Manufacturing Project Summary:
A Case Study in Business Process Automation

The Problem

This client, a subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation, is among the largest global suppliers of technologically advanced aerospace and industrial products. A prime NASA contractor, they design and manufacture aerospace systems for commercial, regional, corporate and military aircraft, and are a major supplier for international space programs. The company records approximately $3.6 billion in annual sales.

A Project Specialist at the company has a problem. She has a project plan with over 10,000 tasks pulling from 12 functional groups with 8 resource types and 14 levels of project task roll-up. Her challenge is to compare the projected completion date and cost data against actual progress, and create revised budget forecasts.

Currently, she uses a manual process that requires over 24 man hours to produce a detailed analytical report of the project broken down along each measurable quantity, then summed up at each level so that summary information is available at each level of roll-up. The client would like to produce a Project Summary report twice a month.

The Custom Software Solution

This client engaged Entrance Software to design a custom technology solution to automate the existing Project Summary reporting process.

The requirements were that it must be simple to operate, require little training, produce an identical result to the manual process and have a zero footprint install (i.e. work with the existing standard desktop image).

In a matter of weeks, Entrance developed a business process automation tool using a combination of technology and intuitive interface design. The tool was deployed in July, 2003.

The Results

An e-mail from the client:

I wanted to let you know that I tested your utility and guess what.... cha-ching... it works!! It was awesome! (of course, you knew that!!) I spent a little time formatting the config file (learning curve). Then I ran it and 45 seconds later, I had a report.

I am very excited to show Mary [the Business Manager] the results. I have also bragged about the utility to the Engineer who created the schedule I used for the test. I explained the potential benefits of the utility and it may even allow him to discontinue an estimating and planning procedure he is currently required to do. We’ll see!!

I will try to get with Mary on Monday to WOW her with this.
Wahoo!!