We are an international consulting firm in the regulatory and scientific field and support our clients in the approval of chemicals, active ingredients, and products in the area of international chemical and plant protection legislation. Our business is project-based, and we would like to introduce project management software to manage projects and improve resource planning for our employees.
A. Current situation
Environment
- Highly dynamic day-to-day project work resulting from the interaction between customers, (approval) authorities, and (research) laboratories.
- Specialized scientific expertise from a wide range of disciplines is brought together depending on the project requirements.
- Large number of projects (> 1,000 ongoing customer projects)
- The size, complexity, and duration of projects can vary greatly. This places high demands on the flexibility and scalability of the project management software.
Current system
- Two proprietary tools are used for
- a) Time recording, including activity reports and cost allocation to projects
- b) Database for project management, including budgeting and invoicing
- The existing database solution for project management (SQL database with MS Access front end) only covers the required project management functions to a limited extent.
Objective
- The introduction of a (multi-)project management system is intended to improve and simplify successful project execution.
- The system is to support project planning and be used for resource planning, availability, and coordination.
- Despite the highly dynamic environment, this should enable better control of employee utilization and reduce the workload for employees. The system should also help to process customer inquiries quickly and ensure that deadlines are always met.
- The introduction of the system should support the effective and efficient planning and execution of projects.
Rough schedule
- Conceptual preparatory work since the end of 2015
- Selection process for project management system including resource planning from May 2016 to August 2016
- Implementation start in September 2016 with productive commissioning (version 1 if necessary) on January 1, 2017
B. Technical requirements
- The project management system should link the content and resources across the following project phases: Initiate: Many project enquiries and offers, possibly without a contract Plan: Signed project contracts Execute & Control: Implementation of projects including management of progress, costs, quality and risks Close: Systematic project completion: Project database, documentation, best practices, “search function” for completed projects
- Transfer of information from the “Plan” phase
- Breakdown of detailed planning into tasks with responsibilities and target dates
- Flexible adaptation of project and resource planning (agility)
- (Automatic) generation of project status overviews
- Transfer of information from the ‘Initiate’ phase
- Detailed planning with internal milestones based on dependencies (“critical path”)
- Concrete resource planning and coordination, compilation of the project team
- Structuring of the offer phase (including internal communication, if applicable)
- Rough planning with estimation of the required resources/know-how and essential external milestones
- Storage and documentation of documents
- Across all phases, the project management system should provide support for:Project content
- Project planning
- Resources
- Responsibilities
- Costs & budget
- Communication
- Documentation (document management or structured filing)
- Internal and external communication
- Distribution of information (ensuring information flow)
- Cost estimation
- Budget planning and allocation (by topic, group, employee, and time period)
- Budget control and reporting
- Project structure (topic blocks and responsibilities)
- Task distribution and task lists
- Deadline monitoring
- Resource planning and availability (cross-departmental)
- Coordination of resource requirements (cross-project)
- Control of employee utilization (cross-project)
- Overviews by project, employee, and employee group
- Overview of all projects and drill-down/drill-up functionality (by group/department, etc.)
- Time and milestone planning
- Planning of time and/or content dependencies
- Transparency regarding the “critical path” and possible bottlenecks
- Graphical representations of individual projects, including time and milestone planning
- Graphical representations of the project landscape (with drill-down/drill-up)
- Documentation of project goals and contract negotiations
- Documentation and distribution of specific requirements (specifications)
- Structuring of project content
- Provision of (standardized) templates for project management (“project management toolbox”)
- Integration of a customer relationship management system (see also B.2 “Communication”) for the systematic processing of incoming inquiries (tool/ticket system)
- Mapping of key account managers, especially for larger customers with projects in different areas
- Automatic provision of one-page project status reports/overviews (project progress)
- Breakdown of budget planning and monitoring at the level of individual topics, groups, and employees
- Project history: Recording of processors/colleagues involved at the level of topics/tasks
- Integrated indexing and search function
- Content and time links to other projects
- Integration of a system for managing and distributing information (see also “Communication”)
- Multi-user capability (joint simultaneous editing of projects)
- Multi-currency capability
C. System-related aspects
Current situation
- Operating system PCs: Windows 7, server: Linux and Windows 2008 R2
- Hardware Various
- Databases MySQL
- Cloud No cloud solution in use/planned/desired
- Email client Thunderbird
- Calendar Lightning + caldav server
Objectives
- Integration into existing hardware landscape
- Define interfaces and database access
- Interaction with existing software solutions (see above)
- Simple administration of the software: Access control/rights via Active Directory
- Integration into MS Office
- Integration as a virtual system (Virtual Box)
- Security/protection: No connections to the Internet
- Operating system: Operation under Linux preferred
The software is to be used on approximately 120 workstations.
Note from SoftGuide:
More detailed tender documents with the weighting of requirements (must, can, optional/future) can be requested from SoftGuide.