Customer Success Story
EMCO

EMCO manages multiple concurrent projects easily with Deltek Open Plan™

Deltek enhanced its ability to provide critical earned value management (EVM) offerings to its broad project-focused customer base with the acquisition of Welcom in March 2006.

The Challenge

EMCO's Information Systems (IS) department needed a solution that would help manage multiple in-house projects. Deltek Open Plan was chosen because it was flexible for the team and had all of the features needed. It allowed EMCO IS to control and centralize all of their projects. After the Open Plan implementation, EMCO IS completed 26 projects in one year alone, where as before, it took six years to complete 50 projects.

It's no secret that the function of the Information Systems (IS) department has shifted dramatically in the last several years.

Once a back-office operation, IS is now integral to mission critical business processes like CRM, e-commerce, and supply chain management. Now more than ever, IS projects need to be completed on time and on budget. The entire enterprise depends on it.

Ask Senior Analyst Fardin Maknoni, Project Management for EMCO Limited, one of Canada's leading distributors and manufacturers of building products for the residential, commercial, and industrial construction markets. In 1994, Maknoni's IS department implemented a project management process. In 1998, they overhauled the system by centralizing the process and creating a project management office (PMO).

“Smart project management is critical to our entire company,” says Maknoni. “Given our volume of concurrent projects, we couldn't afford to waste a single resource.”

Maknoni's department handles implementation and support of telecommunications, transaction processing, data processing, systems conversions, and financial systems for the entire company. Before the creation of the PMO in 1998, the department used the scheduling tool Texim and a manual system of reporting.

Managers had trouble estimating project duration, progress, and end dates. Red flags often came up too late to have a meaningful impact. Managing multiple projects simultaneously was difficult at best, posing serious resource allocation problems. The upshot — dissatisfied IS customers.

Something had to change. Several huge projects were looming, not the least of which was the EDI rollout, which would enable the company to exchange information with its vendors and streamline the supply chain.

The Solution

The department evaluated six project management solutions and adopted Deltek Open Plan. “Hands down, Open Plan was the clear choice,” says Maknoni. “It was flexible and easy for everyone to use, and it had the features we needed. It allowed us to control and centralize all of our projects.” EMCO's IS department uses Open Plan to implement, manage, and complete internal projects affecting its 2,000 employees distributed across 140 branches in Canada.

The Benefits

Here are some of the ways EMCO uses Open Plan:

  • Before a project begins, managers create six to ten “what if” scenarios in Open Plan. These scenarios allow them to effectively plan ahead, resolve schedule conflicts, and make baseline determinations (such as a project's start date).
  • During a project, EMCO generates weekly progress reports that include time sheets, initial forecasts, action items, and project status. These reports are created electronically through Open Plan and published on the company's intranet.
  • Time sheet information is uploaded to Open Plan from three sources: an internal data management system, Microsoft Excel® spreadsheets, and manual input.
  • Various Gantt, Pert, and spreadsheet reports are created and filtered by criteria meaningful to different tiers of users.
  • Reporting is managed by one person. Progress analysis reports give critical information to senior management for use in projects, charter statements, and new project proposals. Detailed resource reporting helps the IS department optimize resources and eliminate schedule conflicts.
  • Finally, Open Plan has allowed EMCO to realize its goal of greater employee cooperation and morale. To motivate employees, Maknoni highlights their efforts and successes in framed reports published at the regular quarterly meetings.

During 1993 through 1998, when EMCO used Texim and manual reporting, the IS department managed just under 50 projects. After implementing Open Plan in 1999, the department successfully completed 26 projects in one year alone. EMCO now manages 21 concurrent projects, using 41 resources and encompassing more than 29,000 hours.

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