OBSERVATION
Our client was successfully awarded a contract to design and manufacture 65 passenger trains for the Victorian State Government in conjunction with a major international partner. The project required meeting a series of key deliverables to trigger payment milestones and avoid significant financial penalties. With the brand and economic viability of the project at stake, our client recognised the need to increase transparency and accountability through its project controls and reporting system.
ORIENTATION
ORBIZ were engaged in developing a holistic visual management system that would drive the successful delivery of the project through transparency and accountability in engineering, procurement and across the senior leadership team.
A detailed analysis was initially conducted to understand the key metrics and measures required to deliver the project and meet the contractual requirements. The program itself was dissected to enable the development of meaningful activity schedules for each function and primary deliverable so they could be subsequently measured and reported against through detailed programs and KPIs.
OPTIMISATION
The leadership team developed a project Visual Management Centre (VMC) in a traditional 'war room' style through which all key activities could be managed and reported. Regular meetings were established as a forum for workstream leads to provide an update on progress and performance.
A VMC was also established as a forum for engineering teams to track and monitor their daily progress to increase ownership and accountability across the wider project team. This process enabled issues to be managed at the frontline and minimised the number of problems that go undetected or are unnecessarily escalated to the leadership team.
Team engagement and communication increased, with visual management techniques essential in enabling collaboration when significant cultural differences and a language barrier existed.
A highly effective format for VMC in this environment was developed, enabling everyone to speak the same project language.
IMPACT
- Transparency of project performance and associated issues with full accountability across the broader project team
- Engineering on schedule to achieve milestones that had previously slipped by up to 6 months from the original baseline
- Improved communication between international and Australian delivery partners overcoming the language barrier
- Standard planning, reporting and issue management formats in use across all functions streamlining communications and simplifying the project management process