A Fresh Blend: Boyd Coffee and FastTrack Schedule
Coffee manufacturer uses FastTrack Schedule to manage business expansion
One hundred years of providing service to the Pacific Northwest makes Boyd Coffee Company coffee experts. But it’s FastTrack Schedule that makes them project management experts. After a period of recent growth, the family-owned coffee company was facing their third major expansion in just thirty years, and they needed a project scheduler to help them manage the job.
The company’s growth called for the expansion of its Portland, Oregon headquarters to accommodate their growing manufacturing departments. Construction for the additional 132,000 sq. feet of warehouse space was kept on track using FastTrack Schedule as well as FastTrack Schedule for the Palm OS.
Up and Running, Quickly
"We just loaded the software and began adding data. The project was scheduled within hours of receiving data from all of the contractors,” says John Gillam.
Gillam is the Vice President of Manufacturing for Boyd Coffee Company. He, along with Plant Engineer David Muck, are both serving as the company contacts for the project and each utilize FastTrack Schedule on their desktops as well as their handheld devices. After observing the results, more employees are already learning to use the program.
According to Gillam, the desktop version of the software was beneficial for providing a schedule to measure the performance of contractors. Gillam was able to create a schedule to correspond with the actual construction schedule for the building expansion. FastTrack Schedule is also being utilized for its cost tracking ability. In fact, the next five years of capital expenses are already laid out.
Project Schedules to Go
But Gillam reports that it was the Palm version of the program and the ability
to have access to project information while away from the office that persuaded
him to go with FastTrack Schedule.
“Having field accessibility via the Palm Pilot will, in my opinion, provide
the greatest benefit,” he says. “Although the project is just beginning,
FastTrack Schedule is turning out to be beneficial in keeping communications up
to date with all involved.”
With their latest expansion project making its way toward completion, is Boyd Coffee Company planning for future growth? If so, they’ve already got the perfect tool for the job, thanks to FastTrack Schedule.
Customer Profile
Boyds Coffee Company
Portland, Oregon
www.boyds.com
Industry
Manufacturing
Challenge
Find an easy-to-use project management solution to schedule business expansion efforts
Solution
Use FastTrack Schedule to monitor and measure project performance, deliverables, and costs
Benefits:
- Desktop and Palm compatibility keeps teams up-to-date on the job site
- Effective measure of contractor
performance' - Ability to track costs for long term capital expenses
- Schedules were easily created
and were completed within hours