Background

Robust Plastics is a production company specializing in high-quality plastic products and is part of the Robust Industries Group, which currently has 1,500 employees at four locations in Austria and in Central and Eastern Europe. Robust Plastics is predominantly active in the automotive, packaging, electronics, and recycling industries, and depending on the industry requirements it covers all the services in the value chain, from product and tool development to the actual production.

As a supplier to the automotive industry, Robust Plastics produces injection-molded parts for renowned brands like Audi, Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes. The development and design of the tools required to produce the injection-molded parts are just as important as the manufacture of the plastics parts itself.

Project Management in the Tool Production

Each year, Robust Plastics develops about 150 such tools, and the corresponding production processes are handled and processed as separate projects. The project up until production includes the quotation submission and the development and design of the tools. Each project is concluded when the actual production starts (i.e., production of the injection-molded part). The project duration is generally between three and nine months.

In order to limit the coordination effort resulting from such a large number of simultaneous project activities, modern project management tools are needed among other things. In this context, Robust Plastics decided to use ProjectNetWorld®. This state-of-the-art software is web-based, can be deployed with no installation expense and with relatively little training expense, and is fully scalable regarding the number of projects, project employees, and the use of modules. It offers a central, easy-to-use user interface, which – as a result of the Software-as-a-Service (Saas) principle – can be accessed from anywhere and at any time.

This is a decisive advantage especially for the multi-location projects of Robust Plastics, because all project-relevant information, such as the different in-house standards of the customers, can be centrally stored and continually updated. This ensures that each project employee has the same level of information, which makes the communication flow within the project work much easier and significantly increases the efficiency of the work processes. In addition, important project information (such as design or material standards, plans, etc.) can also be provided to the project customers.

Because ProjectNetWorld® has a modular design, the software can be adapted to any particular project requirements – for example, in the case of Robust Plastics, new form interfaces and also a project-internal discussion forum will soon be activated to make it easier to coordinate project-specific processes between project management, project employees, and customers.

Summary

Wherever employees must be brought together regarding place, time, or organization, creating a central platform that records, combines, and provides project-related information in a clear form is indispensable. This makes it possible to represent complex processes and information flows and to optimize them within the project work. With the help of ProjectNetWorld®, these conditions are created: the software can be rapidly deployed, is easy to use, and can be easily adapted according to the project and company requirements. If you are interested in a free trial, please register
at https://enw.projectnetworld.com.

A commentary by Nora Hauptmann

Everyone knows about the advantages of being well connected, whether technically or socially. This also applies to project managers, who profit from the exchange of experiences across company borders. So a platform for project managers was created over 40 years ago and has since become the world's largest association of project managers:

Project Management Institute® (PMI)

The Project Management Institute® (PMI) was founded in 1969 in the USA with the goal of giving the then still young discipline a forum, which was dedicated to the exchange of experiences gained and the introduction of standards and procedures. In the same year, the first project management seminar was held in Atlanta, USA; 83 persons attended. In the following decades, PMI developed into a worldwide platform with almost 300,000 members and divided into country organizations ("chapters"). The service offering was also expanded to the same extent: PMI introduced project management standards as well as a binding code of honor and PMI's own certification, founded "Specific Interest Groups," and initiated training programs. To this day, efforts for innovation have been the focus in addition to a continuous exchange of ideas.

Organization and Services

PMI is basically an association with an international orientation. But in order to serve its members as fully as possible, regional branches were created, which represent the interests of PMI in the particular countries. The chapters – there are currently 250 in 70 countries – are responsible not only for the PMI standards and guidelines being followed but also for maintaining communication of the members among each other at the local level and creating corresponding networks. The information flow within the PMI community originates through numerous events (symposia, lectures, seminars) and digital communication within the association (websites, newsletter, etc.), which also makes use of social media (reference is made to the online platform "Communities of Practice").

Another important instrument is PMI's own publications, such as:

• the PMI Austria Magazine, which is dedicated to, among other things, topics from the Austrian project management landscape
• the monthly PM Network, which deals with model projects (best practices), project management trends, and tools and technologies
• PMI Today, with everything worth knowing about the PMI association and its activities (certification, research, standards, education, and training)
• the Project Management Journal, which reports quarterly on research, technology, theory, and practice in the field of project management

There is also a large selection of print media and digital technical literature, which can be purchased through the PMI Marketplace.

Standards and Certification

Since the beginnings of PMI, the preparation and introduction of internationally effective project management standards and their continual development in order to offer valuable guidance to project managers all over the world have been of central importance. These standards essentially relate to the areas of:

• Project management
• Program management
• Program management
• Company management and organization

As a result of these, PMI offers corresponding certifications based on uniform computer-aided tests, which are internationally valid. The most important certification levels in the field of project management are

• the "Project Management Professional" (PMP®)
• the "Certified Associate in Project Management" (CAPM®)

Both provide information about the education and professional experience of project managers and must be renewed regularly ("Continuing Certification Requirements Program"). This ensures continual professional development also at the institutional level.

The principle of standardized education has also received academic support in Austria in the meantime: the Danube University Krems offers an MBA program under the name Enterprise Project Management that is based exclusively on PMI standards.

Summary

In the four decades of its existence, the Project Management Institute® has contributed significantly to the enrichment of the "project manager" job profile. This refers to the sustained internationalization in connection with strong member and community growth as well as to the comprehensive training and service offerings, which creates recognized standards that follow the PMI principle in every respect: "to be respected throughout the world for advancing project management excellence through professionalism." More information at www.pmi.org and www.pmi-austria.org.

Trends, new technologies in hardware and software, our project management know-how, and feedback from our users have been influencing the technological and functional advancement of our web-based product for years. A balanced mix of these influencing factors has been the focus since the start of product development. The result is always a further step toward optimal support of our customers in their project management.
The objective of ProjectNetWorld® is to provide our customers with an innovative and reliable tool that can be individually adapted to the needs of diverse projects. Regardless of the project size: our developments should make project work easier, shorten processes, and improve the communication and information of the project team. All of this while ensuring easy and intuitive use and the highest degree of security for customer data.

Content of ProjectNetWorld 5.2.1

• TASKS / SCHEDULES: To-Do Lists
• TASKS / SCHEDULES: Optimization of the Phases and Activities
• TASKS / SCHEDULES: Importing/Exporting Schedules
• DOCUMENTS: Temporary Links for Keeping All Project Participants Fully Informed
• DOCUMENTS: Photo Preview and Setting Keywords for Documents (Tagging)
• SETUP / PARTICIPANTS: Personal Photo and Address Description

To-Do Lists

The new To-Do List tool was developed for smaller projects as well as for improved coordination of all projects. As a kind of "schedule light," this new function is well-suited to help provide structure to projects quickly and easily. This tool enables clear schedule management in which all project tasks (To Dos) can be listed and assigned to individual project employees. This tool also takes into account contextual as well as temporal information with the advantage that responsibilities within a project and the progress of the project are always clear.

Phases and Activities

In this release, the view of phases and activities was optimized. You now get a faster and better overview and can easily access detailed information. Another new feature is that to-dos can now be assigned to each activity. This allows elaborate activities to be planned and controlled efficiently. Also, who has processed which task (to-dos) in which activity is apparent at any time.

Temporary Links

A highlight of the new version is temporary links to documents of ProjectNetWorld®. Since many projects usually have several project participants who are only briefly involved in the project or only on the periphery, full access for this group is usually unnecessary. To ensure that this group of project participants also receives sufficient information, ProjectNetWorld® will now be offering "temporary links" to relevant documents. For example, this can be used to provide a reprographic services department or printer with relevant print files without having to give them direct access to ProjectNetWorld®. This is an enormous advantage especially for large files, because they usually cannot be sent via e-mail.

Importing/Exporting Schedules (e.g., MS Project, Open Project, Gantt Project)

With this version of ProjectNetWorld®, schedules from MS Project and similar programs can be imported and exported through a newly developed XML interface. Since most scheduling systems are single-user solutions and only a limited number are available to users for cost reasons, the schedule can now be made available to the entire project team – for all projects, at any time, from any location – by importing the corresponding file into ProjectNetWorld®. And by exporting schedules in this manner, they can be archived for future purposes and can be provided to people without platform access.

Photo Preview and Setting Keywords (Tagging)

Another new feature in the area of document management offers you the photo preview and the ability to set document keywords (tagging).
The photo preview allows you to view images at different sizes.

Freely assigning keywords to documents allows documents to be indexed and therefore allows documents with similar content to be grouped.

Personal Photo and Address Description

With this version, you can add a photo to your personal data. And our developers came up with a special goody for you: Google Maps can be used to get a "picture" of where the project participants of your team are located. The addresses entered by project participants are displayed in all versions provided by Google Maps. For questions about this release or the individual features, please contact our Support Team at support@projectnetworld.com. You can get your free 30-day trial to ProjectNetWorld® at https://enw.projectnetworld.com.