Client’s Challenge

To better manage projects and reduce investment planning cycle

The PPMO at Atlantic LNG was seeking a technology that could help them centrally manage all the organization’s project efforts related to construction of new facilities, maintenance of plant operations, and related information technology initiatives. Moreover, the PPMO wished to integrate Maximo, an IBM software tool used for asset management, with its implementation of Microsoft PPM.

In many ways, Atlantic LNG’s capital improvement planning efforts resembled the same type of process typically seen in local and state governments for managing public works projects. The organization was challenged by how long it was taking to go through an investment planning cycle and wished to substantially reduce the time by automating the process with a mixture of new technology and workflow.

The Solution

Implement Microsoft technology with customization for capital planning

Atlantic LNG hired EPM Solutions to provide the technology it was seeking. A decision was made to deploy Microsoft Project Server on premise as the primary project management tool. All Atlantic LNG’s projects were placed in the Project Center which operates as the central repository of Project Server, providing customized views of all the project portfolios. At the time of the implementation, there were several hundred concurrent projects in-flight that had to be migrated to the new system or be created. This would be the first time that Atlantic LNG would see all its projects together with real-time information.

In addition to the standard implementation, EPM Solutions also provided a customized component for evaluating potential investments for capital improvement planning initiatives. This process would ordinarily take place before an idea ever became a project. The module was created in Microsoft SharePoint which also operates as the platform for Project Server allowing both to work in tandem with one another. This capital planning feature was designed to capture all the specific information and criteria that Atlantic LNG would use to review a project proposal or capital improvement investment. It had capabilities for providing scoring by multiple users and information would be digitally communicated by email through built-in workflow features. Once a project went through the evaluation funnel and was approved, it would automatically be elevated to the Project Center for eventual execution as a project.

EPM Solutions also integrated and synced the specific data from Maximo that was still in use at Atlantic LNG. Now, both systems could be used and would work seamlessly together to manage projects, schedules, and task lists. By doing so, EPM Solutions was able to maintain the existing work continuity that Atlantic LNG staff had grown accustomed to. In turn, this made user adoption of the new system that much easier.

Finally, EPM Solutions provided Atlantic LNG with a library of business intelligence options that would leverage all the data from the combined systems.