In recent years, the rapid growth of user demands for network applications has promoted the internet traffic to grow at a rate of more than 40% per year, which is also a key factor in driving network construction. With the impending large-scale commercial use of 5G, both network operators and service providers are facing the formidable challenge of fast and high-quality project delivery. When volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity become the new status of the project environment, ZTE's network delivery project management takes an active, agile and insightful approach.
With more than 30 years of experience in large-scale global network project delivery, ZTE has formed a complete operation system, including digital transformation, efficient and agile project management methods, an accurate project delivery operation process, a three-dimensional project management control mechanism, and professional team building. The system ensures highly efficient project delivery, improves operators' satisfaction, and helps operators achieve commercial value.
ZTE's Project Delivery Operation System
Digital Transformation
Digital transformation is a big trend in the global hi-tech industry. ZTE has the vision of digital transformation, that is, enabling higher efficiency of operation and providing better services through digitized operations (Fig.1). It proposes the engineering project management system (EPMS)—a digital delivery solution to build a digital engineering service delivery platform that is "anytime, anywhere, collaborative, real-time, intelligent, visual and efficient". The EPMS provides four main functions: progress management, quality management, document management, and material management.
—Progress management: The progress management module has multiple dimensions ranging from scope, milestones, master plans to plan implementation, contracts, areas, sites, and tasks. The project plan is compiled online, and tasks are generated and distributed to partners. The construction team can report the progress in real time or ask for help through mobile applications. The EPMS has powerful report capabilities, and the customer can easily learn the project progress through various report services in the EPMS.
—Quality management: The construction team can perform online self-check in accordance with the preset quality standards and quality templates. The self-check photos include longitude, latitude, date, and time information. The back end automatically generates quality reports. The customer and ZTE's project management team can perform remote spot check, acceptance, or issue rectification forms without going to the site.
—Document management: Online document management enables document interaction among ZTE, customers, and partners to improve the delivery efficiency of major project documents. In addition, the customizable approval flow is integrated, and the customer can perform remote site acceptance with reference to the on-site equipment information and installation quality information collected by the EPMS APP, thus saving the on-site costs and improving the deployment efficiency.At present, the EPMS has been widely used in thousands of ZTE's projects in more than 100 countries, achieving remarkable results.
ZTE's project management won the 2019 PMI (China) Project Excellence Award and the Best Enterprise Practice Award for 20 years' development of project management in China, indicating that ZTE's organizational project management capability is leading in China.
Italy's WT Project, as the winner of project excellence award, sets a good example of project delivery in a high-end market. The WT project department is established through the project organization model innovation, which improves project resources investment and management of responsibilities and rights, project operation and decision-making efficiency, and project management and service integration through completing the project management mechanism. In addition, to enable digital transformation, the EPMS interconnection and interworking platform is built to realize information sharing among customers, subcontractors and ZTE as well as visual management, which greatly improves project management efficiency.