News

Leading Australian IT professional services company, Frontline Systems, has implemented a Microsoft Project Server-based EPM system to support its team of 150+ staff – in record time.

Frontline delivers major system integration projects and managed services.  New requirements could not be met by its existing on-line project management.  Specifically these included the ability to track project "Earned Value" (the value of work delivered but not yet invoiced for), to compare historical and future work versus capacity, and to capture resource effort information on project, presales, business-as-usual  and admin time - within a single integrated timesheet.

Frontline engaged EPM Partners to install, configure and deploy the Microsoft EPM solution using EPM Partners’ fixed-scope-for-fixed-price "EPM-in-a-Box" engagement model.  

Due to the decommissioning of the existing system, EPM Partners had just 5 working weeks from the approval of the functional design to delivery of the fully functioning solution into Frontline's production environment.  As a critical business system that triggers customer invoicing, there was no room for error.

EPM partners worked closely with Frontline throughout the project which included a rigorous user acceptance testing stage during which issues were formally raised, tracked and closed to ensure that the solution would fully meet requirements once placed into production.

“The system meets all the requirements specified” says Chris Lafferty, Frontline PMO Director, “EPM partners did a great job in very tight time frames to get this into production” he states. In addition, Michael Chanter, General Manager of Frontline Professional Services, states “This platform enables us to present the executive team with detailed and timely data and analysis on the performance of our Professional Services business ; an essential contribution to the continued success of our business”.  Dan Stopher, EPM Partners’ project manager for the engagement says “Frontline has been a great customer for EPM Partners – they committed to the solution from the outset and worked with EPM Partners to ensure the solution meets requirements.  The tight timeframes were challenging but we hit the target and are delighted with the solution delivered”.

Further reports development work has been undertaken since the January roll-out to further extend capabilities, and a support arrangement has been established to ensure the smooth on-going operation of the solution.