The Evolution of Communigram

The groundwork for the Communigram methodology was developed by Prof. Helwig Schmied at the ERMITE Technology Management Institute in Strasbourg together with industrial partners. One important milestone was Project SICPARI, in which a new concept was developed which allowed shortening the time-to-market cycle of new vehicles from 6-7 years to 25 months.

To do so, dimensions that were entirely different from those used at the time to model and plan a project were used. Only by connecting tasks with departments and modeling the communication flows between them, particularly between companies, did it become possible to handle the enormous complexity of car development projects. Many years of further research and industrial trials led to the Business Communication Engineering methodology available today. Among the many enhancements with respect to the concept of SICPARI was the definition of deliverables, a different structuring of the project using a deliverable breakdown, new types of milestones, definition of singular leaders for each individual deliverable, introduction of supplier-client relationships, early warning system, and much more.

Today, thanks to the permanent contact with industrial users, the Communigram solution is capable of handling 8 Dimensions of project management simultaneously through methodology, prespriptions (SOP's) and software tools.