Case Study · Southern Wind

Project management tool for complex products

How Southern Wind improves project planning with Structr

Customer

Southern Wind Shipyards (Pty) Ltd.

Industry

Shipbuilding

Country

South Africa/Germany

Project planning at Southern Wind: swimlane view with filters and the construction phases of two yachts over the project timeline

Structr use case

Southern Wind & Structr

Since its founding in 1991, SWS has specialised in building high-performance luxury superyachts. Every project in the shipyard's history has led to successful small series, each of which has helped in its own way to consolidate SWS's excellent reputation in the yachting industry.

Over the years, investment in research, product development and the latest design techniques has been decisive for SWS's technological innovation.

As a result, the shipyard is completely self-sufficient in every aspect of yacht production, from lamination and steel construction to joinery, painting and interior fitting.

Key highlights

Highly complex product with many components

External factors and a high degree of customisation demand great flexibility

Integrating large amounts of data from heterogeneous sources into one system

Records in Excel lists with partly different names but overlapping content

Challenge

A major challenge for this customer lay in the products themselves: a yacht alone is so complex that it involves a comparatively large number of materials and requirements.

As soon as the word "luxury" comes up, it is clear that this is a product far beyond the ordinary. And as if the complexity were not enough, SWS offers the discerning buyers of such a luxury yacht the opportunity to equip their boat according to their own individual wishes. Above all, these individual ideas are in no way predictable and demand the utmost flexibility and openness from both the project team and the underlying planning tool.

Besides the bill of materials itself, project planning and coordination between the people responsible – who is in charge of which part or section, which steps exactly are required and when what has to be finished – are a fundamental challenge.

To manage the data, which until then had mainly been kept in Excel files, efficiently and in a connected way on one platform throughout the entire project phase, the shipbuilder SWS was looking for a new, flexible solution for its project management.

The scalability and speed of graph technology, combined with the advantages of a low-code platform, convinced the company of Structr.

Overall, the big challenge in this project was cleaning up the data model. Until then, the data had been scattered across several sources such as Excel spreadsheets, emails and other software systems, and was sometimes even labelled differently within a single source. For example, the people responsible were stored in different files under their first names, full names or abbreviated names, which ultimately led to multiple records when the data was merged. As a first step, it was therefore necessary to agree on a common format so that related data could be clearly identified as such.

Strategy

From the outset of this project it was clear that agility would matter more than time. The new software was introduced in Southern Wind's various departments at different speeds and with different requirements. This variability allowed Structr to make effective use of its strengths in agile software development.

The graphical representation of the Structr schema was an important aid during the definition phase. It allowed the customer to visualise how the data had previously been mapped across various Excel files, even without extensive development skills. This visualisation helped to identify and eliminate redundant or illogical data entries. As a result, all "problem cases" could be quickly removed or resolved. In addition, this approach made it easier to identify new use cases for the connected data, further increasing its value.

Solution

Southern Wind thus received a new, graph-based project management tool that is centrally available to all employees as a shared resource pool (single source of truth). The data is stored without redundancy on the basis of graph technology and is available in real time. The tool includes a clear and accessible overview of responsibilities and phases in each project. Interactive dashboards can visualise the projects down to the smallest detail and are available to the entire project team.

To retrieve the roadmap and targeted information, e.g. on deadlines, process steps and responsibilities, Structr allows lists and swimlane charts to be filtered and sorted to create an individual view of the data and quickly find relevant items. Changes to time or responsibility planning can also be made directly, taking all consequences into account. No programming skills are required.

With regard to employee workload, the Structr tool makes it possible to visualise not only an overview but also a forecast of capacity utilisation, so that bottlenecks can be identified in good time. Employees can thus be relieved when overload becomes visible, and others can be involved more when there is spare capacity.

Component list of the project management tool: filtered table with responsible persons, suppliers, order dates and status

Graph-based, centrally available project management tool as the single source of truth
Visual roadmap to support the planning of deadlines and responsibilities
Flexible interfaces to Excel, Microsoft Business Central and other systems

The implemented solutions include:

BOM: visual editor for BOMs in a tree interface

Display bills of materials in their hierarchy
Edit the hierarchy

Schedule: visual editor for time planning in a Gantt/swimlane interface

Display components, decisions and drawings as a timeline
Edit the duration and timing of items by drag and drop
Configure a custom timeline view using filters

Data table: data in tabular form

Aggregate data from the database without redundancy
Update data in all tables
Configure a custom table view using filters and sorting

Excel interface: file-based Excel import/export

Interface to Microsoft Business Central (MS BC)

Import data from MS BC into Structr
Display imported data in tabular form (with filtering and sorting)
Link MS BC data with other data in Structr (e.g. linking parts to orders)
Regularly update the data imported from MS BC with the latest changes made in the Business Central system

Benefits

Shared resource pool with real-time information
Redundancy-free data storage
Detailed interactive dashboards that visualise projects down to the smallest detail and share them with the project team
Interactive visual dashboards that can be customised down to the smallest detail

Working with Structr feels like a true partnership with shared values and a common goal. We had no experience or expertise in software development, but a clear idea of our process and of what we wanted to achieve. I found the visual schema invaluable, as it maps our business model, our internal processes and the actual data storage in one. As a communication tool, it provides a common point of reference between customer and developer and makes clear understanding easy in a very efficient way. With the help of the schema, we were able to quickly create a data model that reflects the design requirements but also accommodates changes and new features as development progresses.

Paul DumbellHead of Process Engineering · Southern Wind

Results

Projects can be planned and executed in a more targeted way

Errors previously caused by redundant or inconsistent data are avoided

Implementation is many times faster

Result

All in all, we worked closely with the customer to sort out, clean up and sensibly restructure the data.

Visualising the data enabled the Southern Wind team to uncover hidden inconsistencies in the data connections. The new perspective gained through visualisation brought insights to light that led to greater clarity in the company structure and to the elimination of redundancies.

The result is a database that creates a single source of truth for responsibilities and project steps and keeps the company clean, modern and focused on what matters. All data has been named and assigned consistently. Dependencies have been mapped correctly, and the data is stored without redundancy in the graph database.

Everyone involved in a project has access to a shared resource pool with up-to-date, real-time information and clear project plans. With the Structr solution, the SWS team benefits in many ways.

Project work is made easier by the detailed interactive dashboards that visualise projects down to the smallest detail. The system also offers an integrated, easy-to-use user interface, filter and sorting functions that let users create custom views of the data and quickly find relevant items, and a custom database of standard data that can be included in new projects.

On this basis the company can build for the long term and is well prepared for the future.

Would you like to learn more about how Structr was used in this solution?

Feel free to contact us at any time on +49 800 / 78 78 287 or send us an email at contact@structr.com. Alternatively, use our contact form.

Kai Schwaiger

Partner & Developer