Standards: the Key to Success in Multi-Project Management

 

The Company: Liebherr is one of the world’s biggest construction machinery manufacturers and successful in many other branches of industry as well, like earthmoving, cranes, machine tools and automation systems, aerospace etc. The components division develops and manufactures products from the areas of mechanical, hydraulic and electric drive and control systems. These are manufactured worldwide at ten different production sites.

The Challenge: Liebherr Components develops multiple technically complex products concurrently but had no standardized project management system to manage project process and resource management. Each product development business unit had its own way of running its projects, and each development team worked with different methods to plan and realize projects. This lack of visibility often led to inefficiencies of the projects.

The Solution: Together with TPG The Project Group, Liebherr Components introduced a new multi project management solution. This solution was based on Microsoft Project Server as a standardized PM system, along with TPG’s product TPG ProjectLink to share information about schedules, work and costs between interlinked projects. The Project Center comprises all aspects of PM – from planning to timesheets and from resource management to team collaboration.

The Benefits: Liebherr Components now has a standardized product development procedure and detailed information about the status of every project. Standardized, rolebased reports have saved time as they no longer need to be produced manually from scratch. And the multi-project management environment using TPG ProjectLink has contributed to more agility and flexibility when there are interdependencies between projects.

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK

“We have much more visibility into what’s happening where and the situation with our resources. That gives us the transparency we need to see how changes in one project will affect other projects.”

Christian Nawrath, Head of PMO at Liebherr Components