Sun Chemical rolls out project management software

The largest global supplier of printing inks for graphic arts and pigments, Sun Chemical, has revealed its successful adoption of new project management software in key regions.

With a turnover of $3.5 billion (1.72bn), Sun Chemical has consolidated its management of diverse projects and portfolios on a single, centralised system, eliminating a variety of non-integrated, management systems across different sites, including some that were paper and spreadsheet-based.

Sun Chemical has implemented a customised global project and portfolio management system, based on GenSight Enterprise Portfolio Management 7.0 to capture research and development (R&D) project information and business data accessible by appropriate technical and multifunctional European and North America staff.

Robin Clarke, Sun Chemical technology process manager said getting the right project and portfolio management software was vital for the company. "This tool allows us to link the business value of projects with strategy, resources and specific project deliverables," he said.

"We have many simultaneous and complex projects and need visibility across these activities for the functional stakeholders who are located at diverse sites. Since going live, we have full visibility of our global R&D effort, which has allowed us to avoid duplicity and optimise project selection, while deploying and linking resources much more efficiently."

He added that, for the first time, the company could now view resource allocation dynamically. Strategic decisions and planning are now based on a real-time global database of projects, while permissions and security restrictions maintain higher levels of governance.

Clarke also said the system's web-based reporting means "stakeholders can now sign-off projects from any location at any time".

"This has opened up our link to other functions that play a key role in project management, such as purchasing, our environmental group, marketing and manufacturing," he said.

Dr Cynthia Arnold, Sun Chemical chief technology officer, added: "We were deeply involved in trialling the new [GenSight] version, which was configured to meet our specific needs and were impressed by its functionality, project visibility and improved management capability."

She added: "We have implemented the system for our central development projects and trained users across Europe and North America. Having global project coordination supported by an easy-to-use tool aligned to our management enables us to maintain our competitive leadership."