short-lived, while winter temperatures often plunge below -20°C. Building a large healthcare campus requires careful planning around weather conditions, including maximizing the use of specialized construction materials and methods to withstand extreme cold and seasonal access restrictions.

Setting the Stage

The pilot kicked off with a brief meeting where EHAB presented Pomerleau with a risk matrix and provided guidelines on how to proceed. The risk matrix contains a wide array of construction activities, and the thresholds at which those activities are impacted by weather. For example, concrete, impacted by temperatures of 3 degrees or below. Pomerleau reviewed the risk thresholds to ensure they aligned with the way they work and added activity codes to the risk matrix file, which were already present in their Primavera P6 plan. Doing this speeds up the matching process once the P6 plan is uploaded into the EHAB system. The plan will now be matched automatically, speeding up the process by about 30 to 60 minutes. 

The Execution

After Pomerleau's risk matrix was integrated into EHAB's system, the plan was uploaded. EHAB's model ran, leveraging 40 years of historical weather data specific to Moosonee. The model accounted for various weather types including snow, hourly rain, rain in a day, average wind speed, wind gusts, waves, temperature, and visibility. Pomerleau then downloaded the weather calendar file from EHAB's platform and imported it into Safran.

This initial trial had some extra steps due to it being the first time the EHAB team had imported into Safran. The process now looks simpler:

1. Download EHAB calendars
2. Import them into Safran
3. Export Project Risks from Safran
4. Upload to EHAB where they be automatically matched
5. Import back into Safran
6. Export Risk Mappings from Safran
7. Upload to EHAB where they be automatically matched
8. Import back into Safran
9. Process complete
   
   

The Outcome

Tarek Sakr, the Head of Project Risk Management at Pomerleau had plenty of good things to say about the experience: “Our project is being delivered under the Progressive Public-Private Partnership (P3) Design Build Finance contract framework, which emphasizes collaboration. In this setup, Risk Management plays a critical role at three key checkpoints and for the proposal submission, each with advanced requirements. To meet these, we’ve implemented a centralized risk management tool and the use of Safran Risk for analysis—it’s been a game changer for our processes.

This centralized approach has streamlined their risk management efforts, ensuring more robust and efficient analyses at every stage. One standout initiative was their focus on weather risks: “During the second checkpoint, we teamed up with EHAB to dive into Weather Risk Analysis. This was all about stress-testing our Target Schedule to see how it held up against potential weather disruptions,” explains Sakr. “That collaboration was eye-opening—it not only reinforced the resilience of our project plan but also gave us new insights for future improvements. Weather is a particularly important topic for us, given that we’re based in Canada, where the climate can be unpredictable and often harsh. Being able to assess weather-related risks accurately is crucial for our project’s success.” 

Sakr further emphasized leveraging weather analysis will continue to shape Pomerleau’s approach, helping them refine planning processes, proactively manage risks, and enhance the resilience of future projects.

Lessons Learned

While the pilot was a success, there are areas for improvement. EHAB has already initiated some changes to streamline the process further. We decided that rather than to have the user manually copy and paste data into excel spreadsheets, where there is a possibility for confusion and errors, we would let the EHAB platform do the matching entirely. This still requires three files to be exported and imported, but the process is now those steps only, rather than anything more complex. 

Glenn Jarrad – Managing Director, Safran Risk

“For many of our customers weather risk is an essential and often underestimated risk. We’d been looking for an opportunity to help our customers solve this problem and maximise the potential of risk calendars in Safran Risk. The collaboration with EHAB means that our customers can now leverage real historical weather data in combination with forecast information and combine this into one model alongside the project plan and associated risk events and uncertainty, in the process, helping to address one of the common criticisms levelled at risk analysis, the quality of the input data.”

Conclusion

QSRA has proven to be an invaluable tool for managing complex construction projects, allowing for the quantification and mitigation of various risks, including weather. Accurate weather data is indispensable for effective risk analysis, and EHAB's advanced model offers just that. The pilot has demonstrated the importance of seamless integration between platforms like EHAB and Safran, making the process efficient and replicable. Most importantly, Pomerleau's successful utilization of these tools proves that there is a data-driven way for companies in Canada to assess and manage weather risk successfully, setting a precedent for future projects in challenging environments.