A Thousand Projects — One Software

The Blum company from Vorarlberg specializes in the manufacture and sale of furniture fittings. The main product groups are flap, hinge, pull-out and pocket systems. For managing and planning their projects in the areas of product development, IT, marketing and production technology, Blum relies on PLANTA software.

In 2024, the software system was updated to the latest PLANTA version using a comprehensive greenfield approach. PLANTA project was seamlessly integrated with the SAP project system (SAP PS) back in 2017 and remains a central element of the software platform. It ensures that the entire project planning and resource management in the company is optimally supported. This involves almost 1000 projects with an average duration of 2.5 years.

Application Area of the Software

The diverse areas of application of the software include project and resource management in research and development, in product and plant engineering as well as the management of product and investment projects and support for production engineering. The company also uses the project management system to plan IT and marketing projects as well as departmental planning (basic loads in collective projects). The Blum Group employs 9300 people worldwide, 6600 of them in Vorarlberg Around 500 employees work with the PLANTA project system.

Objectives of Using the PLANTA Software

Blum introduced the PLANTA software to achieve strategic goals in company-wide project management:

Uniform and consistent project planning and monitoring
Improved resource planning through precise control and distribution of capacities
Integration of project management tools with the SAP project system
Increased transparency and control over all ongoing projects
Comprehensive reporting and analysis of project progress to support management

Implemented PLANTA products and customizations

In addition to the core product for planning and controlling projects, PLANTA project, PLANTA link is also used for interface integration via web services with SAP PS. The system enables customer-specific adaptations to company processes. In the course of the introduction of the components, the Austrians created a series of customizations, such as adaptations for interfaces, display of different department views and dynamic groupings, in order to adapt the standard software to their own specific requirements.

Integration mit SAP und abgestimmter Workflow

The integration of PLANTA project and SAP PS enables the company to plan project data centrally in the software and then refine it further in SAP. The data is transferred in real time via specially developed interfaces, including Python integration, and made available for various applications. Planned and actual data from SAP is displayed at resource level in PLANTA project. This complete data integration ensures smooth synchronization between the systems and leads to a coordinated workflow. Everyone involved has access to up-to-date and precise information at all times.

Use cases and development over the years

Since the introduction of the first software version in 1996, its use has developed continuously. PLANTA project was successfully used in multi-project management back in 2002 to standardize plant and product development. With the current update to the latest release, Blum has once again focused more on the standard of the software. Returning to the standard brought a number of advantages:

Improved performance: Blum has removed the adaptations that are no longer required, thereby significantly improving the system speed and response time.
Facilitated maintenance: Standardized systems are easier to maintain, as fewer special adaptations must be taken into account. Updates, bug fixes, etc. can now be implemented more quickly.
Cost efficiency: Costs (resources, capacities, etc.) are significantly reduced since fewer individual adjustments are required.
Stability and reliability: Removing redundant modules and data that could potentially lead to instability creates a more reliable system.
Easier training and documentation: More proximity to the standard makes it easier for all users to use the online help.

Multi-Project Management with a Large Number of Projects

The Vorarlberg-based family business currently plans and manages a large number of different projects in their various departments, amounting to around 1000 projects company-wide. There are many interdependencies between the projects that must be visualized by the software and managed as efficiently as possible. The project management system is an invaluable aid when it comes to reliably calculating the impact on project deadlines alone. On average, 27 activities are scheduled per project with 70 resource assignments and 15 relationships, i.e. dependencies on other activities. The average project runtime is 2.5 years. Efficiency in managing these dependencies is not only noticeable in terms of adherence to deadlines, but also when it comes to adhering to the costs of planned projects.

Transparency and Flexibility

The introduction and ongoing further development of the software has led to an improvement in project management for the user. The scalable project system can be adapted to the size and complexity of a wide range of projects and is therefore suitable for both small and large projects. Thanks to detailed resource planning in multi-project management, seamless integration with SAP PS and increased transparency across all projects, Blum has not only gained efficiency, but also managed to optimize their project management processes.
In view of the future, the company is already evaluating the use of additional modules to take strategic portfolio planning to a new level. This development makes it clear that well-integrated and flexibly adapted project management software can make a major contribution to the successful management of projects — regardless of their size or complexity.