Efficient Scheduling and Resource Planning Plus Interactive BI Reports

The Company: The Customer is a global engineering group specialising in smart engineering of systems and sub-systems for extreme environments within the aerospace, defence and energy markets. Some 11,000 people are employed across facilities in Asia, Europe and North America and regional bases in Brazil, India and the Middle East. 

The Challenge: The Customer’s 36 development sites were using a variety of standalone tools and solutions to plan and manage projects. If a program manager wanted to know how their projects were progressing, he or she had to ask each project manager in turn and then produce a report on the program as a whole. This led to inaccurate budgeting, scheduling and forecasting; time-consuming and complex reporting processes; a lack of visibility into resource demands; and occasional budget overruns. 

The Solution: The initial project management solution, piloted at three of its 36 development units, was based on Microsoft Project Server and has since been upgraded to Project Online and Power BI. The Customer has since expanded usage to about 12 sites, replacing standalone solutions for resource and project planning – including error-prone Excel spreadsheets – with a consistent, systematic, web-based project management solution that still leaves room for customization to the working practices of each site.  

The Benefits: The company has seen dramatic time savings for project reporting and forecasting, with one site saving at least 16 hours per week (2 hours per report for each of eight project managers). Senior management is now able to generate reports on demand and has more confidence in its decision-making due to the availability of reliable, current data. The company also experiences fewer budget overruns due to more accurate scheduling and better visibility into resource demands and availability.

Customer Feedback

“Once we upgraded to Project Online along with Power BI, things got even better. Now, each project manager saves as much as two hours a week per report. Overall, the solution has produced significant benefits across the business, contributing to customer satisfaction, too.”

Technical manager in engineering, International Aerospace Company