Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Manufacturer uses project management and EPM to increase IT credibility
Overview
Country or Region:United States
Industry:Manufacturing—Metals
Customer Profile
Carpenter Technology manufactures specialty alloys including stainless steels and titanium. Based in Reading, Pennsylvania, since 1889, its worldwide annual revenues are U.S.$2 billion.
Business Situation
Carpenter was building a project management office to manage large capital projects in the IT department, with hopes of expanding companywide.
Solution
Carpenter implemented the Microsoft® Office Enterprise Project Management Solution and improved collaboration with Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007.
Benefits
Fast adoption companywide
Vast increase in user base
Better communication
More IT credibility with reduced workloads
More efficient use of resources / “The EPM solution is robust, intuitive, easy to understand, and has been quickly adopted across the company.”
Steve Talarico, Director of Business Systems, Carpenter Technology
Carpenter Technology, a worldwide manufacturer of steel and other alloys, was investing in several large capital projects, including a U.S.$120 million facility expansion. Yet it had a limited in-house project management function. So it created a project management office in the IT department and implemented the Microsoft® Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution, based on Microsoft Office Project Server 2007. Across the company, employees found the EPM solution robust and easy to understand, especially project workspaces where they collaborate through Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007. The solution was quickly and widely adopted to manage a range of capital projects. The smooth implementation has increased the credibility of the IT department, because the solution improves the company’s ability to make efficient use of its resources.
Situation
Carpenter Technology is a producer and distributor of specialty alloys, including stainless steels and titanium. Founded in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1889, it has since expanded to become a worldwide company with customers in the aerospace, automotive, energy, medical products, and consumer products industries. Still headquartered in Reading, it has annual sales revenues of U.S.$2 billion.
After struggling in the worldwide recession of 2001, Carpenter recently regained profitability and has engaged in major capital expansions. In the IT department, Carpenter upgraded its telecommunications systems and data center, implemented a major new human resources application, and upgraded numerous other applications. Many of these projects involved external vendors, some of them using development teams in India and other global locations.
Outside of IT, the company is engaged in several huge capital projects. For example, to meet increased worldwide demand for steel, it is investing $120 million in Reading to expand its premium melting capacity. For that project, Carpenter needs to coordinate with multiple vendors to construct a building, purchase machinery and equipment, and set up raw materials management systems and IT infrastructure.
During belt-tightening efforts earlier in the decade, however, Carpenter had largely disbanded its project management functions. The company knew that the expansions would require keeping tabs on numerous complex projects. So in June 2006, it decided to resurrect its project management office (PMO).
The PMO began in the IT department. “We wanted to make sure we had visibility,” says Steve Talarico, Director of Business Systems at Carpenter, about the department’s goals. “When we assigned resources to projects, we wanted visibility into balancing their project work with ongoing support work. We also wanted a view of our external partners, to stay on top of complex processes.” Management hoped that as it matured, the PMO might be of use to projects in the rest of the company, where project management was being coordinated by external partners.
Carpenter still had project management software dating back to the beginning of the decade. It could use Lotus Notes for a document repository, and Niku to manage project plans and time reporting. However, the tools had been largely abandoned; only Niku was used regularly, by about 60 IT staffers who recorded timesheets. Furthermore, all of the project management software tools at Carpenter were limited to internal users. Contractors had to be set up with a Carpenter PC and account, and nobody could log on from external locations.
To meet the requirements of its new PMO, Carpenter needed more sophisticated project management tools. It hoped to find a solution that combined power and ease of use in a way that would also prove useful to the large capital projects across the entire company.
Solution
Although Carpenter considered staying with Niku, the company quickly realized that newer project management tools were far more sophisticated and powerful. “We had a good relationship with Microsoft,” recalls Talarico, “and we wanted to standardize on the Microsoft platform for many of our management tools and applications where it made sense from both the fiscal and functionality standpoints. Project management met both criteria.”
In June 2006, Carpenter began implementing Microsoft® Office Project Server 2003. Several months later, in December 2006, Microsoft announced the release of a suite of upgraded products with strong capabilities for collaboration services. The Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution includes Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007, and Microsoft Office Project Web Access.It also integrates tightly with Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007, which serves as a corporate portal offering collaboration and document management functions.
“When we saw the upgraded capabilities of Office SharePoint Server 2007,” says Talarico, “we decided to expand what we were doing with project management in IT throughout the organization. There was such a pent-up need for project management support in the engineering and manufacturing groups at Carpenter that we rolled out the EPM solution companywide sooner than we had anticipated.”
The EPM solution runs in a virtual environment on six IBM 3650 blade servers with nine quad-core processors. It integrates with Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 Standard Edition data management software, and with a complementary business intelligence project that uses Microsoft Office PerformancePoint™ Server 2007 business intelligence software and the Excel® Services in Office SharePoint Server 2007 technology.
Carpenter brought in Microsoft Services consultants to add value to the EPM implementation. David Gage, of the EPM Global Practices Team, and Paul Simonson, owner of Simons PC, together helped Carpenter bring the EPM solution into production in December 2007.
Deployment went smoothly, Talarico says. Several IT staffers were familiar with the discipline of project management (although many had been working in other areas since the PMO was deemphasized). They appreciated the ways the newer solution integrated with the e-mail and calendar functions of the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 messaging and collaboration client.
Talarico says that, as of October 2008, “We’ve completed getting the tools in place; we’ve developed and matured our reports, views, and templates. We’re very happy with the technology, and we feel it gives us a platform to improve our project management processes. Going forward, we hope to develop some governance and quality control to develop a more consistent view across all of our projects.”
Benefits
Carpenter has fostered improved communication with a project management solution that has been quickly and widely adopted. Its IT department has achieved increased credibility and a reduced workload as it aids the wider company in using resources more efficiently and providing visibility into the Carpenter project portfolio.
Fast Adoption Companywide
“The EPM solution is robust, intuitive, easy to understand, and has been quickly adopted across the company,” says Talarico. “Beyond IT, manufacturing and engineering were the first ones to adopt it. Now our research and development group is using it to develop new products, the marketing department has started to use it to manage marketing campaigns, and the health and safety program has 10 specific projects that are using these tools very extensively.”
The most important project, however, is the one in manufacturing and engineering: the $120 million facility expansion. “This effort has 10 or 12 distinct subprojects, and five or six groups of external resources in addition to all the internal people involved,” says Talarico. It’s the sort of project, Gage notes, where you wouldn’t know where to look for all the relevant files—except that now they’re all visible through Office Project Server 2007.
Gage adds, “For many companies that take on these types of projects, the benefits live within the IT department. What’s remarkable about Carpenter is, first, the groundswell of support that came from across the company to take advantage of the IT PMO function, and second, the way that IT has used the EPM solution to share the huge benefits of the project management discipline throughout the entire company.”
Vast Increase in User Base
Not only are multiple departments using the EPM solution, but also the scope of the user base has increased in each function. “The number of users has exploded,” says Talarico. “You may have one or two project managers on a team, but you may also have a dozen other employees or contractors on that team who need to be contributing.” In October 2008, there were 316 employees using Office Project Server 2007, up from 80 users in December 2007.
“These other team members have readily accepted the tools of the EPM solution,” he says. The solution is so intuitive that team members require minimal training to use it. (Project managers, who use the software more extensively, receive additional training.) Greater use of project management tools improves the ability of a wider range of employees to contribute to a project’s success.
Those team members need not be Carpenter employees working on site. “We have lots of external resources working on projects,” says Talarico, “whether they are external project managers from consulting companies or engineers or vendors helping to develop software. With Office Project Web Access, even when resources are off-site, they can remain engaged in the project.”
Better Communication
Carpenter uses Office SharePoint Server 2007 to enhance its project management activities to include improved collaboration and communication among team members. “The project workspace part of the EPM solution is very easy to use,” says Talarico. “We allow people to develop templates specific to their projects, which they have taken advantage of.”
He continues, “People have also used the discussion and survey capabilities of Office SharePoint Server 2007, and we’ve rolled out the wiki and blog features—only to a small audience so far, but they have responded favorably.”
As an example, he cites an application development project workspace. “We posted functional and technical specifications, configuration workbooks, and other documents that needed to live and breathe rather than just be filed away. And, as the implementation project ended, we were able to move these documents from the project workspace to a team site, so they are constantly available for people to review.”
More IT Credibility with Reduced Workloads
“Implementing the EPM solution has increased the credibility of IT within the organization,” says Talarico. “We were able to give executives visibility across all the projects in the facility expansion program. They received status reports and saw every green light. So they were never surprised as we approached various milestone dates. Management now has faith that projects are being implemented correctly.”
Furthermore, the IT department has achieved these results while reducing its administrative burden. Talarico says, “Thanks to Office Project Web Access, the EPM solution frees us up from some of the work that was required in our previous environment, when we spent a lot of time with tasks such as managing accounts and access privileges.”
More Efficient Use of Resources
Although specific measurements are not yet available, Carpenter expects the EPM solution to improve resource management throughout the company. “Resource managers use the EPM solution to gain a view of someone’s commitment level, the different projects and deadlines that affect that individual. That visibility helps them to manage those resources more effectively,” Talarico says.
In some cases, Carpenter project managers have used the visibility provided by the EPM solution to justify bringing in external resources, for cases where internal resources weren’t available and a deadline could not be extended. Carpenter has also been better able to track time reported on external resources’ invoices.
Furthermore, the additional visibility comes with a reduced administrative workload. “We have three people here who review and approve people’s time reporting. We’ve used the views and reports of the EPM solution to provide them with views by department, by project, and by other criteria they’re interested in,” Talarico says.
Microsoft Office System
Microsoft Office is the business world's chosen environment for information work that provides the software, servers, and services that help you succeed by transforming information into impact.
For more information about Microsoft Office System, go to: