bs one – the ‘Single Point of Truth’ for high-precision mechanical engineering projects at LT Ultra

Seamless project management for the entire team—from project kickoff to completion!

Highly complex mechanical engineering projects with demanding documen­tation require­ments, imple­men­tation timelines of one to three years, and devel­opment teams of 5 to 30 employees from different departments—who are simul­ta­ne­ously working on other projects—place enormous demands on project management.

At LT Ultra, bs one—the digital workplace—not only ensures that these require­ments are supported in a lean and efficient IT-driven manner. From project planning to completion, all tasks are inter­con­nected, all project-relevant infor­mation is available centrally, and project reporting and time tracking are always precise and up-to-date.

Unexpected, but very successful!
After a long search, we found the right project management tool!

For years, LT Ultra had been searching for a solution to manage, admin­ister, and document their extensive devel­opment projects—which often span several years—seamlessly from planning to completion. The solution needed to be lean and simple, including precise time tracking. At the same time, the mid-term, inevitable transition to Microsoft Share­Point was on the horizon. The recom­men­dation to use bs one from baliosoft came from the long-standing IT partner, Scherr IT, who was confident that the complex struc­tures, workflows, and documen­tation of LT Ultra projects could be efficiently repre­sented in bs one.

Initially somewhat skeptical, the team around Philip Hartmann became convinced after the first presen­ta­tions and evalu­a­tions, and decided to implement bs one. In the first phase, the focus was on project management, project reporting, and time tracking—closely linked with the essential document management required for these processes.

One of the challenges was meeting the diverse needs of all project partic­i­pants. Whether project managers, designers, execu­tives, or production staff—each user group has its own tasks and workflows, which were repre­sented within the bs one: digital workplace. According to the COO, this resulted in a complex system that fully connects tasks, processing times, and documents while consis­tently adhering to LT Ultra’s security policies.

Project planning continues to be carried out in Microsoft Project. The work packages and tasks recorded there are trans­ferred to bs one in phases through a semi-automated process and assigned to the respective team members. Associated documents are also linked. In the production area, employees log in using their personnel numbers and record time directly against the current task. For this purpose, the time-tracking function­ality in bs one: uplift has been equipped with a simplified interface specif­i­cally for production staff. Writing down hours—the whole paper-based process with its inherent inaccuracies—is now a thing of the past. Thanks to precise time tracking, the team knows exactly where effort is being spent—even for post-project support—making sales calcu­la­tions much easier.

In batches—carried out over weekends to avoid opera­tional disruptions—Scherr IT is now migrating project data from the past 30 years into bs one. The bs one: fileserver analysis had already uncovered key pitfalls before the migration, allowing them to be addressed and ensuring a largely smooth data transfer. After the migration of high-priority projects, all approx­i­mately 4,000 projects will be gradually trans­ferred to establish a single point of truth in project management.

Our success in project management has confirmed that choosing bs one was the right decision. After completing the migration, we will work together with baliosoft and Scherr IT to further expand the use of bs one at LT Ultra. We still see signif­icant potential to be leveraged. Of course, the new environment is different from the familiar Explorer-based world, and naturally there are some drawbacks or surprises. While Share­Point brings many advan­tages, it also requires consid­erable adaptation in certain areas. In these cases, baliosoft has always provided excellent guidance and, when necessary, quickly offered solutions to prevent frustration among employees. “The fact that Mr. Scherr’s team is so experi­enced with Share­Point solutions was a real benefit for us,” Philip Hartmann summa­rizes the experience at LT Ultra so far.