Maud Bruijs on her PMO project at a brewery

Maud Bruijs has been working for Improven, a business consultancy based in Utrecht, for just under two years. She is currently working on a supply chain transformation at an international beer brewer. Bruijs talks about the project and her role.

After completing several assignments (VolkerWessels, Omroep Brabant, Port of Moerdijk and IBFD), I have been working for the client as a Senior Project Management Support Officer (PMO) and Change Management Support since May. I am doing this for the project called Warehouse Excellence.

The project is an initiative of the brewer's supply chain branch in the Netherlands. From there, it exports to over 165 countries. The Warehouse Excellence project is a major project in which, in five phases spread over three years, we replace the Warehouse Management System of the breweries and logistics centres in the Netherlands and standardise the processes affected by it.

A huge project that touches the work of many employees and other stakeholders in one way or another. And the success of the project stands or falls with the involvement of employees.

My role is really one for a jack-of-all-trades who loves liaising with various stakeholders. As PMO, I am a sparring partner of the project managers and support them with, among other things, preparing meetings, communication and planning.

The other half of my time I work in the Change work stream. In this role, I am jointly responsible for managing change and (systems) training for employees within the supply chain department.

Most of the work now takes place online, but we try to meet regularly on location. Since the project revolves around breweries, it is good to be there too. In July, I had my first tour of the breweries in Den Bosch and Zoeterwoude, impressive to see.

We are currently busy preparing the implementations with a multidisciplinary team and the employees and stakeholders involved. Nice to be part of such an impactful project.