Our client is a leading U.S.-based firm that specializes in X-ray or E-beam sterilization and an R&D innovation center. The client provides on-demand sterilization, microbiology, cross-linking, and expert consultative services to the medical devices, biotech, pharmaceutical, tissue products, and allied industries. They approached us with a requirement to improve their project management efficiency.

The client was experiencing challenges in handling project workflows and task status updates efficiently. These included:

• Manually starting and closing projects, leading to delays and inconsistency in tracking the status.
• Having to calculate the end date of the project using the remaining hours of all tasks not yet completed, starting from a particular date.
• Inability to identify the days a project was delayed, as well as whether it was completed ahead of the promised deadline.
• Having to update the parent task status manually whenever child tasks are updated.
• Keeping track of the total days a project was delayed.

The client needed automation and enhancements to their project management to improve their operational efficiency.

Following a detailed analysis of the client's requirements, our expert team proposed custom NetSuite project management solutions to make their project and task associated processes more streamlined and manual error-free:

One-Click Project Management:

• We introduced user-friendly controls that allow users to start or end a project or task with a single click.
• These actions update the corresponding statuses and dates automatically, facilitating easy project execution.

Smarter Deadline Calculation:

• Enabled the automatic calculation of a project’s likely end date based on the progress/remaining hours of pending tasks.
• Provided exclusion of weekends from the calculation.
• Also facilitated easy comparison of planned and actual deadlines, making stakeholders immediately aware if the project is on track, delayed, or ahead of schedule.

Project Delay Calculation:

• Designed a special functionality and formula to show how many days a project was delayed, making sure the results were precise by excluding weekends.
• By comparing the calculated end date with the promised or actual deadline, it became possible to determine if a project was delayed or finished earlier accordingly.

Automated Task Status Updates:

• Automated the status update of parent tasks based on the changes to child tasks. Regardless of whether or not the parent task is initiated, any child task within the project can be initiated by the user.
• Synchronization of project start dates with the start of child tasks ensured that task hierarchies stayed consistent and project timelines remained accurate.

Every implementation comes with its own set of challenges. The client initially requested straight date difference calculations for any project. It was during the rigorous testing from our side that our team discovered this would lead to inconsistencies, as the weekends would also be calculated along with the weekdays. This led to the initial need to be altered to exclude the weekends when calculating the project duration.

Lacking a predefined formula from the client’s end, our developers created a custom formula to satisfy this demand. Verifying the exclusion of the weekends and compatibility with the already available functionality added extra challenges.

Our custom solution successfully dealt with the client's issues and enabled them to benefit from:

Improved Efficiency: Button-click options eliminated inconsistencies and manual errors in project and task status updates. The client no longer has to handle the status updates manually. Automation of the operational processes streamlined project initiation and completion processes.

Accurate Date Calculations: Custom fields and equations implemented ensured correct computation of days of the projects and the associated tasks, as well as the delays that any task or project encounters, excluding weekends.

Improved Task Management: Automated synchronization of the date and status of the parent and child tasks cuts down on manual labor, thus saving time.

Key Achievements

• Reduced the risk of manual errors in project and task status updates by 80%.
• Streamlined workflows, drastically minimizing the time spent by the employees on manual processes.
• Improved the efficiency of project management.
• Excluded the weekends from project hour calculation, thereby efficiently improving the accuracy in project management timelines.

Our custom NetSuite enhancements have offered a solid platform for the client to effectively monitor their project workflows. These solutions are scalable for deployment in other industries, demonstrating the flexibility of our approach. The client is now better positioned to deal with projects more accurately and efficiently, meeting deadlines as well as optimizing resource allocation.

Looking for similar project management enhancements? Our expert team is here to assist you with tailored NetSuite solutions that drive efficiency and accuracy! Connect with us to streamline your workflows and boost operational efficiency. Contact us now!