Case study

InVENTer: project status and open items in one system

Item: Linetrack
Author: Annette Wettig

Large development projects with many departments involved, kept on track through reminders and follow-ups: that was the starting point. Today the project plan, the current status and the open items all sit in the same place.

Decentralised residential ventilation
Heat recovery
Ventilation for schools and nurseries
Commercial and office ventilation

What does InVENTer use Linetrack for?

InVENTer GmbH, based in Löberschütz near Jena, manufactures decentralised ventilation systems with heat recovery. It plans and tracks its development projects – some of them large undertakings with many departments involved – in Linetrack. Open items, comments, images and files sit directly on the project. No legacy data was migrated: staff built the project plans themselves.

The company

What InVENTer builds

InVENTer has been developing and manufacturing at its Löberschütz site near Jena since 1999. The principle has not changed since: one unit per room instead of ducts running through the whole building, plus a ceramic heat accumulator that keeps the warmth in the house as extract and supply air alternate. Around that core sits a portfolio of decentralised and central ventilation, extract units, controls and accessories – for flats as much as for schools, nurseries and offices. The units reach customers through trade partners in almost 30 countries, and more than 700,000 have been sold. Since 2014 the company has been part of the British Volution Group.

A series manufacturer plans differently from a make-to-order supplier. It is not a single customer order that pulls the departments together but a product that has to be developed, tested, moved into production and brought to market. These development projects are what InVENTer runs in Linetrack – some of them large undertakings with many departments involved. What follows from that for planning is covered on the industry page project management in building and energy systems and on the overview page on multi-project management.

Diagram of a decentralised ventilation unit with heat recovery in wall cross-section: on the left the extract cycle, in which warm room air charges the ceramic heat accumulator, on the right the supply cycle, in which cold outside air picks that heat back up

Customer voice

„Reminders now run automatically“

„At InVENTer GmbH, we develop ventilation systems for residential buildings and manage many cross-departmental projects.

Before Linetrack, the biggest challenge was that constant reminders and follow-ups were needed to keep track of tasks. With Linetrack, we were able to significantly reduce this effort: reminders now run automatically, and the team works noticeably more productively.

Rolling out the system was easy, the support from Linetrack was excellent - and it's so intuitive to use that everyone got up to speed quickly. We especially appreciate that the training module is available at any time.“

Annette Wettig

Managing Director

InVENTer GmbH

The starting point

What a development project used to hang on

The projects in question are development projects – some of them large undertakings with many different departments involved at the same time. A ventilation unit ends up as a series product, but the road there is a project with many participants and a long list of open items.

The more departments hang off an undertaking, the more places there are where something can stall without anyone noticing. The effort then does not sit in the planning but in the chasing: anyone who wanted to know whether a task was done had to ask.

Day to day that meant what Annette Wettig describes in the quote above: reminders and follow-ups were constantly needed to keep track of tasks. Keeping track had become a job of its own.

Diagram: a large development project at the centre, several departments involved around it; the connection between them consists of reminders and follow-ups, with the open items sitting loose alongside

The rollout

No import, but self-built project plans

There was no migration of existing projects. Staff at InVENTer built the project plans themselves in Linetrack – so the first plan in the system is the same one they have worked with ever since.

That moves the effort elsewhere. There is no export, no reconciliation and no chasing of data that is already out of date by the time it is transferred. In return, each plan is built once by hand – and whoever built it knows its structure.

The training did not run as a single block but was spread over roughly two to three sessions. After that the training module takes over: it stays in the system, so anyone needing a function for the first time looks it up there rather than trying to recall a session from six months ago. How a Linetrack rollout works in general is set out under introducing Linetrack.

Diagram of the rollout: no migration of legacy data; instead staff build the project plans themselves in Linetrack, the training is spread over two to three sessions, and the training module then stays available permanently

The solution

Four work areas, one project

This is how InVENTer works in Linetrack today.

The project plan and its links

Project planning is at the centre: items, the links between them, and the logic behind those links. When an item moves, the dependent ones move with it instead of someone dragging the plan along behind. On a development project with many departments involved, that is the difference between a plan and a snapshot. See collaborative high-level and detailed planning.

Project tracking instead of a status round

The status sits in the system, not in the heads of the people involved. Anyone who wants to know where a development project stands looks it up – across every project in flight, without starting a round of enquiries. See multi-project management across everything in flight.

Comments, images and files on the project

The work areas hold what otherwise ends up scattered across email threads and chats: comments, images, files, interim results. It all hangs off the project rather than in the inbox of whoever happened to be on the distribution list. Anyone joining later reads back instead of asking to be forwarded things. See collaborative project management across departments.

Open items right on the project

The projects carry lists of open items: open tasks and topics sit where they arise, not in a separate document alongside. The reminders about them run automatically – the point the managing director names as the biggest change. See assigning tasks and tracking them automatically.

The result

The plan carries it, not the follow-up

Three things have changed since the rollout.

What holds today

Reminders run automatically

The managing director describes the effort spent on reminders and follow-ups as significantly reduced, with the team working noticeably more productively.

Open items hang off the project

Open tasks and topics are kept in the project itself rather than in a list alongside it that someone has to maintain and circulate.

The exchange sits with the work

Comments, images and files live in the project rather than scattered across email threads – readable after the fact, including by anyone who joins later.

Common questions

Questions about project management in building and energy systems

Your projects, not our demo data set

30 minutes on one of your real project examples. After that you will know whether the planning and tracking logic fits your organisation.

Which project management software suits a manufacturer in building and energy systems?

A manufacturer does not coordinate a construction site but development and product projects across its own departments. What it needs is a system that carries both: a project plan with real links between the items, and a layer above it where open items, comments and files hang off the same project. Pure schedulers do not cover the second layer; pure task lists do not cover the first.

How can open items be tracked directly in the project?

By having the list of open items hang off the project rather than sit in a separate document alongside. Each item carries a due date, an owner and a status, and the system does the reminding instead of one person reminding another. That is how InVENTer works: open tasks and topics run on the project where they came up. How that works in detail is covered under task management and task tracking.

Do you have to migrate legacy data to start with a project management system?

No. At InVENTer there was no migration of existing projects – staff built the project plans themselves in Linetrack. For projects already under way that is often the faster route: an export from the old system carries structures nobody wants in the new one, and reconciling them costs more time than building afresh. Where legacy data is needed, Linetrack migrates it – both routes are described under introducing Linetrack.

How many training sessions does the rollout take, and what happens afterwards?

At InVENTer the training was spread over roughly two to three sessions rather than a single training day. After that the training module stays available in the system permanently. Across all live Linetrack implementations, the median from kick-off to the first genuinely planned project is ten working days, regardless of company size.

Does Linetrack also suit manufacturers, not just the trades doing the installation?

Yes. The industry page on building and energy systems mainly describes cross-trade building services projects with external parties involved. InVENTer stands for the other case: a manufacturer whose development projects run across its own departments. The planning logic is the same – items, links and responsibilities in one plan – except that here everyone involved sits in the same company.

Where do comments, images and files belonging to a project belong?

On the project, not in an email thread. InVENTer uses the work areas in Linetrack for this: comments, images, files and interim results are exchanged there centrally. The difference shows as soon as someone joins later – they read the history on the project instead of asking to have attachments forwarded. More on this under collaborative project management.

Features

Linetrack in detail

The building blocks behind project planning, tracking and open items:

Portfolio control

Every running project in one place

Resource Management

Plan capacity across projects

Project Planning

Schedules, Gantt charts, and milestones

Task Management

Track progress with task tracking