With over 100 years of experience, AUNDE is one of the 100 largest automotive suppliers in the world. With the brands AUNDE, ISRINGHAUSEN and FEHRER, the group companies Technofibres, GMA and REINERT and the joint ventures AUNDEBADER and MUNDA, the portfolio ranges from yarn production to the production of textile surfaces, the cutting and sewing of covers and the individual production of seats, to interior components and composite components.
Combining IT services to create synergies
Five years ago, AUNDE’s management set itself the goal of harmonizing and standardizing IT. When the IT departments of the three business units were merged, there was a need for an organizational change in this context: the goal was to take advantage of synergy effects and to increase cost efficiency by centralizing the most important IT services. As a result, there is now only one SAP team that supports and maintains all of the company’s SAP systems worldwide. Previously, this task was the responsibility of the respective IT managers in the subsidiaries.
Increased planning requirements for group-wide IT projects
In order to be able to plan projects across the group, the project management office set out to find a suitable software solution.
“The overall view of the portfolio, of all the projects, is important. In the RFP we placed particular emphasis on resource utilization. We chose Projectworx because the tool gives us the best view of overall resource utilization. This is essential when the IT staff has to manage as many as 40 projects running in parallel.”
Eric Sangs, Teamleader PMO, AUNDE Group.
The need for a prioritization process becomes apparent
“You can already sense that this is not going to work smoothly,” Sangs explains. For example, if you know that there are only a few network engineers, but you need one for each project… Thanks to Projectworx, we have proof and arguments: Not all projects can be done in parallel! In some cases, our people would be severely overbooked.”
The tabular display of overall capacity utilization shows at a glance where bottlenecks will occur according to the current planning status using a clear color scheme (see example).
At AUNDE, red dominated in almost all IT teams. A screenshot was enough to get management to agree to prioritize key projects.
“Based on various criteria such as cost savings, customer project, legal requirements, etc., we have prioritized 16 of the previous 40 projects so that we can complete them without delay. In addition, Projectworx is used to record and document the relevant project data “.
Well maintained, much gained
Thorsten Bodzian, IT project manager in the PMO at AUNDE, reports on how the prioritization measure has led to unexpected benefits for the project management:
“This meant that we had to feed the system with content. The projects had to be set up properly in Projectworx. It was only then that we realized how much the tool could do. Filters, breakdowns, reports. The fact that the data we enter in one place can be useful in another. The more we employ the tool, the more we benefit from it.”
Thorsten Bodzian, IT Projektmanager PMO, AUNDE Group
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Is a clear overview of overall resource utilisation exactly what you are missing in your project management? Maybe not just that? Then it’s worth taking a look at our comprehensive all-in-one solution, which combines all elements of project management. Please feel free to make an appointment with me. I look forward to talking to you.
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