Case Studies

We take great pride in the results we have achieved with our clients. We also understand the value of our ProChain System and the strategic advantage it provides our clients. Therefore, we are very careful to protect sensitive information about our clients and the results they achieve.

We provide some basic impact information regarding our clients’ ProChain successes here:

Fortune 200 High Technology Company

New Product Introductions

Initial Situation:

  • Project scope routinely decreased in order to meet project due dates
  • Poor product quality
  • Significant overtime towards the end of a project
  • Non-trivial changes to project requirements during the project without knowledge of the impact
  • Overly-aggressive (unrealistic) schedules created
  • Frequently miss key promised dates (approximately 10% of projects delivered on time)

Client Objectives:

  • Aggressive but realistic schedules
  • Ability to communicate the right priorities
  • Improved quality of life

The ProChain Solution:

  • Implementation design and planning
  • Education and training at all levels of organization
  • Network building, compression and analysis
  • Project updating, status and decision support process

Results Achieved:

  • Projects now completed on time in an environment where everything was late
  • Schedules are now believable and credible
  • Status meetings with senior management all but eliminated

“ProChain Project Management is now a critical part of our operational methodology. The ROI for this implementation of PPM is ludicrous.”

— Senior Program Manager

Fortune 100 Consumer Products Company

Multiple New Product Introductions

Initial Situation:

  • Projects typically took longer than expected
  • Scope frequently compromised
  • Frequent personal heroics to minimize lateness

Client Objectives:

  • Reduce time to market
  • Improve quality of life
  • Repeatable process to implement clear and stable priorities

The ProChain Solution:

  • Implement ProChain Project Managment in several business units on top priority projects
  • ProChain Project Scheduling software and training
  • Implementation planning and assessment
  • Schedule building, compression and analysis
  • Project status, updating and decision support processes
  • Education on concepts, methodology and tools throughout all levels of the organization.

Results Achieved:

  • Reduced first project more than 10 months (approx. 50%)
  • 25 – 50 % reduction on first 10 projects
  • One business unit has calculated the per project impact to be greater than $8 Million
  • ROI is off the charts

“After the first project we thought, ‘We might be on to something.’ After the first few projects we said,’This is the future.’ “

— Senior Program Manager

Fortune 200 Diagnostics Devices Company

New Product Introductions

Initial Situation:

  • Development projects take about 25% longer than they should, resulting in major loss of market share
  • Project due dates extremely unreliable
  • Project quality and scope suffer
  • Low quality of life for project workers

Client Objectives:

  • Reduce time to complete projects
  • Improve quality of life
  • Raise on-time performance
  • Maintain project quality and scope

The ProChain Solution:

  • Senior leadership team education and planning
  • Implementation design and planning
  • Guided project priority setting
  • Network building, reduction and analysis
  • Management and resource education
  • Implement project updating, status and decision support process
  • Multiple project synchronization
  • Form a Project Management Office and certify PMO members in the delivery of the methodology and tools

Results Achieved:

  • Significant increase in predictability of project completion
  • Process in place to identify and mitigate early schedule risks and obstacles
  • Quality and scope have been maintained
  • Managers and workers reported significant improvement in quality of life in hectic environment
  • Created ability to prioritize projects and resources, and assess impact of changes
  • ROI conservatively 50:1
  • Senior leadership knows exactly what is driving current status and has a decision support system to make tradeoffs

“Traditional project management is a pop gun. We now have a bazooka.”

— Director, Project Management Office

Fortune 1000 Medical Products Company

Multiple New Product Introductions

Initial Situation:

  • Lack of prioritization of projects
  • Meeting major milestones only about 20% of the time
  • Resources required to work extensive overtime in order to complete projects
  • Project schedules too detailed to be managed practically

Client Objectives:

  • Meet critical delivery dates
  • Improvement in quality of life for employees
  • Internalize knowledge and ability to deliver the methodology and tools
  • Clear project and task priorities

The ProChain Solution:

  • Situation analysis and implementation planning
  • Network Building and analysis resulting in realistic, manageable project schedules
  • Management and worker training and education
  • Single project methodology implementation followed by multiple project scheduling
  • Creation of Internal Experts

Results Achieved:

  • Have scheduled more than 30 top priority projects
  • On-time completion of projects increased from 22% to well above 90%
  • Completed most important 2001 project 4 months early
  • ROI conservatively 500:1

“We’re obviously less stressed and more effective.”

— Senior Manager

Fortune 200 Pharmaceuticals Company

New Product Development

Initial Situation:

  • Globally very dispersed organization
  • Milestone system that inhibited clear priorities
  • Met major milestones only about 20% of the time
  • Chaotic work environment
  • Facing dwindling pipeline and more competitive market

Client Objectives:

  • Projects delivered on time
  • More efficiency and speed
  • Change in culture from “train schedule” to “relay race”
  • Ability to use internal people to deliver the methodology and tools

The ProChain Solution:

  • Highly successful PPM pilot implementation across drugs in all phases of development
  • Detailed implementation planning with active leadership involvement
  • Development of a tailored PPM approach to help shift the culture
  • Creation of Internal Experts
  • Roll-out across programs and clinicial trials

Results Achieved:

  • The entire portfolio is using PPM
  • On-time completion of projects reported at 100%
  • Dramatic speed improvements for clinical trials
  • Billions of dollars of impact

“This is a key part of our strategy for long-term success.”

— Senior Leader

Fortune 100 Technology Company

New Product Introduction

Initial Situation:

  • Very seldom meet original due dates
  • Scope and quality compromised to minimize lateness to market
  • Project starts delayed by late finishes on previous projects
  • Project due date set by marketing needs
  • Team members stressed by delays
  • Lack of valid information about project and task status

Client Objectives:

  • Reduce actual time to market
  • Maintain scope and premium pricing
  • Improve quality of life
  • Create and maintain achievable and realistic schedules
  • Create and maintain clear and stable priorities
  • Establish stable exit criteria for tasks (what is done?)
  • Eliminate multitasking
  • Identify risks to project completion

The ProChain Solution:

  • An integrated solution
  • Implementation planning
  • Education on the methodology at multiple levels within the organization
  • Training on the software
  • Facilitated schedule building, compression and analysis
  • Implemention of a project status and updating process, including senior level metrics and decision support process

Results Achieved:

  • Shortened product launches by approximately 25%
  • First to market for this type of product
  • Identified and eliminated early schedule risks
  • Maintained original scope and premium price points
  • Created a stable and continuous improvement process
  • Return on Investment ratio conservatively 250:1

Fortune 100 Telecom Company

Multiple Project Application

Initial Situation:

  • Projects rarely delivered on time
  • Project scope compromised significantly
  • Extensive overtime to minimize lateness
  • Resources assigned to many tasks on many projects with no clear priorities set
  • Lack of solid information on which to base project decisions

Client Objectives:

  • Implement first with individual projects, then build to multiple project scheduling
  • Create project templates to reduce time spent building networks for repeated projects
  • Design an effective, easy-to-read report showing status of all projects for management and project workers
  • Establish clear project and task priorities

The ProChain Solution:

  • Integrated multiple project effort
  • Network design and analysis principles
  • Conceptual education at multiple levels of the organization
  • Strategy sessions to target problem areas with metrics and to implement solutions
  • Software training and report customization
  • On-going consulting services to ensure new work practices established and institutionalized

Results Achieved:

  • Average project length reduced by more than 50%
  • On-time delivery of projects went from 40% to nearly 100%
  • More than doubled project throughput
  • No increase in personnel
  • ROI is off the charts

Small Engineer to Order Company

Complex Multiple Project Application

Initial Situation:

  • Frequently delivered projects late
  • Schedules and priorities constantly changing
  • Losing customers based on poor performance

Client Objectives:

  • Reduce project times
  • Predictable completion/delivery dates
  • Establish and work to clear and stable priorities

The ProChain Solution:

  • Multiple project scheduling education and consulting
  • ProChain and ProChain Pipeline Software

Results Achieved:

  • Reduced average project times by 25%
  • On-time delivery increased from 40% to nearly 100%
  • Productivity increased by more than 30%
  • ROI conservatively 50:1