FLSmidth & Co. is a Danish engineering company based in Copenhagen, Denmark. With almost 11.700 employees worldwide, it provides global cement and mineral industries with factories, machinery, services and know-how.
With FLSmidth’s global operations essentially being a large Project Business, and with a lot of varying tools and solutions for Project and Portfolio Management practices being in place, the Department of Global Strategic Supplier Management set out to find a holistic and user-friendly solution for Work, Project & Portfolio Management matters. Being introduced to the Microsoft Power Platform they saw great potential in the combination of the platform together with the new Microsoft Project for the Web.
As FLSmidth had already conducted a few pilots with the creation of canvas-driven Microsoft Power Apps for individual business needs, and the Microsoft Dynamics platform being an integrated part of business processes, a model-driven Microsoft Power App was the logical next step to explore. Together with the longtime Microsoft Partner Projectum, FLSmidth chose Power PPM for future Project & Portfolio best practices.
Power PPM is built with an integration to Microsoft Project for the web directly in the cockpit, as well as Microsoft Power BI for project and portfolio reports and dashboards.
user experience, and that the solution also works with the rest of the Dynamics 365 platform. Also, a best-in-class performance should be the target. Soon, the right data entities were established, and a simple, yet user-friendly UI was agreed on. Because of the underlying Dataverse, the solution showed a fast performance and responsiveness. Further, the solution got the right “project portal” experience, by adding a few work areas from a front page, such as Portfolio Overview, Program Execution, PPM Insights, and Project Planning.
As Microsoft Project for the web is also based on a dataverse backbone, Project for the web has been embedded into the PowerPPM solution as the engine for Project Execution. Project for the web enables a modern work management experience, of working in a traditional waterfall mode or Agile Kanban board.
Out-of-the box custom controls, available in the model-drive Power Apps platform, enables a “live” responsiveness on individual pages, contributing greatly to a user-friendly experience. Another way to enhance the user experience, are custom visuals that can be applied on any page. In this case, the classic risk register has received a great overhaul, allowing for individual visuals – again, allowing for real time visualizations, and enhancing the experience of project participants working with the platform.
As a model-driven Power App, Power PPM has been embedded in Microsoft Teams, and supports FLSmidth’s desire to transform the organization into a modern workplace. The Teams integration allows individuals to collaborate seamlessly across unites and roles.
As Microsoft Power BI is a leading reporting technology in many independent vendor studies, FLSmidth already uses Power BI extensively. As Power BI is also a part of Power Platform, there is an extensive value-add gained by having Project and Portfolio dashboards displayed inside the Power PPM solution.
"Power PPM provides best-practice Portfolio capabilities and coupled with excellent planning features of Microsoft Project for the Web, the solution provides a best-in-class ecosystem for modern PPM.”
Morten Noergaard Nielsen, Global Strategic Supplier Management
