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MAXIMIZING RESOURCES IN DIFFICULT TIMES
Creating Bottom-Line Value with Professional Project Management
Burr Ridge, Ill. (April 22, 2002) -- An 80 percent reduction in new product development time. Savings of $1 million a day by launching a new product on time. Nearly $2 million saved by selecting the right data technology package. A seven-month launch cycle for a major household product.
While these achievements may sound like chapters in the latest business best-seller, they are actually documented results of U.S. companies that augmented internal staff with the professional project management services of Integrated Project Management Company, Inc. (IPM).
Corporate downsizings, a recovering economy, evolving business models and ever-changing customer dynamics give companies good reasons to become more adept at defining their goals and acting more effectively to achieve them. IPM has been helping major corporations in the chemical & petroleum, consumer products, food & beverage, healthcare facilities, and life sciences industries - Pharmacia, Nalco Chemical, S.C. Johnson & Son, Johnson & Johnson, among others - meet and surpass even their toughest business objectives since 1988.
As any veteran of a corporate environment can appreciate, project scopes continually change, schedules are frequently delayed or missed altogether, and budgets are rarely met. Objective, external project managers - highly skilled in their approach - can be just what the company needs.
"We often see internal personnel at companies attempting to manage projects while performing a wholly different job," observes C. Richard Panico, founder and president of IPM. "This is a fundamental misuse of resources and personnel, and often takes talented people away from their core competencies."
Companies that retain IPM come to realize the effectiveness of its dedicated, specialized services. "IPM's skills, together with ours, make a perfect marriage of core competencies," says one Fortune 500 client.
Strategic Services
Traditionally thought of primarily as an engineering function with application to a limited number of business situations, IPM views project management more broadly: as a method of accomplishing any business objective, including such executive-level concerns as strategic planning and new product development. IPM's methodology and active involvement throughout a project's implementation equip companies to clearly define their goals, scope and evaluate the options, align resources, and act on essential tasks, leading to the desired result being achieved on time, on budget, and importantly, on the first attempt.
IPM's services show how project management can apply to business issues typically reserved for business consultants, as well as to more common engineering projects. They include:
- Product Development & Lifecycle Management - IPM helps companies shorten their development timeline through facilitation and redesign of work processes, plus protocols that better enable cross-functional teams to produce.
- Business Process Optimization - IPM helps companies characterize how objectives are being pursued and identifies areas for improvement. Obstacles are addressed and eliminated with new systems and behaviors that ensure every task adds value, leaving a positive footprint on a company's workstyle and culture.
- Strategic Planning & Organizational Alignment - IPM applies business and technical expertise to broaden management's perspective through new considerations relative to performance, profitability, and competitiveness.
- Manufacturing and Chemical Process Analysis & Capital Project Management - IPM is adept at managing production, quality and safety projects, including analyses of production inefficiencies and execution of automation and optimization projects.
- Site, Facilities & Infrastructure Planning & Capital Project Management - IPM's capital plan and development process ensures prudent allocation of dollars and resources; its value-engineering oversight ensures precise execution.
- Information Management & Technology Applications - IPM applies business sense as well as technology expertise to deliver solutions that help companies use information more effectively.
For each and every project managed, IPM documents the value created by its services using both quantitative and qualitative measures. IPM's successes are, by design, substantive, and its range of project management services make the company unique among competitors that typically offer project management as an add-on to primary services, such as engineering.
A Better Than Best-Practice Approach
IPM's singular focus on project management as a core competency has resulted in a refined, copyrighted process, called the Integrated Project Management Method. This is a methodology that goes beyond industry-accepted "best practices." "By the time 'best practices' are established, they are already outdated," says Panico, noting that IPM maintains an internal Knowledge and Process Management Group that continuously improves the company's protocols.
"We firmly believe that competent project management extends well beyond technical proficiency in another field. It should not be treated as an add-on responsibility," he says. "At its essence, project management is the embodiment of proven, repeatable processes and protocols, discipline, and perhaps most importantly, the ability to lead people." Discipline and leadership are formal components of IPM's approach to every project.
Unlike some companies that give little attention to corporate values, IPM's staff believe in and act on uncompromising standards of professionalism, ethical conduct and integrity throughout every engagement.
Companies retain IPM on an individual project or ongoing alliance basis. Its nearly 100 professionals in Burr Ridge, Ill. and St. Louis represent combined business management and technical competencies, effected through education and experience, ranging from engineering to advanced business strategic planning. Although the company's primary target market is the central United States, IPM has managed projects nationwide and goes where its clients need help, including overseas.
New Brochure Describes Company, Services
IPM's professional project management practice is detailed in new, comprehensive literature entitled, "Process. Discipline. Leadership. Results."
The publication encourages a greater appreciation for project management as both a profession and a strategic tool that can impact business performance, profitability and competitiveness. It explains IPM's six service segments and highlights real-world results, as well as describes the Integrated Project Management Method and the metrics IPM uses to assure the value received by clients far outweighs the investment in its services.
The literature also provides overview information about the company's service offerings to the chemical & petroleum, consumer products, food & beverage, healthcare facilities, and life sciences markets, along with a booklet addressing several commons myths about project management.
Editors:
For Further Information, contact:
C. Richard Panico,
President, Integrated Project Management Company, Inc.,
200 S. Frontage Road, Suite 220, Burr Ridge, Ill. 60527.
(630) 789-8600
or
Guy Tichy
IPM Communications Representative
(630) 289-4647
