Centra­li­sa­tion of the PROCALC perso­nal & project manag­ment for STFI

Since 2000, the database-based PROCALC project manage­ment system has been develo­ped by pro et con for the Sächsi­sches Textil­for­schungs­in­sti­tut e.V. (STFI). The STFI employs more than 150 people in research, services and certi­fi­ca­tion. A large number of research and develo­p­ment projects are planned and reali­sed at the STFI – inclu­ding various EU partners, research coope­ra­ti­ons and associa­ti­ons. A high degree of organi­sa­tion and workload is requi­red to document the deploy­ment of staff within ongoing projects and to plan person­nel resour­ces effici­ently and profi­ta­bly for future projects.

Requi­re­ment: the start­ing point for the develo­p­ment of PROCALC were payroll lists and times­heets filled out manually by STFI employees, which were assigned to the indivi­dual projects in a time-consum­ing adminis­tra­tive process. Thus, overviews and statis­ti­cal analy­ses could only be created in part and were usually not available digitally. Due to constantly growing functional requi­re­ments as well as staff and research capaci­ties, there was an urgent need for action to gradu­ally imple­ment the project documen­ta­tion as a digital workflow.

Reali­sa­tion: the first step with PROCALC was to create a digital database that centrally manages all master data on employees and projects. The detailed recor­ding of each employee’s working time within a project is now carried with digital input forms. Further function­a­li­ties, inclu­ding accoun­ting for business trips and various evalua­tion mecha­nisms, were reali­sed step by step. Additio­nal data, e.g. holiday and sick leave, can be automa­ti­cally synchro­nised with the PROCALC database via inter­faces to exter­nal accoun­ting systems within the company.

Result: today, PROCALC enables the digital manage­ment of the entire workflow, from recor­ding the working time of indivi­dual employees to planning staff resour­ces for projects.

PROCALC has signi­fi­cantly increased the effici­ency of time recor­ding and project manage­ment. At the same time, the suscep­ti­bi­lity to errors has been reduced thanks to the signi­fi­cant reduc­tion in manual proces­sing. Various statis­ti­cal functions allow analy­ses to be carried out over any period of time. Accoun­ting and support­ing documents can be created promptly and digitally for the respec­tive project partners and funding organi­sa­ti­ons. Thanks to the database built up over many years, it is possi­ble to parti­ally automate manual billing.

PROCALC is subject to constant further develo­p­ment. The user inter­face, reports and documents are conti­nuously adapted to changing circum­s­tances and guide­lines. Among other things, new modules will make it possi­ble to plan future projects or analyse feasi­bi­lity based on staff resour­ces. The co-opera­­tion between the STFI and pro et con is based on a long-term service contract.