Aptar strengthens its project portfolio management foundation to prepare for AI with Planisware

With over 14,000 employees worldwide, including 900+ in R&D, Aptar manages more than 400 active projects spanning its pharma, closures, and beauty segments. To coordinate this complexity, about 700 employees rely daily on Planisware.

In recent years, the company has taken its first steps into the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics, discovering along the way that true innovation depends as much on culture and data as on algorithms.

The Road to Planisware: a multistep implementation

Aptar’s journey with Planisware didn’t begin smoothly. As Philippe Pierrot, Project & Portfolio Management Director at Aptar, recalls:

“Our first attempt in 2014 was driven by our IS team but lacked managerial support. The tool was launched before we had a shared project methodology, it was not a success at all.” 

(Source: Aptar Customer Story, Exchange 2025)

This changed in 2017 when a new CEO brought a global project vision and established the Innovation Excellence department to standardize tools and methods across all business segments. A top priority was to reimplement Planisware by applying the methodology before the tool. This time with robust governance, training, and a clear purpose: to replace fragmented Excel sheets with a single source of truth for portfolio management. Philippe’s role was pivotal: he put PMOs in each business segment to ensure that operational teams and management worked hand in hand. 

New implementation focused on better governance, better data

With lessons from the past in mind, Philippe and his teams focused on three priorities for the reimplementation:

• Governance and change management: Develop and deploy a global PPM framework with clear project phases, gates, roles, and accountability. This ensured that everyone spoke the same language when planning and reporting projects, regardless of region or business segment.
• Harmonize the configuration: Even though Aptar acts over different fields, it was important to have a core model and common processes throughout Aptar.  
• Dashboards and quality improvement: In addition to the dashboards provided by Planisware, we have developed dashboards with BI Box to cross with other information sources to give everyone, including people that have not access to Planisware, visibility and a global understanding of what is happening on their programs. 

First Steps into AI: A Thoughtful Pilot

(Source: Aptar Customer Story, Exchange 2025)

Aptar was also one of the first Planisware customers to pilot predictive analytics, not out of hype, but to answer a clear question: Can AI help us stay ahead of the competition?

“We wanted to see if predictive analytics could support workload and task planning, and accelerate time-to-market, especially in our beauty segment, where projects are complex and highly dynamic,” Philippe explains.

Early on, the team discovered a hard truth: AI is only as good as the data that feeds it. While Aptar had plenty of data in theory, much of it wasn’t structured for AI use. For example, key details like mold counts for new pumps were buried in Gantt charts or free-text notes, impossible for an algorithm to interpret reliably.

A Pilot, Two Iterations, and an Honest Pause

In June 2024, Aptar launched its pilot with two focused, one-week iterations. The first was to identify what data could be used and to clean it while the second one applied the newly cleaned data to small project set to validate predications. 

The results were promising, but the pilot also confirmed that gaps in data consistency remained too significant to scale up immediately. Rather than push ahead blindly, Aptar made a deliberate choice: hit pause and focus on strengthening the data foundation.

“It was a tough decision. Teams were initially hesitant about investing time to clean data with no immediate payoff. But the pilot proved that without clean, structured data, AI doesn’t deliver. Now, people see data as a strategic asset and they’re starting to take ownership,” says Philippe.

(Source: Aptar Customer Story, Exchange 2025)

A Cultural Shift: From Compliance to Ownership

For Aptar, the pilot started a real mindset shift. Teams now have data ambassadors, and there’s a growing mindset that clean data improves not just AI but everyday reporting, forecasting, and decision-making.

“It’s no longer about compliance, it’s about responsibility,” adds Ahmed Ait Sidi Momma from Planisware. “Small habits today create a solid foundation for bigger benefits tomorrow.”

Looking Ahead: A Step-by-Step Approach

Today, Aptar continues to refine its AI use cases within Planisware. While predictive features are in production for select PMOs and project managers, the company is intentionally taking its time, expanding only where data quality supports trustworthy insights.

“There’s no shortcut: AI only works if your data works. Our advice to others is: take your time, build the foundation first,” Philippe concludes.

Aptar’s experience shows that adopting AI isn’t something you rush into. It needs to be built step by step, with the right foundations in place. That means not only having the right tools, like Planisware, but also, having large volumes of clean, reliable data. Without that, AI becomes just another shiny tool that doesn’t deliver, and risks turning into a drain on time and resources.

Planisware remains a technical and strategic partner along the way, helping shape realistic roadmaps, align methods, and embed best practices, while Aptar leads the change with its commitment, on cultural change and data ownership.

(Source: Aptar Customer Story, Exchange 2025)

Future-Proofing with Planisware and AI

Aptar’s experience shows that embracing AI is not a sprint but a marathon. With a clear vision, robust governance, and a growing culture of data responsibility, Aptar is turning its innovation ambition into measurable value, one clean dataset at a time.

Curious how Planisware can help your organization take its next step toward AI-enabled project management? Contact us here