M-I SWACO Accelerates Product Development LifeCycle
M-I SWACO is a global company with operations in the U.S. and in Scotland, Italy and other countries. The company has hundreds of products across multiple lines of business. Product development and support resources are geographically dispersed and typically support multiple products.
With a large product portfolio and resources distributed across the globe, M-I faced challenges efficiently and effectively managing the product lifecycle for all products. M-I SWACO established accelerated product development as a key business objective, but with so many products, it was difficult to manage and track information critical to acceleration. In addition, the company needed to optimize the entire planning and product management process, eliminating bottlenecks and allocating resources more efficiently.
Improving productivity and enhancing development would require improving the coordination of efforts among many departments and product champions around the world. It was clear that a project management system was needed that could track accountability and provide ready access to project information, including real-time project status and alerts for items needing immediate attention.
To ensure maximum speed to value for the new project management system, M-I SWACO needed the new system to be rolled out and fully functional in a matter of weeks. The success of the company in a highly competitive, global marketplace demanded definite results as soon as possible.
After reviewing their options, M-I SWACO chose an Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solution based on Microsoft Project 2003 and Project Web Access 2003.
At the same time, they realized that the size and complexity of this project would require an experienced team of consultants to help ensure the success of the new EPM solution.
"Catapult took a popular office tool like Project 2003 and fully customized it to our specific product development processes and they did it in record time. Productivity, efficiency and coordination have improved significantly."
- Tom Geehan, Director of Technology Drilling Waste Management, M-I SWACO.
Tony Castronovo, Senior Consultant for Catapult Systems, explained how Catapult approached the EPM project. "We’re not just a technology integrator. We are focused on the project as a complete solution. We live and breathe EPM every day and know the pains that our customers go through when it comes to implementing project management processes. That’s why Catapult can help them find the best way to apply the technology to their specific needs."
To address the challenge of project coordination among global teams, Catapult helped M-I SWACO create a new level of project management standardization by introducing templates, formal documentation, agreed-upon procedures and a complete version control system to manage version changes and track revisions. This information was then used to expand the project management knowledge-base for M-I SWACO’s project pilot team through targeted training programs. Catapult also improved overall accountability for project delivery by creating a centralized storage mechanism for all project schedules and related artifact documents that enabled management to track real-time project status for multiple products.
M-I SWACO supports the products it sells, so a key objective of the project was to align product support planning with new product development. Visibility of resource availability was critical to this alignment, so Catapult helped M-I SWACO implement a custom Enterprise Resource Pool and RBS (Resource Breakdown Structure).
To improve the timeliness of project status updates, Catapult implemented Project Web Access 2003 so that data would be available online on the user desktop. Finally, they created and implemented additional "closed-loop" processes to measure and ensure the continued success of the EPM initiative.
Improved, real-time visibility and transparency of information, including resource availability
Enhanced business decision-making
Tightened control over project schedules, resources and costs
Increased productivity through better collaboration between groups
Accelerated training for personnel in new technology and project management concepts
Improved project status reporting
Working with Catapult, M-I SWACO was able to significantly improve real-time visibility to all projects, thereby enhancing critical business decision-making. Transparency of related project information, such as issues, risks and documentation was also improved.
Productivity and development quality were increased by improving collaboration between various group across geographies and different time zones. Training was enhanced for new technology and relevant project management concepts. In addition, project and product managers were introduced to relevant concepts surrounding task types and their relationships to schedule, cost and resource allocation. The managers were also given in-depth instruction about how their new project management tools could be best applied to specific business needs at M-I SWACO.
M-I SWACO wanted to avoid the "micro-management trap" that can sometimes occur with the introduction of powerful data acquisition and reporting tools. Accordingly, Catapult developed configuration design reports that tracked hours and resource assignments at a high level, with detailed tasks available to those who require more information. Timesheets were also designed to capture high-level information rather than presenting an overwhelming array of specific assignments.
This flexible approach with both high-level and detailed information streamlined overall project management and encouraged the adoption of the new system by the user community. "Catapult helped us get rolling in a matter of weeks," said Geehan. "They have been one of the major factors for success in our EPM initiative."