Engineering intelligence

The slogan ‘Engineering intelligence’ is a perfect reflection of what the Dutch IT company Cadmes stands for: using proven technologies such as CAD and CAM to contribute to the optimisation of production processes with industrial companies. After years of strong growth, the company also committed to internally raising project planning and resource management to a higher level. A demonstration of the software application ionBIZ convinced Cadmes to work with the Mechelen-based software company ionProjects.

Cadmes has 95 employees spread across the Netherlands and Belgium. As a prominent reseller of SOLIDWORKS, the company delivers advanced solutions for the design, engineering and automation of production processes—from 3D CAD and CAM to PDM. Cadmes services range from one- or two-day consultancy assignments to projects with implementation trajectories that last anything from a few weeks to longer than a year.

Matching resources with skillsets

After a period of strong growth, the investment in professional project- and resource-planning software appeared to be unavoidable: ‘Leading our resource planning in the right direction was our most important challenge. It had to take place in a multi-company environment with dozens of projects; our software at the time had become a bit too small for our needs,’ says Jeroen Monster, Quality & Process Improvement Manager at Cadmes.

Resources with specific areas of expertise are used for diverse activities: from pre-sales trajectories to consultancy and support. ‘The challenge for us was in employing resources with various skillsets for a great diversity of tasks within the project. That would have allowed us to make optimal use of our resources,’ explains Jeroen Monster.

Adapted to the wishes of the client

A few years ago, Cadmes came into contact with ionProjects from Mechelen. The software company had convinced Cadmes of their  value when they showed flexibility in responding to a request from Cadmes to add new functionalities to the package.

Jeroen Monster: ‘It quickly became clear that they would immediately listen to our wishes and adapt the solution wherever necessary; we really appreciated that.’

Business intelligence across all projects

Today, ionBIZ has proven to Cadmes that they are perfect for taking these complex tasks on. They successfully lead dozens of projects in the right direction at the same time. Thanks to the retrieval possibilities, the Project Managers maintain control over the status of every project.

Jeroen Monster: ‘It’s not enough to follow up one project; as a company, you need to maintain an overview of all projects.’

Better insight and direction

Today, employees at Cadmes fill in their timesheets digitally and immediately record their performances on the right project. A digital approval trajectory in ionBIZ ensures that errors or delays caused by double data input are definitively relegated to the past.

Jeroen Monster: ‘Gaining approval of the Cadmes staff was a challenge that we couldn’t underestimate.’

Consultants themselves get an excellent view of the tasks that are allocated to them. They can also easily look at the documents belonging to their projects, so there is no time lost searching for the right document.

The use of the module for Issue Management in the project phase also contributes to a smoother delivery.

Future connection to external systems

Jeroen Monster does not believe ionBIZ will end up isolated at Cadmes. He is aiming for future integration with other applications that are used in the company. For example, the export of timesheets to a financial solution.