Excel remains a popular project management tool, despite the fact that it makes it impossible to generate a shared view of the project when you work with external partners – a flaw that is particularly troublesome when projects become more complex. Is every project member working on schedule? Is everyone working with the latest project documents? More and more companies are reaching the limitations of Excel – because project documents are unstructured and not filed in a way which allows access for everyone involved, because people work with different versions of the documents and because deadlines for submission cannot be monitored in a transparent manner.
The Excel-based way of working lacks transparency and is unnecessarily complex for suppliers too, especially when they have to work with different templates from different plants.
This is where SupplyOn’s web-based APQP solution comes in. It makes it possible to maintain project schedules and documents centrally for all participants. That way, all parties involved in a development project, whether internal or external, have access to the current project status and all associated documents. The tool provides optimum support for the project manager, presents him with a transparent picture of the project’s progress, automatically reminds him of deadlines, and relieves him of most administrative tasks. Standardized templates ensure that each of the enterprise’s development projects has the same structure irrespective of the location.
As a result, the administrative outlay during development projects can be reduced by up to 40 percent.
How this is possible as well as the other benefits are shown below using a large Tier 1 company as an example:
