Health and hygiene company, Kimberly-Clark South Africa, has implemented Post Vision Technology's Project Portfolio Office (PPO) solution in order to formalise its project management processes, as well as to facilitate communication and collaboration across all projects.
The company opted for Post Vision's PPOLive offering, which follows the on-demand/software as a service (SaaS) model, providing it with access to the full PPO application on a hosted and rental basis over the Internet.
According to Garth Towell, Kimberly-Clark Managing Director, the company identified project management as one of the potential barriers to success.
The implementation of PPO was to lead effective project execution - without exception.
"The demand for executional excellence has never been as great as it is today," he explains. "We had an incredibly complex process for managing projects, in particular capital projects, and were looking for a system that could manage this process in its entirety, providing required visibility to the executive team to ensure we deliver results on time and as expected."
Towell explains that the cross-functional nature of Kimberly-Clark's projects requires different functions to communicate across the organisation, with PPO providing the ability to pull this communication together. "In the past we have had a number of people focusing on various projects across the organisation. This approach was of an ad hoc nature and not aligned to our business objectives," he says.
UMT South Africa, a Portfolio, Programme and Project services company and a Post Vision implementation partner, assisted Kimberly-Clark in deploying an enterprise project management office using Project Portfolio Office. An initial assessment provided a roadmap for improving the organisation's project environment in order to help it bring its product to market in a more precise and predictable fashion. "The PPO solution was implemented in no time, without any major hassles. It is so easy to configure and results are immediate," says Alan Hibbert, Project Manager from UMT SA.
Enabling the necessary project management governance and processes, developed by UMT SA, was done through implementing configurable business rules and process flows within PPO.
Post Vision Technology CEO Guy Jelly says once Kimberly-Clark made a strategic decision to run its business in a project-based approach, it needed a project management office and therefore a project management system.
"PPO is a project portfolio management application that allows Kimberly-Clark to register projects within the application and move all projects through the initiation, planning and execution phases according to its specific process. It also automates the disciplines related to project management, such as risk management, issue management, cost management and scope change management.
"It further tracks and stores all the project documentation and will become the single, sole repository of project-related information within Kimberly-Clark South Africa. Over and above that, it provides detailed, real-time dashboard reporting of the project environment," he explains. "By running their projects through the different phases on PPO, anybody involved with project management will have visibility of any project at any time and will be able to make calculated decisions."
Says Towell: "The introduction of our new project management software is currently revolutionising the way our projects are run. It allows us to look holistically at our entire project workload, something we have never been able to do. It guides us to define clearer roles and responsibilities and we have realistic expectations of our resources and our timing. Because all the information is centralised, we can quickly identify when a resource is under pressure and balance the workload across individuals, or extend project delivery dates as the situation requires.
"PPO provides the framework and tools for project leaders, team members and senior management to identify priorities, manage information, allocate resources, monitor schedules and deliver on key milestones within projects on time and on a live system," he continues. "The true value is unlocked through our ability to consolidate our approval processes, streamline our decision-making and eliminate paperwork and unnecessary running around between functions.
"The PPO system provides appropriate governance that translates into efficient and effective project management within Kimberly-Clark South Africa."
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