Chapter 14 Managing Projects 575
INTERACTIVE SESSION: TECHNOLOGY
Hilti AG: Putting Things Together with New Project Management Tools
Let’s say you want to dig a really big train tunnel,
one that’s 57 kilometers long, and which connects
the German- and Italian-speaking regions of Swit-
zerland, from Erstfeld in the north to Bodio in the
south. It will have almost no gradient, meaning that
trains can travel through the tunnel at speeds of
up to 250 kilometers per hour. The tracks need to
be anchored to a concrete bed, and the cable ducts
attached directly to the walls of a huge mountain
called the Saint Gotthard Massif. Just ten kilometers
of cabling will require 30,000 holes in the mountain
and five million fasteners to secure the rails for the
floor. Oh, and another 900,000 mechanical fasteners
will be needed to connect the rail sections. Over 150
hammer drills and 700 batteries will be needed to
drill the holes for the required high-strength fasten-
ers. The rails need to be laid and secured within a
millimeter over the entire length. Two thousand and
six hundred employees will be involved daily, most
of whom will need access to timely and accurate
information and project plans. This is the challenge
of the Gotthard Base Tunnel, the world’s longest rail-
way tunnel and Switzerland’s most expensive public
works project ever. One solution was to hire Hilti
AG.
Hilti AG company was founded in 1941, in Schaan,
the Principality of Liechtenstein, by brothers Marint
and Eugen Hilti, to provide components to German
manufacturers. After 1946 the company transitioned
into fasteners and tools for the construction industry.
Today, Hilti is one of the world’s largest producers of
construction industry fasteners and hammer drills,
and it has expanded into new products like laser
measuring devices, systems that integrate construc-
tion data for contractors, software to estimate project
requirements, and customized project management
services for the professional construction and energy
industries. Hilti now has 26,000 employees in 20
countries on six continents and the company is pri-
vately held by the Hilti Family Trust. In 2016 Hilti
generated €4.3 billion, and had net revenues of €448
million.
Helping its customers manage complex projects,
Hilti generates over 200,000 customer contacts each
day. In the past it relied on Microsoft Project Profes-
sional for each customer project, built largely on
Excel spreadsheets. With thousands of Excel spread-
sheets for each project and thousands of projects,
the result was an opaque process with little com-
munication among project managers and employ-
ees in addition to the inability to track employee
assignments, resources, capabilities, and costs. Hilti
needed a project portfolio management tool (PPM)
that would look at all on-going projects as well as for
day-to-day tasks for specific projects. It also needed
an integrated communications environment for proj-
ect participants to share project-specific information.
At the same time, management did not want to make
a huge investment in IT infrastructure or implement
a costly training program typical of customized soft-
ware solutions.
To deliver these capabilities, Hilti turned to Micro-
soft Project Online, a cloud-based solution, to man-
age portfolios of projects for senior managers, and
to provide employees with access to specific project
data on a daily basis. Working with a consulting firm,
Hilti defined the information requirements for each
department and created standardized project tem-
plates that reflect standard activities, tasks, and mile-
stones as well as security procedures governing user
permissions and version controls. Tasks are assigned
to individuals, and every assignment has a list of
resources, a completion date, and resource require-
ments. With a company-wide project portfolio
perspective, senior managers can see what projects
the company is engaged in and what resources are
required. When the implementation is completed,
Hiliti estimates that over 10,000 of its employees will
use the system daily to track projects for itself and
for its customers. In the future, employees will use
tablets and smartphones to access the system.
Project Online is delivered as a part of Microsoft
Office 365, which provides all the familiar Micro-
soft apps like email, calendaring, collaboration, the
collaboration software SharePoint, as well as Word,
Excel, and PowerPoint. The cloud solution meant
the company did not have to expand its own IT infra-
structure, and employees were already trained in
Office 365. There was no need for monthly upgrades
to software and hardware, maintenance, or compat-
ibility issues among different software tools. The
benefits to Hilti include the ability to manage com-
plex projects for its customers, company-wide project
portfolio management, reduced communication and
travel costs, much faster decision making, and pro-
ductivity improvements. Whereas in the past project
576 Part Four Building and Managing Systems

team members would spend 30 minutes searching
for project information, that time has been reduced
to 10 minutes on average, a saving of more than 75
hours a year for every project participant.
Sources: “Trimble and the Hilti Group Delivers Integrated Solutions
for Construction Professionals,” Bloomberg.com, November 10,
2016; “2016 Hilti Company Report,” http://www.hilti-companyre-
port.com; “Construction Manufacturer Employs Cloud Service to
Streamline Project Management,” Microsoft Case Studies, January
13, 2015.

CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

1. What were the management, organization, and
technology issues that Hilti needed to address
when considering a new approach to project
management?
2. Why did Hilti choose the Microsoft Project Online
technology
3. Why did Hilti want to standardize the project man-
agement process throughout its entire company?
4. What do you think were the four most important
benefits of the solution Hilti adopted?

Designing for the Organization

Because the purpose of a new system is to improve the organization’s perfor-
mance, information systems projects must explicitly address the ways in which
the organization will change when the new system is installed, including instal-
lation of mobile and web applications. In addition to procedural changes, trans-
formations in job functions, organizational structure, power relationships, and
the work environment should be carefully planned.
Areas where users interface with the system require special attention, with
sensitivity to ergonomics issues. Ergonomics refers to the interaction of people
and machines in the work environment. It considers the design of jobs, health
issues, and the end-user interface of information systems. Table 14.5 lists the
organizational dimensions that must be addressed when planning and imple-
menting information systems.
Although systems analysis and design activities are supposed to include an
organizational impact analysis, this area has traditionally been neglected. An
organizational impact analysis explains how a proposed system will affect
organizational structure, attitudes, decision making, and operations. To inte-
grate information systems successfully with the organization, thorough and
fully documented organizational impact assessments must be given more atten-
tion in the development effort.

Sociotechnical Design
One way of addressing human and organizational issues is to incorporate
sociotechnical design practices into information systems projects. Design-
ers set forth separate sets of technical and social design solutions. The social
design plans explore different workgroup structures, allocation of tasks, and
the design of individual jobs. The proposed technical solutions are compared