My Experience.

Gloucester Engineering manufactures large, custom-engineered machinery which has a typical order fulfillment time of 6 – 8 months. Because GEC had a history of late deliveries, in 2005 we established a team to develop a Project Management department, and I was subsequently named Senior Project Manager who, in addition to the role of a PM, had the responsibility of seeking and implementing improvements to the department to improve efficiency and effectiveness. We implemented MS Project Professional 2003 as a tool for the department, utilizing the EPM functionality for portfolio resource management.

Within Gloucester Engineering, Project Management was executed as follows:

  • Pre-Project PlanningPrior to receiving an order, an initial project schedule / Gantt chart was developed. I would give the order a “reality check” from various perspectives including resource availability, lead time of purchased items, technical feasibility, risks or other potential issues, and cost forecast. Feedback would then be given to the Sales department so they could negotiate a smarter deal for our company and customers.
  • Order acceptance and implementationAfter an order was officially received (including a signed contract and downpayment), I would schedule and conduct an internal kickoff meeting with all stakeholders including representatives from Sales, Engineering, Manufacturing, Purchasing, Logistics, and Management as appropriate for each project. The group would review the order in a high level of detail, and I would ensure that all critical aspects of the projects were reviewed with each appropriate stakeholder. The meeting would result in a list of issues and risks which needed to be addressed, such as inconsistencies in the paperwork or areas of vague scope definition. We would also look for cost-savings opportunities. I would then follow through on the resolution of these issues in order to keep the order on track. In some cases, I would also conduct an on-site kickoff meeting with the customer.

Order execution.

After the initial project activities, I would periodically follow up with each stakeholder to check for issues (or potential issues). This included, but was not limited to:

 

  • Working with engineers to review the scope of upcoming work and whether they have sufficient information and time
  • Working with buyers in the purchasing group to ensure that vendors understand the delivery requirements and can meet them, sometimes working vendors directly, and sometimes visiting key vendors. We typically had over a thousand purchase orders for each project, but focused on the ones which presented the most potential risk to on-time delivery.
  • Working with our in-house machine shop to ensure that parts will be completed on time
  • Working with Manufacturing/Assembly to ensure they are aware of the type of work, timeframe it would be built, and what resources will be required
  • Updating the project schedule, and monitoring any number of potential new critical path items to ensure that there were no surprises
  • Issue resolutionLeveraging my in-depth product and technical knowledge, I was able to expediently resolve any issues which arose during the project, as well as to be on top of any project risks. Although escalation was always an option, I took great pride in my ability to keep projects on schedule without having to distract management from doing their regular jobs. I also enjoyed discovering problems months before they came to light, giving ample opportunity to take corrective action.
  • Earned Value / cost managementAs part of order execution, I would maintain a database in our company's mainframe which aggregated the current costs and forecasted the final project costs. The system would summarize all labor to date (including engineering and manufacturing), all materials ordered for the project through the MRP system, and I would then update a current cost and forecast a final cost for each order (including resource utilization).
  • Customer communicationDuring order fulfillment, I would periodically create project status updates for each customer. In addition to giving a .pdf “snapshot” (generated from MS Project) showing the project status for each aspect of the project, I would write an personalized email explaining the progress, highlighting any potential risks, and discussing the actions being taken to alleviate them. This communication greatly increased customer satisfaction because they felt like they were part of the process, and when necessary they had advance warning on any potential risks and could consider contingency plans.
  • Management / internal communication I would conduct periodic Project Status Review meetings for our internal management so they could be aware of the status of each project, and be made aware of any bottlenecks or risks. I would also highlight improvement opportunities, or review the outcome of earlier decisions for each project. I would also present the current expected profit margin, and contrast it with the original forecasted margin. These meetings would typically be held every other week, and would involve the company's top management and project stakeholders.
  • Capacity planning / managementUsing the resource pools in MS Project's EPM Portfolio Management, I would export timescaled resource utilization data to MS Excel and prepare graphs of upcoming resource requirements. This would allow management to plan staffing levels accordingly, or to be aware of bottlenecks which could affect the company (or projects) in various ways. To see an example of my capacity planning.
  • Project closing and continuous improvementI developed a “Lessons Learned” report to highlight the costs and processes which occurred during each order, to be circulated to each manager with suggestions on how to improve internal processes. I was also constantly seeking for ways to improve the project management department, project execution, or company processes based on my experiences. I would use Lean/Six-Sigma tools to implement improvements.
  • Project handoverAs a project neared completion, I would communicate with the appropriate members of the Service and/or Installation Management group so they could be prepared for the next phases of the project and ultimately work toward customer acceptance/signoff.
  • Be a focal point for communicationAs various issues arose during project fulfillment, it was vital to consider which other stakeholder(s) may be affected by these issues. By being keenly aware of all aspects of the project and having a 360° perspective, I would constantly be informing concerned parties about other aspects of the project which may affect them. Also, by randomly checking on portions of the project with stakeholders, I could uncover hiccups which would have not yet surfaced.
  • Other related responsibilitiesIn order to fulfill project successfully, there were many other tasks which could be required at any time to ensure project success. This might include various activities like generating timescaled project cashflow forecasts., calling special meetings to address unusual issues, generating special reports for management, or any other tasks which were needed for management or for successful project execution.