Fulcrum Business Solutions, one of SA`s leading enterprise project management (EPM) solution providers, has delivered a Microsoft-based EPM solution for Nissan South Africa, supplier of quality vehicles to the South African market.
Currently Nissan enjoys almost 10% of the total South African vehicle market with a comprehensive range of passenger cars, light, medium and heavy commercial vehicles and its recreational and other specialised vehicles. To meet its objective of significantly growing its market share, Nissan South Africa is currently engaged in a dynamic programme of new model introductions.
In the manufacturing arena, Nissan is undoubtedly a leader as the first South African motor company to achieve the internationally recognised ISO 9001 and subsequent 14001 quality certification from the SABS in all its plants. All production lines are highly automated to ensure consistent quality and all phases of the assembly process make extensive use of computerisation for tracking, quality standards and vehicle testing. Nissan South Africa also holds two national productivity gold awards for productivity advancement.
Nissan`s project management processes was not as advanced with the bulk of project planning taking place in spreadsheets subsequently hampering collaboration on projects.
Fulcrum Business Solutions was tasked with delivering an EPM solution for Nissan GIS (Group Information Systems) that would give the IT division more control of projects, a better financial view of investment across projects and a centralised overview of project progress. Nissan South Africa utilises Microsoft technologies extensively and therefore the implementation of the Microsoft-based EPM solution for the team of 10 project managers and some 30 team users was easily planned and implemented in under six months.
The project is currently in a mentoring and support phase, with the intention on extending the solution to other areas of the business.
Nissan is also evaluating a number of third-party extensions that Fulcrum provides through partners. One of these is EPK-Portfolio which adds additional project portfolio management tools to align portfolio items with corporate objectives. Fulcrum has also recently completed the successful integration of Six Sigma into an EPM solution, another area which may benefit Nissan from a manufacturing perspective going forward.
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