Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Continental Airlines Gains Bird’s-Eye View with Enterprise Project Management Solution
Overview
Country:United States
Industry:Travel
Customer Profile
Rated the “Top International Airline,” Houston, Texas–based Continental has more than 2,200 domestic and international departures each day. The airline’s revenue was U.S.$8.4 billion in 2002.
Business Situation
With service to 127 U.S. and 96 international locations, Continental manages a variety of worldwide technology projects. The company needed to increase visibility into enterprisewide infrastructure deployment projects.
Solution
Continental implemented the Microsoft® Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution to enable better planning, management, and execution of worldwide IT projects.
Benefits
Reduced management-related technical support
Increased visibility of projects enterprisewide,such as new curbside check-in machines
Delivered increased project load with 31 percent fewer Enterprise Project Office (EPO) resources
Enhanced resource management,leading to greater collaboration /
Continental Airlines, the seventh largest airline in the world, manages close to 1,000 IT projects annually. To increase visibility into enterprisewide projects such as the deployment of self-checkin kiosks and new curbside machines at airports, the airline implemented the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution. Continental is deploying the EPM Solution to upwards of 5,000 users. Continental expects the EPM Solution to increase employee productivity and improve the allocation and management of skilled resources.
Situation
With increasing costs of airport security and lower-than-usual revenues, most commercial airlines have had to reduce their workforce by an average of 35 percent. At the same time, to comply with new aviation regulations, airlines have experienced increased workloads. In addition, as a result of the attacks on September 11, SARS, and the general economic climate, people are flying less frequently. All of these factors challenge airlines to get the highest efficiency out of business processes, increase employee productivity, and effectively plan for the future.
As the world’s seventh largest carrier, Continental Airlines faces similar challenges. With service to Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Australia, Continental flies more than 41 million passengers each year.
Exceptional customer service is paramount for Continental, which began operations 68 years ago. Since then, the company’s friendly and reliable service has resulted in awards for Best Airline for On-Time Performance and Number 1 Airline in Customer Loyalty. To continue its record of excellence and meet the needs of its customers, Continental employs more than 42,000 people worldwide. For the fourth consecutive year, Fortune Magazine named Continental one of the 100 Best Companies to Work for in America.
Blake Burke, Managing Director of Technology for Continental, says, “Management looked to the Technology Division to creatively engineer solutions that would enable the company to do more with less in terms of both people and capital resources.”
With staff reductions, the airline needed to be efficient with its limited resources. “As a result of personnel reductions, as well as regulatory issues airlines have had to comply with in day-to-day operations, the IT department was looked to as a leader to help drive efficiency,” Burke says.
Continental’s Technology Division delivers more than 900 IT projects each year. To ensure the success of those projects, the company employs 350 full-time IT professionals. In addition, the airline also leverages external resources for application development, engineering, and project management. Continental works closely with Electronic Data Systems Corporation (EDS). Today, EDS resources account for more than half of Continental’s 800 worldwide technical professionals and include 270 developers, 60 engineers and project managers, and 75 technical support personnel.
Continental technology projects can last anywhere from a few weeks to several years. Running hundreds of projects concurrently and engaging technical workers from two separate corporations, Continental needed a global view of its projects. In short, it needed an enterprise project management solution.
Because each department within IT looks after a number of projects, managers could not easily gain a holistic view of what was happening across the enterprise. The lack of global perspective sometimes resulted in duplicated efforts and less than optimal resource allocation. “We did not have an automated enterprise view or a common ‘radar screen’ of our projects,” says Chad Gross, Senior IT Manager. After September 11, Continental analyzed projects in various geographical locations to choose which ones to continue. Gross states, “It took us more than three weeks to collect all the information that we needed for analysis, a delay that we found to be unacceptable.”
That process cemented Continental’s desire to implement an enterprise project management (EPM) solution for enterprise tracking. “The number of projects we had on our plate after September 11 was the same, but we simply had fewer resources and less capital to handle them,” says Gross.
For the past few years, Continental project managers used a couple of methods to manage their infrastructure projects. Some teams used spreadsheets, while others worked with Microsoft® Project on their desktops. Burke says, “The management of resources—in terms of people, dollars, technology, and assets—is a strategic component of our business. Therefore, we needed a toolset that we could get our arms around and manage in an effective manner.”
Solution
Continental began evaluating EPM solutions in 2000, but the September 11 attacks expedited the schedule. In November 2000, the Technology Division’s Enterprise Project Office (EPO)—which oversees the administration of technical procurement, the deployment of physical devices, cable and circuit infrastructure, and the development of new products—evaluated several different EPM solutions, including the Primavera enterprise project management suite. After consideration, the airline chose to deploy the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution.
How the Microsoft EPM Solution StandsOut
Because the majority of EPM solutions utilized Project as their desktop application, the decision to deploy the Microsoft solution was easy for Continental. Beginning in the spring of 2002, Continental deployed Project 2002 to more than 250 users and seven workgroups within the Technology Division.
Users found the solution beneficial, but new features in Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 enticed the Technology Division to upgrade. Gross says, “We were happy with Project 2002. Ultimately, it was a combination of performance and cost that swayed us to go forward with the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management Solution.”
“Our number one requirement was performance, followed by scalability,” says Gross. He comments that the EPM Solution promised increased performance, as well as some enhancements in resource management functions. “We knew that Microsoft would be further developing its EPM Solution over the next couple of years and felt that it would support our rapidly-growing project management office.”
In addition, the EPM Solution offered Continental substantial cost savings. Gross states, “The Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management Solution was significantly less costly on a per-seat basis than Primavera.” Because the majority of Continental project managers used the previous version of Project on their desktops and were familiar with the program’s tools and features, deploying Project Professional 2003 decreased training costs. “Project Professional shortened the training duration and expense for us, as a lot of that training is fundamentally already integrated because of the consistency that Project has with other applications already on our desktops,” says Gross.
The airline plans to deploy the EPM Solution to all internal IT resources and EDS project managers, engineers, and technical field service personnel by the first quarter of 2004. Once the EPO has used the solution for a period of time, Continental anticipates deploying the EPM Solution to all project management resources—upwards of 5,000 people—throughout the company.
Continental’s Goals for Implementation
Continental had two goals in deploying the EPM Solution. First, management wanted to obtain an automated “common radar screen” to manage project activity throughout the company. Gross states, “A lot of the IT projects that we work on each year take place throughout the United States, as well as in many international locations. We needed to view our technology projects in a variety of ways.”
For example, the airline wanted to view projects being implemented across regions, such as the U.S.eastern seaboard and West Coast, but also needed to home in and view details of projects in specific cities, such as Boston, Massachusetts; Newark, New Jersey; Houston, Texas; and Cleveland, Ohio. Gross says, “Using the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management Solution, we are able to mark each project with site-specific information that we can quickly present to senior management.” This enables technology managers to shed light on the status of certain applications or particular enterprise projects.
Also, the airline wanted to increase efficiency and collaboration among project managers and business units. The EPM Solution provides all groups with insight into projects throughout the enterprise. Burke states, “The solution has helped us become a much more predictable and stable organization in relation to technology delivery.”
eService Center Deployment
Nearly 90 percent of Continental customers enjoy time savings offered by electronic ticketing. To keep ahead of the competition, Continental wanted to make the check-in process even more convenient for customers. To achieve this, the airline installed self-service eTicket machines called eService Centers in all of its domestic U.S. airports. The airline used Project Professional to view which airports had deployed eService Centers, as well as to plan future installations. To date, the Technology Division has successfully deployed more than 750 eService Centers throughout the continental United States. Gross states, “We can already see that Project will help us immensely with our future planning efforts.” The EPM Solution will help Continental’s project managers align enterprise projects with overall business goals.
Curbside Check-in Unit Deployment
With the EPM Solution, Continental deployed 120 new curbside units to 30 cities in just three months and did so in a predictable fashion. Part of Continental’s “Airport of the Future,” the new curbside product enables passengers to avoid the congestion of traditional check-in counters. Burke says of the project, “We actually came in under budget and on schedule.” More than 4 million passengers already have used the product to checkin, which has had a significant and positive impact on customer satisfaction.
“The fast rollout of curbside machines has effectively lowered our costs, because we are now able to redistribute passenger loads,” Burke points out. In addition, the machines enabled Continental to offset some of the security congestion resulting from September 11. Burke adds, “The EPM Solution helped us better communicate what our obstacles were, which cities were priorities, and what our actual staffing expenditures were for curbside product installation.”
Deployment to the Corporate Real Estate Division
In addition to the Technology Division, Continental deployed the EPM Solution to members of its Corporate Real Estate Division. Together, the two divisions serve as initial points of contact for other groups within Continental to initiate technology projects. Burke states, “In the past, business units would contact either Corporate Real Estate or Technology but often forgot to contact the other relevant division. This resulted in inconsistent engagement and made fast time-to-market a challenge.” To overcome this obstacle, Continental is engaging the Real Estate Division early in the pilot. The IT department is creating a consolidated Project Request Form, which will be delivered simultaneously to the Real Estate and IT departments. Burke says, “We see the EPM Solution as key in extending collaboration outside the Technology Division.”
Benefits
The EPM Solution enabled the Technology Division to create a high level of discipline across project management operations. Burke explains, “We want to put the right amount of effort on the right side of influence curves, minimize our mistakes, and minimize spending. Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management Solution helps us address these issues in a conscious fashion.”
Continental is now able to ensure executive awareness of projects and better manage resources, both internally and externally. Burke states, “Now we are able to show management exactly what projects we are working on and how we intend to engage resources for those projects.” If the airline receives appropriate regulatory approvals for its infrastructure projects in time, project managers also are able to accurately estimate when they will be able to deliver projects. Burke adds, “The biggest issue we have been able to reconcile is overall project discipline when it comes to project scope, definition, deployment, execution, and support. That is something we never had across our entire organization.”
Increased Performance and Data Manageability
Project Manager Doug Stewart, who often oversees projects that exceed 10,000 separate tasks, experienced a substantial performance increase using the EPM Solution. Susan Cobb, an EDS Consultant, states, “Before, very large projects took what we thought was an unreasonable amount of time to save, open, and close. As a result, heavy users like Stewart couldn’t engage with the system as much as we would have liked.”
Whereas it used to take Stewart up to 10 minutes to save large projects, it now takes an average of 25 seconds. “Now that we have resolved our performance issues with the new release, users are fully engaged and are getting more done,” says Gross.
Increased Efficiency for Technical Workforce
After September 11, Continental’s EPO team shrunk by about one-third. This created challenges primarily because Continental’s year-over-year capital spending remained relatively steady. But with the EPM Solution, Continental has increased overall efficiency. Burke states, “With the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management Solution, we have been able to deliver more—in terms of the gross number of projects opened, funded, and fully deployed.”
Cost Savings Due to Reduced Need for Technical Support
Previously, EDS consultants and other technical support workers received hundreds of performance-related calls each year, with most of the significant issues reported by remote traffic users outside of Continental’s headquarters. Gross states, “Troubleshooting performance problems and helping fine-tune individuals’ notebook PCs and workstations took quite a bit of time from our EPO support staff.”
In Project Professional 2003, individual users can unlock projects that have been locked for a number of reasons—because a user lost connectivity, for example, or because a line went down. Previously, those users had to have an administrator unlock their projects for them. Gross anticipates that this feature alone will save the company several hours of support time each week. Gross says, “The improved performance of remote users and other benefits brought about by Project features will help us reduce the number of support calls.”
Aligning People, Projects, and Skills
The EPM Solution is helping Continental better allocate its resources—not just on the project management level, but also on the engineering level—enabling management to better prioritize which projects to tackle first. Gross states, “We may only have three or four people with a particular set of skills that are needed throughout the company. The EPM Solution has enabled us to identify how project timelines are affected when resources get pulled from one high-priority project to another.”
The EPM Solution provides Continental with insight into how the company utilizes internal and external resources. Burke states, “The versatility and security built into the application architecture allow two distinct corporate entities such as Continental and EDS to communicate and collaborate effectively. We have bridged communication gaps not only departmentally, but also across company boundaries.”
Influencing Projects Early in the Deployment Cycle
The EPM Solution also increases the potential for cross-team collaboration. “Depending on what your perspective of a particular project is—whether you are a project owner or delivery agent, or you oversee one or both of those areas—you can affect projects prior to their delivery,” says Burke. Predefined views, which allow users to access, edit, or alter project information depending on their roles within the company, help foster collaboration.
Previously, the greatest influence that the Technology Division had on any given project was at the point of equipment and software installation. Burke states, “The EPM Solution allows us to put the planning at the beginning of the cycle instead of the back end. It has helped us to become much more proactive in managing our infrastructure deployments.”
By deploying the EPM Solution, Continental is able to effectively plan, manage, and deploy enterprisewide solutions. As a result of the benefits gained during the pilot, Continental is looking to integrate the EPM Solution with other internal line-of-business applications. Gross says, “The Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management Solution enables us to view everything that is going on in relation to our IT projects. We will not only use it to efficiently manage tasks and resources. We are also planning to pull financials from internal systems as well.”
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