Reorganizing for Project Management at Prevost Car

In July 1994, the vice-president of production at Prevost Car in Quebec City, Canada, was told that he would have to expand production capacity 31 percent(%) in the next five months. In the past, such a task would start with a bulldozer the next day and the work would be under way, but no one knew at what cost, what timetable, or what value to the firm. Realizing that he needed some fresh ideas, a structured approach, and that there was no allowance for a mistake, the VP contacted a project management consulting firm to help him.

The consulting firm set up a five-day meeting between their project managers, a value engineering expert, and the seven foremen from Prevost’s main factory to scope out the project. The group produced a report for senior management outlining a $10 million project to expand the main factory by 60,000 square feet, and a follow-on potential to make a further expansion of 20percent more. The detail of the plan came as a revelation to top management who approved it after only two days of study. After it was completed on time and on budget, the firm also committed to the additional 20 percent expansion which also came in as planned.

The success of this project resulted in “infecting” Prevost Car with the project management “bug”. The next major task, an initiative to reduce workplace injuries, was thus organized as a project and was also highly successful. Soon, all types of activities were being handled as projects at Prevost. The use of project management in manufacturing firms is highly appropriate given their need to adapt quickly to ferocious international competition, accelerating technological change, and rapidly changing market conditions. In addition, Prevost has found that project management encourages productive cooperation between departments, fresh thinking and innovation, team approaches to problems, and the highly valued use of outside experts to bring in new ideas, thereby breaking current short-sighted habits and thinking. As Prevost’s VP states: “Right now it’s a question of finding what couldn’t be better managed by project management.”