Behind the Scenes at CAE: How Planisware Transformed Project Management

In the fast-paced world of global technology, CAE stands tall as a powerhouse. Specializing in software-based simulation training and critical operations support solutions for aviation and defense & security, they’ve made it their mission to enhance safety, efficiency, and effectiveness in these high-stakes industries.

Meet Daniel Normand, CAE’s Senior Project Manager, a man who’s seen it all in the realm of aerospace and defense. He’s been at the forefront of CAE’s journey, sharing how Planisware, the integrated project portfolio management tool, revolutionized their project management landscape.

Challenges?  Oh, Plenty!

Before the Planisware era, CAE faced a monthly ordeal known as the EAC Review (estimate at completion). Picture this: juggling financial data from various systems, none of which played nice with the others. The result? A data extraction dance that felt more like a circus act. Not to mention the tedious double-entry process, an open invitation for discrepancies to crash the party. All of this was neatly assembled in the dreaded Excel spreadsheets.

Daniel vividly remembers the Excel days and laughs, “We eventually grew out of the Excel capabilities and had to move to a database format to be able to maintain that size of data. It was also due to the complexity of the manipulation. It was very error-prone and labor intensive.”

“We’d wrap up one cycle and start the next one right away,” he adds. That relentless cycle often led to errors and frantic last-minute fixes, with deadlines looming like storm clouds.

“But wait, there’s more!” Daniel continues. “We had separate scheduling tools and resource loading tools that were completely independent of that data set.”

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