How Portfolio Manager got things flowing at Victaulic
Tempo Team
Key Takeaways
Improved cycle time for development of new product prototypes by more than 50%
Reduced inventories via optimization of component purchasing processes
Created standard work with repeatable processes saves time and provides baseline metrics for key performance indicators
Who are they?
Victaulic is the global leading producer of mechanical pipe joining, flow control, and fire protection solutions. Since 1919, their innovative technologies and engineering services have optimized construction productivity and reduced risk, ensuring projects are completed safely, on time and within budget.
Victaulic’s portfolio of 100,000+ products and patented technologies promote freedom of design, as well as simplified inspection and maintenance for the life of any system. From the tallest buildings to the deepest mines, customers trust their products to increase overall system durability in the most demanding construction projects and operating conditions.
Challenges
To stay competitive in a tough industry, Victaulic has to constantly keep bringing new and valuable solutions to their customers. It’s a mentality that will be intimately familiar to teams across many different industries, and that attitude of constant creativity and innovation means any roadblocks can seriously hamper ongoing work of the company.
With many ongoing projects, understanding resource needs and constraints was a challenge. Teams were supporting multiple projects at once and targeted launch dates were routinely missed, with project taking twice as long (or even more) than originally planned.
All projects were treated with equal priority, so teams couldn’t build realistic schedules across their portfolio and productivity was undermined with frequent shifts in focus.
New product development teams started to feel overloaded, frustrated and burned out. Managers struggled to juggle the constantly switching priorities and the ‘everything is a priority’ mentality. Without being able to identify bottlenecks or justify adding people, work in progress was high and cycle times were long. Obtaining data to create and measure key performance indicators was next to impossible.
They needed a better way.
Where the pipes were getting clogged
Finding the best option
Victaulic tested several project management software options and chose Portfolio Manager. While assessing the solution, their true ‘aha moment’ was when they uncovered data that went counter to their theories.
The long standing belief was that Victaulic was short in design and drafting resources and that delays were frequently caused by these teams being maxed out.
However, the data showed a different story. The bigger issue was significant waiting times for engineers to approve drawings. With access Portfolio Manager's robust analytics, Victaulic was finally able to thoughtfully prioritize tasks, reallocate some of their engineers’ tasks, and establish meaningful KPIs.
All flowing from a single source
Initially, Portfolio Manager was casually circulated across their engineering project teams but not broadly utilized. Over time, the software’s value became evident, prompting 100% adoption across Victaulic including the development of transaction-based workflows and unambiguous instructions for creating and managing projects within Portfolio Manager.
Portfolio Manager's professional services team was engaged to deliver structured training sessions, customized to Victaulic’s needs.
Early wins – such as improving cycle time for development of new product prototypes by more than 50% and reducing inventories via optimization of component purchasing processes – quickly demonstrated the value of Portfolio Manager.
All connected together
As the variety of activities and departments using Portfolio Manager grew, it became clear Victaulic needed to standardize large scale development initiatives to manage and report on work. A consistent project management workflow was established, so every product development initiative looked and felt similar within Portfolio Manager. The more their teams engaged within Portfolio Manager, the more accurate their project schedules became.
A Portfolio Manager best practices committee, with representation from key areas of the business, was formulated to optimize a cross-company project playbook. The team worked together to address issues and hosted Portfolio Manager training and development opportunities for the organization to extend and sustain productivity gains.
Results
Victaulic continues to experience several key, measurable benefits of using Portfolio Manager:
Visibility: Accurate insights inform critical conversations about strategic priorities to enable confident prioritization and resourcing decisions.
Transparency: Teams know how the plan was put together, can see the data underpinning next steps, and feel more confident in managing the daily work across the project portfolio.
Standardized work: Creating standard work with repeatable processes saves time and provides baseline metrics for key performance indicators.
Lindsay Hamlin, NPD manager at Victaulic, said: “Portfolio Manager uniquely uses effort and resource prioritization to drive expected dates that ultimately addressed our issue of shared, constrained resources. Other software highlighted potential issues, but no other solution showed the impact and gave information on how to resolve the conflict.”
Portfolio Manager helps Victaulic to efficiently and effectively launch new products and maintain their competitive advantage within their industry. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, Victaulic has maintained their spirit of innovation without missing a beat. Learn more about Portfolio Manager and get your free trial.