We are a manufacturer of marine components in the mechanical engineering industry and are looking for multi-project management software to improve order processing and multi-project management. In addition to the requirements listed below, we would like to highlight two aspects. It is important to us to know whether and how SAP integration can be implemented. We also want to know whether and how resource planning for machines and workstations can be designed.
We have the following requirements for the software:
- Non-functional requirements
- Cloud solution – Software as a Service
- Must: protected data, encryption via https://
- Must: external database server/cloud within the framework of SaaS
- Must: updates & releases within the framework of SaaS
- Must: Online remote maintenance within the scope of SaaS
- Should: Back-up with recovery service within one day
- Can: Application for tablet and mobile phone
- SAP interfaces - we are looking for a PMS that can be fully integrated with SAP R3 ERP 6 and SAP S/4 Hana; the bidirectional connection must be able to exchange the following data:
- Must: Finished product
- Must: Material number
- Must: Purchase requisition
- Must: Purchase order
- Must: Delivery date
- Must: Bill of materials
- Must: Planned/available/posted hours of employees
- Must: Costs: Overhead costs and internal cost allocation, material costs, costs per production order
- Must: SAP work center (work center number) / standard work plan
- Must: Planned orders
- Must: Production orders
This data is maintained or reported as completed in SAP. It is also part of the project schedule, whose task status is queried. Therefore, the PMS must query these SAP feedback messages in order to update the schedule and task plan.
- Additional interfaces
- Required: Bidirectional synchronization for all interfaces defined here, in real time if possible
- Required: Groupware: Outlook, Groupwise
- Recommended: Office 365 connection: Sharepoint, Visio, Excel, Word, PowerPoint
- Recommended: Existing QM system: complaints, inspection plans, change notifications
- Optional: Existing document management: project documents
- Data import/export
- Must: xls/xlsx, csv, txt, doc/docx, pdf
- Functional requirements
- Scheduling – there is scope for creativity in the execution, different versions are desirable (target criterion)
- Must: Scheduling
- Target: Gantt (bar chart)
- Target: Project phases & milestones
- Should: Critical path
- Can: Schedule (task calendar in the task planning section)
- Resource planning - Resource planning and allocation is desired; employee resources should be defined via roles; roles are requested via the project manager and must be filled and approved by the resource manager; resource planning for machines and workstations in the manufacturing and assembly areas is also desired
- Target: Contact details of employees in the project
- Target: Planning and comparison of employee capacities
- Target: Planning and comparison of machine capacities
- Reporting - Reporting with the cockpit view for multi-project management (MPM) and single-project management (EPM) is a mandatory criterion for the PMS; a status overview of costs and deadlines should be provided
- Must: Cockpit multi-project management
- Must: Single project management cockpit
- Must: Status overview of costs
- Must: Status overview of deadlines
- Target: Machine hours and employee hours from SAP system
- Target: Trend of deadlines and cost situation
- Target: Project adherence to deadlines
- Target: Report output also in English
- Can: Filter function in MPM cockpit MPM on project manager -> View of all projects of a project manager
- Optional: Status display as traffic lights
- Requirements management - desirable; customer requirements should be documented and checked against internal standards; any resulting deviations should be assigned as a task to a resource
- Required: Record customer requirements and assign them as a task to a resource
- Required: Internal specification and validation of results
- Change management - is a mandatory criterion; any project changes should trigger automatic updates; for example, updates on deadlines, tasks, and resources; the software must issue warnings in the event of budget overruns, deadline delays, and project delays
- Must: Project changes automatically update the schedule, task plan, etc.
- Must: Warning in case of deadline delays/project delays
- Must: Warning in case of budget overruns
- Should: Written change notification
- Should: Changes are visually highlighted
- Should: Display consequences of changes. Example: Deadline delays, budget overruns
- Can: Change history: Previous project statuses available, e.g., schedule from xx.xx.xxxx. Goal: for comparison, finding causes of deviations, documenting lessons learned
- Risk management - risk management in the form of documentation of project risks and their measures is desired; it would also be desirable to maintain risks from previous projects (lessons learned); the maintenance of product risks (for each plant type) is optional
- Should: Project risks (lessons learned)
- Can: Product risks
- Task planning – is a mandatory criterion for PMS; a large number of SAP interfaces are required for task feedback; therefore, it does not make sense to customize each individual interface (see above); for this reason, the SAP interfaces should already be preconfigured
- Must: Automatic task feedback from SAP
- Must: Task feedback automatically updates schedule
- Required: Task calendar. Filter option by project/department/employee
- Required: Checklists with deadlines
- Required: Task feedback as progress in %
- Optional: Chat function for each task
- Workflow management - is optional in terms of document management, as an existing document management system should be used for project documentation; work instructions and process descriptions can be maintained in Sharepoint; However, it would still be desirable to save reusable templates for schedules, for example
- Can: Create, save, and overwrite templates (documents, project plans, etc.)
- Can: Work instructions
- Can: Process descriptions
Initially, approximately 50-70 software workstations are planned, with a gradual expansion to other product areas conceivable.