Energy
Accelerating Project Throughput in Global Chemicals: From Gate-Lock to Flow
Primary Area
Data Delivery & Transformation
Service Area
Project Management Process
Products Used
Project Online
Roles Impacted
Portfolio Managers, Program Managers, Project Managers
Impact Highlight
Administrative touchpoints per project cut by ~50%
Opportunity
A global chemical producer’s Project Management organization was spending months pushing “small” capital and maintenance projects through a maze of outdated, duplicative approval gates that rarely changed scope or risk. Recognizing the drag on capital efficiency, leadership treated the bottleneck as an opportunity to modernize governance, right-size controls, and free teams to deliver faster.
Pain Points:
Average cycle time for low-to-medium impact projects routinely exceeded thresholds due to a multitude of sequential approval gates, many redundant.
Legacy tool sprawl: on‑prem Microsoft Project Server 2013, Excel stage‑gate trackers, and email-based approvals created version conflicts and re-keying.
Inconsistent templates and data definitions across regions prevented portfolio roll‑ups and obscured true project risk vs. spend.
Approval routing varied by plant and by project manager, driving rework, audit findings, and stalled handoffs between Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contractors.
Limited reporting — static PowerPoint status packs assembled manually — meant leaders made funding decisions on stale data.
Solution
Our consultants partnered with the client to align stakeholders on “minimum viable governance,” map risk‑based gate criteria, and sunset redundant approvals—advancing the organization’s vision while grounding every change in hard requirements from compliance and operations. The team then implemented an integrated Microsoft cloud solution—Project Online as the portfolio backbone, extended with Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI—to standardize data, automate workflow, and surface real‑time insights.
People | Process | Technology:
Facilitated cross‑functional workshops (PMO, Engineering, EHS, Finance, IT) to define tiered project classes and required artifacts by risk level; reduced mandatory approvals for low‑risk work orders.
Decommissioned legacy Microsoft Project Server 2013 instance; migrated active schedules and metadata into Project Online with standardized enterprise calendars, cost codes, and resource pools.
Integrated external EPC Primavera P6 schedules via scheduled data sync so milestone actuals feed Project Online without manual re-entry.
Built a Power Apps project intake form that enforces data standards, auto‑classifies project risk tier, and launches preconfigured schedules/templates.
Automated conditional approval routing in Power Automate (e.g., EHS signoff only when regulatory triggers present) and captured full audit trails in SharePoint Online lists.
Published self‑service portfolio, gate health, and cycle‑time variance dashboards in Power BI, embedding in Microsoft Teams channels used by construction teams.
Established governance playbooks and role‑based training so site coordinators and PMs adopt consistent practices; embedded inline guidance within forms to “realize requirements” at data entry.
Impact
With redundant gates removed and automated routing in place, construction teams now execute governed projects in Project Online with clear data lineage from intake through closeout. Decision makers see live portfolio health and can release funds earlier, cutting administrative drag and enabling faster maintenance turnarounds.
Results:
Streamlined project management processes for construction teams: median cycle time down ~30% across low/medium projects after go‑live; administrative touchpoints per project cut by ~50%.
Portfolio‑wide modernization of convoluted workflows: 30% faster completion for small capital projects after risk‑based gating and automation; >50% of historic approval steps eliminated where non‑value‑adding.
Single source of truth: active projects now originate through standardized Power Apps intake, improving data validity in required fields.
Automated audit trail reduced compliance review prep from weeks to days.
Executive dashboards refreshed daily in Power BI replaced manual slide decks; monthly portfolio review prep time reduced across PMO analysts.