Introduction
PRISM Plastics is a high-volume precision manufacturing company with a strong focus on quality, repeatability, and operational control.
According to its quality metrics page, PRISM Plastics ships almost 1 billion parts globally per year. The company emphasizes reducing process variation, maintaining repeatable production, and supporting high-precision tolerances across its manufacturing operations.
For PRISM Plastics, project management is closely tied to customer commitments, production readiness, and operational performance. Engineering projects often involve new tools, transfer tools, refurbishments, spot buys, and other project types with different levels of complexity.
To manage these projects more effectively, PRISM Plastics implemented BrightWork 365 to bring more structure, visibility, and accountability to project timelines, tasks, and reporting.
The Challenge
Projects Needed More Structure, Visibility, and Follow-Through.
Before using BrightWork 365, PRISM Plastics was managing engineering project timelines in IQMS, a system used internally but not ideally suited for project timeline management.
According to Allison Dangrow, one of their project management champions, the company needed to become “more organized” and improve timeline upkeep because the existing approach was cumbersome for the people responsible for maintaining project information.
The lack of a dedicated project management solution created practical challenges. In some cases, projects did not have timelines at all, and tasks could sit without follow-up. Dates slipped, customers became frustrated, and teams were not always hitting the commitments they had made.
This also had implications for audits. Allison Dangrow explained that, before BrightWork 365, there were times when the company would go through an audit and “get dinged” because timelines were not available or maintained.
For a manufacturing organization operating in a high-volume, high-precision environment, staying on top of timelines is not simply an internal efficiency issue. Allison Dangrow explained that, in the automotive industry, delays can create serious consequences, including line-down situations, fines, additional fees, and expediting costs.
BrightWork 365 Solution
Centralized Project Management in BrightWork 365.
PRISM Plastics adopted BrightWork 365 to create a more structured and user-friendly approach to managing engineering projects.
Allison Dangrow was involved in helping implement BrightWork 365 at the company, and her role evolved from project engineer to project manager as the company developed a stronger project management function.
Today, BrightWork 365 supports a team-based approach to project delivery at PRISM Plastics.
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Project Managers use BrightWork 365 to plan projects, maintain timelines, track milestones, manage customer communication, and report on project status.
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Project Engineers use the platform to manage technical project activities, update progress, complete assigned tasks, and track project-related information throughout the project lifecycle.
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Team Members use BrightWork 365 to review, update, and complete assigned tasks and actions, helping ensure work stays on track and deadlines are met.
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Finance and Administrative Teams use project data captured in BrightWork 365 to track tooling investments, labor hours, purchasing information, and other project-related costs, providing greater visibility into project performance and supporting month-end reporting activities.
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Department Managers and Senior Executives use BrightWork 365 to review project progress, monitor timelines, and gain visibility into project status across the organization.
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By providing a single source of truth for project information, BrightWork 365 helps PRISM Plastics improve accountability, collaboration, and project visibility across teams.
Applying configurable BrightWork 365 Templates
A key part of the implementation was the use of project templates. PRISM Plastics created templates specific to its different engineering project types, including transfer tools, new tools built from the ground up, refurbishments, spot buys, and other project types.
These templates can include hundreds of tasks and help teams start new projects without rebuilding timelines from scratch each time.
The Impact
Better Timelines, Stronger Accountability, and Happier Customers.
The most significant improvement for PRISM Plastics has been the ability to stay on top of project timelines and commitments.
Allison Dangrow described this as the company’s “biggest win,” noting that the organization is now better structured, customers are more aware of project status, and the issues customers experienced in the past are no longer being seen in the same way.
BrightWork 365 has helped PRISM Plastics move from inconsistent timeline management to a more proactive and predictable model.
Projects are loaded into BrightWork 365, timelines are set up, dates are assigned, and users receive email reminders for tasks that are approaching or past due.
This weekly reminder process was customized for PRISM Plastics after users identified it as a need during an internal BrightWork review discussion.
BrightWork 365 has also improved customer communication. PRISM Plastics now has the ability to report out to customers with status reports, which the company did not have before. This has helped the team communicate project progress more effectively and stay aligned with customer expectations.
Better Cross-Functional Collaboration Across Locations and Teams
BrightWork 365 has also become a central source of project information for weekly cross-functional project reviews. PRISM Plastics holds a weekly Thursday meeting that brings together teams from production, tool build, engineering, and multiple facilities.
During these meetings, the team reviews open projects, checks status, discusses accountability, and uses BrightWork 365 to make sure work is not delayed or forgotten. Allison Dangrow explained that the company uses the status tab to add weekly updates on where things stand and who is responsible.
She also described BrightWork 365 as helping bring the organization together.
Financial and Operational Visibility
Beyond timelines and task management, PRISM Plastics also uses BrightWork 365 to support month-end visibility into tooling dollars, labor hours, purchases, and related cost information.
Allison Dangrow explained that project engineers enter information such as labor hours and tooling dollars spent, while the accounting department uses that information.
This has given multiple teams access to information that supports project and business oversight. While Allison Dangrow noted that she was not sure whether this cost information was customized or available out of the box, she described it as “definitely been an improvement” for the organization.
A Solution That Evolves with the Business
PRISM Plastics has also used BrightWork 365 as part of an ongoing improvement process. Each year, the company brings BrightWork users together in an annual meeting to discuss where the business is, how the solution is being used, and how users should handle actions, tasks, and related items.
These sessions often spark ideas for improving the BrightWork 365 environment. For example, the weekly email notification process came from user feedback during one of these meetings and was then delivered as part of a later upgrade discussion with BrightWork.
BrightWork support and customer success relationship also played a role in the experience. Allison Dangrow described Sean O’Shea (BrightWork Customer Success Partner for PRISM Plastics) as receptive, quick to answer, and helpful, and noted that BrightWork technical support has continued to grow and improve over time.
Extending the Success to Other Manufacturing Teams
The impact at PRISM Plastics has already influenced another manufacturing organization. Allison Dangrow explained that another company within Marmon Holdings, Inc., reviewed how PRISM Plastics uses BrightWork 365 to manage their projects. Impressed by the approach, they have also adopted the solution.
The Impact
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Improved timeline discipline: PRISM Plastics moved from inconsistent timeline upkeep to structured project timelines in BrightWork 365.
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Stronger accountability: Users receive weekly email reminders for tasks that are close to due or past due.
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Better customer communication: The team can now provide status reports to customers, which Allison Dangrow said they did not have the ability to do before.
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Cross-functional alignment: Weekly project reviews bring together production, tool build, engineering, and multiple facilities using BrightWork 365 as a shared source of project information.
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Improved cost visibility: Project engineers log labor hours, tooling dollars, and purchase information in BrightWork 365, supporting month-end reporting needs.
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More user-friendly project setup: Custom project templates help teams manage different types of manufacturing projects without building timelines from scratch.
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Reduced audit-related timeline issues: Allison Dangrow said the company no longer deals with the previous issue of lacking timelines during audits.
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A replicable model for sister companies: Another company reviewed the PRISM Plastics approach and saw value in adopting a similar process.