Learn more about the savings that result from being able to continuously monitor any changes to costs and change requests.
Transcript:
Patrick is Head of Engineering at TF Engineering. They typically run large $10m+ Cap-Ex projects all over the globe for Pharmaceuticals, Medical Devices, and Life Sciences. They could be running 40-50 projects at any one point in time.
Patrick has problems. His Senior Management Team wants him to get control over project finances, including accurate forecasting, Value of Work Done, and cost management. His budget is approved on a project but he seems to be constantly looking for an increase on his budget due to unforeseen changes on projects. His General Contractors and Architectural and Engineering staff seem to make up plans at times, as opposed to adhering to Patrick’s specific project management plans.
The finance people on the client-side push hard to keep costs within original budgets, even though changes constantly happen. People on the business side of the client organization just want the project to be delivered on time, as any delays cost huge delays in getting the product to market, which correspondingly delays revenue generation for them.
The finance people in TF Engineering focus on original estimates, margins promised for the project, POs, and corresponding invoices. Cost Breakdown Structures take up a lot of Patrick’s time in manually going through costs every week – when he needs to spend that time focusing on the delivery of projects.
Project managers in TF want to get away from Microsoft Excel for managing project finances. They are sick of macros and formulas not working and having to pour over Excel sheets for two hours a week trying to find an error. Worse the time lost updating information …. Only to find that their updates weren’t made on the latest Excel sheet version so they need to start over again. It’s infuriating.
The Result
Patrick is caught in the middle … but now he enjoys hero status at TF Engineering because he introduced Cora’s Project Controls capability. It’s integrated into their Financial System (SAP in TF Engineering’s case). A key strength is that it links estimates to project controls, to forecasting, to accruals, to Value of Work Done, Risks, Schedules, Change Management, Documentation, and all other aspects of projects that they deliver.
Not only does it do this at the project level, but it can also take financial data from TF Engineering’s many plants worldwide and consolidate that information into one central chart of accounts.
At any time, finance or the senior management team can ask Patrick questions and he has the answers a click away. All project data roles up to program views and to portfolio views so that management can see how well the organization is performing.
Dashboards immediately tell the company’s senior decision-makers what the true story is. They can drill down on any dashboard item and find out more detailed data. A big benefit is it’s in real-time. Patrick does not have to spend hours trawling through documents, emails, and making phone calls to get answers for the SMT. The senior management team can easily click on red parts of a graph, they can quickly drill through to the data … and as a result, they manage by exception – saving them huge amounts of time.
Above all, Patrick now has a system fully operational which delivers control, governance, and visibility across all Op-Ex and large, complex Cap-Ex projects in TF Engineering’s portfolio. This gives its Senior Management Team tremendous peace of mind.
Find out more
If you are facing challenges like Patrick why not visit our  Project Controls Software page to learn more about our solution.
Further Insights
Learn more about Cora Systems PPM Tool here.
Tune in to our most recent Project Management Paradise Podcast episodes available on Spotify and Apple.
