The Challenge
The Global Wind Service (GWS), a leading partner for wind turbine installation around the world, was looking to invest in a tool that complements its large-scale expansion. Until recently, GWS relied on several manually updated Excel sheets to coordinate its 500 technicians in high-sales business. Even though Microsoft Excel is a powerful piece of technology, the management were unable to gain a real-time view of resources or a clear picture of engineer allocation across all projects.
It doesn’t force users to keep it up to date, allowing unintended mistakes to creep in.It’s difficult to enforce a single template, which makes consolidation and collaboration difficult.You cannot easily gain a real-time view of the ‘truth’ across all business units.Information silos and lack of real-time data due to the use of Excel for resource management.As each team used its own project management spreadsheet, managers were unable to gain real-time visibility into the resources or allocate competent engineers across all projects. Thus, decision-makers found it difficult to align projects to sales activities, and to forecast resource requirements in advance
“ We had 15 project managers and 10 supporting staff members who required a view of how our various projects were scheduled. ”
- John Kamphorst, co-founder and project manager at GWS
About Global Wind Service (GWS)
Established in Denmark in 2008, Global Wind Service (GWS) installs and maintains onshore and offshore wind turbines and has an enviable clientele of multinationals from across the world.
The company has grown quickly in these years, thanks to the many public and private organizations that continue to look for environmentally friendly methods to generate energy. Among the teams that have grown are the technical teams that consist of over 500 engineers across Europe.
The Solution
GWS needed an easy-to-install, purpose-built resource management solution that could be adapted to meet the organization's unique resource scheduling requirements.
In the second half of 2015, GWS simplified and accelerated its approach by deploying Saviom Resource Planning.
The tool not only replaced spreadsheets but also gave the organization forecasting maturity and intuitive insights. This advanced tool brought a standardized approach to engineer allocation and helped the organization efficiently plan, schedule and manage their workforce
In this case, some engineers had over 30 certifications that would determine their suitability for different projects. Saviom’s up-to-date skill matrix enabled them to update niche personnel qualifications in real-time and improve skill matches for projects. Further, the firm gained enhanced control over resource capacity planning measures and was able to perfect its demand forecasting and staff scheduling processes.
Finally, Saviom worked closely with GWS to implement the solution and get it up and running in the shortest possible time.
Result: 20% more projects are completed with 10% fewer technicians
By early 2016, Global Wind Service bid goodbye to many Excel spreadsheets and whiteboards and for the first time, they welcomed a single, unified view of its resources.
Saviom Resource Planning was deployed with little disruption to GWS’s existing planning and working practices. As a result, all project teams now have clear visibility and project managers can forecast and schedule resources for upcoming jobs.
Moreover, Global Wind Service found that after just six months it was running approximately 10-20% more projects with 10% fewer technicians. At least no technicians were sitting at home any more due to being under the radar of the OPS staff, which increased efficiency significantly.
After a couple of months, people realized that things were running smoothly. We all felt much less frustrated,
Key Takeaways
Saviom Enterprise Resource Management Software is designed to give businesses complete visibility into upcoming project demand, thereby making it a specialist resource management solution.
“Saviom Resource Planning offers the perfect price vs. quality balance. What is also really helpful for us is Saviom’s fast response time when it comes to modifications and sorting out issues specific to Global Wind Service.“
From its dedicated utilization and capacity vs. demand reports to its sophisticated, multi-functional advanced filters that let you sift through an extensive database, each of Saviom’s features has been diligently designed to cater to the needs of today’s competitive businesses.
“As a project manager, I feel we have much greater control of the booking and planning process. We started to have the right discussions on a managerial level about how to deal with things such as capacity and demand, as well as how to solve problems and support our management.“
Built to engineer efficiency, Saviom’s customer-centricity and quick turnaround time are other factors that attract organizations like GWS to its flagship ERM tool.
