Plan and control

Project planning and control software
for industrial projects

Plan structure, dates and capacity, let departments report progress back, and adjust before the delivery date starts to slip. In one system instead of Excel, MS Project and status emails.

Planning and feedback on one data foundation
Planned vs. actual per task, not per month
10 working days to go-live

In short

Project planning and control software maps the closed loop of a project in one system: structure, dates and capacity are planned up front, progress flows back continuously from execution, and deviations are measured against the plan before they cost a delivery date. Linetrack from Stuttgart connects scheduling, capacity planning, task tracking and the planned-versus-actual comparison on one data foundation and is in use at Schnaithmann Maschinenbau, the STOLL Group and LANG Technik, among others.

1512

projects managed
in parallel

400+

planning tools
replaced

4000+

completed
industrial projects

10WD

from kick-off
to go-live

Every figure on this page comes from a full survey of all live Linetrack implementations, as of August 2026.

Challenges

Why project plans lose their
meaning once work starts

100% of Linetrack customers named a lack of transparency as their starting problem, 91% named Excel and tool chaos, 59% named manual status chasing. Multiple answers were possible – on average 3.8 problems named at once per customer. Four patterns keep repeating.

The plan starts ageing on day one

The work breakdown structure is built once at kick-off and barely maintained afterwards. Four weeks in it no longer reflects reality – decisions are made on a document nobody keeps up to date.

The actual status arrives by phone call

59% of customers named manual status chasing as a starting problem: the project manager calls around the departments to find out where a task stands. By the time every answer is in, the picture is out of date again.

Plan and actuals sit in separate systems

Planned hours live in the project plan, actual hours in the time tracking system. Without a connection, the planned-versus-actual comparison is rebuilt once a month in a spreadsheet – far too late to steer the running project.

Adjusting without simulation is guesswork

When a task slips by two weeks, it is unclear which successor tasks and which parallel projects are affected. Without scenarios, the meeting estimates instead of calculating – and the effect only shows up in the next status report.

Definition

What is project planning and control?

Project planning and control is the closed loop that takes a project from commitment to acceptance. Project planning defines up front what is done in which order, by when and by whom. Project control keeps that plan valid during execution: it measures progress, assesses deviations and adjusts dates, capacity or scope.

Without control, a plan is a snapshot after a few weeks; without planning, control has no yardstick. In machinery and plant engineering, this feedback loop decides whether a promised delivery date holds. Which control variables exist and at what deviation to intervene is covered on the project control page.

PlanStructure, dates and capacity on one data foundation – the plan is resource-checked.

ExecuteWork packages go to the departments as tasks, on desktop and mobile.

MeasureProgress and actual hours run against the plan, without status emails.

AdjustCalculate alternatives, decide, update the plan directly.

Next roundStarts on the corrected plan, not on a fresh status report.

Components

What belongs in a complete project plan

Project planning is more than a schedule. Six components have to fit together before a promised date becomes a plan anyone can rely on.

The first five points are planning, the sixth is already control. How tasks, dependencies and milestones look in the bar chart is shown under Gantt planning for multiple projects.

Work breakdown structure in Linetrack: phases with their tasks underneath

Work breakdown structure: splits the project into phases, sub-projects and work packages. It is the frame every date, every hour and every progress report is later attached to.
Tasks and dependencies: describe what happens in which order. Only the dependency logic reveals which delay propagates through to the end date and which one is absorbed by float.
Dates: set start, end and duration per task. They follow from effort and available capacity – not from back-calculating the delivery date everyone would like.
Resources and capacity: assign each task to the department or person carrying it out. Without that assignment, a date is nothing more than a statement of intent.
Milestones and float: mark the points where decisions are made and the reserve that absorbs delays. A plan without float is invalid the first time a supplier is late.
Planned versus actual and forecast: close the loop into control. The plan becomes the yardstick to measure against, and the forecast projects the end date from actual progress.

Solution

Why Linetrack is the right project planning and control software

Classic planning tools stop at the schedule. What happens next – feedback, comparison, re-planning – runs through emails, meetings and Excel. Linetrack keeps plan and execution on the same data foundation.

Diagram: project management, departments and supply chain plan together in Linetrack

One plan for every department

Project management sets phases and milestones, the departments plan their own tasks underneath. Nobody collects status – it is created where the work happens.

Diagram: dates, staff and resources come together in one plan in Linetrack

Dates and capacity connected

Whoever schedules a task sees immediately whether the department has the hours. If a date moves, the workload moves with it – no second list.

Portfolio view with several parallel projects on a Gantt timeline

Across all projects, not per file

The same design engineers and fitters work on several projects. Linetrack plans and controls all of them on one data foundation – more than 270 parallel projects at the largest customer.

Step 1 – Plan

Planning: structure, dates and capacity in one pass

Planning starts with the work breakdown structure: phases, sub-projects, work packages. Underneath sit the tasks, with duration, dependencies and the department that executes them. Because a task and its resource are the same object in Linetrack, the plan immediately checks whether the planned hours fit into available capacity – across all projects, not just within its own plan.

Project management plans at a high level, the departments plan their tasks underneath – high-level and detailed planning happen in the same plan. How dates and capacity come together is covered under scheduling and capacity planning. Who gets which hours across parallel projects is settled by resource planning for parallel projects.

Work breakdown structure with phases, sub-projects and work packages

Dependencies and critical path across all projects

Capacity check per department while scheduling

Milestones and float as fixed decision points

Step 2 – Control

From plan to control: feedback flows into the same plan

Once the project is running, the plan becomes the yardstick. Employees report progress per task, on the desktop or on mobile out on site; actual hours arrive through an interface from time tracking. Together they produce a continuous comparison between what was planned and what actually happened.

Feedback comes through task tracking, actual hours through the time tracking interface. How planned and actual hours are set against each other per task is covered by the planned-versus-actual comparison.

If a task deviates, project management calculates alternatives in the same plan instead of estimating in the meeting; the original plan stays in place as the baseline. Which control variables exist, at what deviation to intervene and who decides is covered on the project control page.

Aspect	Excel and status meeting
Progress	By phone, once a week	Per task, continuous
Actual hours	Monthly report	Via interface, per task
Planned vs. actual	After the fact in Excel	In the plan, visible at once
Impact of a delay	Estimated in the meeting	Successors and workload visible
Data status	Different per file	One data foundation

Task tracking dashboard with feedback from the departments as the data basis for project planning and control

Comparison

Planning tool or planning and control in one system

Excel and classic planning tools such as MS Project can show a schedule. For control they lack feedback from execution and a view beyond the single project. In detail: Linetrack and Excel, Linetrack and MS Project.

Requirement	Excel / MS Project
Schedule with dependencies	Drawn in Excel, not linked	Tasks, dependencies, critical path
Check capacity while scheduling	Separate list, manual matching	Workload per department in the same plan
Several projects at once	One file per project	All projects on one data foundation
Progress from the departments	By email and meeting	Feedback per task, also mobile
Planned vs. actual	Monthly, after the fact	Continuous against the baseline
Scenarios before deciding	Copy of the file	Calculate variants in the system

Rollout

From Excel to shared planning in ten working days

Linetrack is set up around your project structure, not the other way round. The rollout is staged: project management first, the departments after that. The full sequence with every step is on the implementation page.

Kick-off

Rollout concept

We agree on project structure, departments and planning roles with you so that Linetrack fits your existing processes.

Up to go-live

Set-up and plan migration

The system is configured, and current schedules from Excel or MS Project move over instead of being retyped.

From go-live

Go-live and staged expansion

Project management plans in the system from go-live. The departments then join one after another, without bringing day-to-day work to a halt.

An honest boundary

What Linetrack does not do

Linetrack is not an ERP system and not a time tracking system. It plans and controls projects – it does not invoice them. There is no item master data, no bills of material, no invoicing and no payroll. If you need one of those functions, you need an ERP, not Linetrack.

Actual hours are not captured in Linetrack either. They arrive through an interface from the system where hours are booked anyway: 50% of customers with a live connection import their actual hours for the planned-versus-actual comparison, and every one of them imports staff absences from time tracking or HR.

That is deliberate. A project control system that brings its own time tracking competes with the system HR and the works council already run – and loses. Which systems are connected and how the data flows is documented under integrations.

What Linetrack does deliver is the layer in between: the shared planning and control level where project management, departments and the executive board all look at the same numbers. Fragmented planning becomes complete project and portfolio transparency.

What Linetrack does

Planning and control layer
Planned-versus-actual comparison
Project and portfolio transparency

What Linetrack does not do

ERP system
Time tracking
Payroll

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Still have questions?

Book a meeting with our team.

What is the difference between project planning and project control?

Project planning defines up front how a project should run: structure, tasks, dates, resources and float. Project control keeps that plan valid during execution – it measures progress against the plan, assesses deviations and adjusts dates, capacity or scope. Planning happens once and in advance, control runs continuously during operations. Without control, every plan is outdated within a few weeks.

What belongs in a project plan?

A complete project plan has six components: the work breakdown structure, the tasks with their dependencies, the dates per task, the assignment of resources and capacity, milestones with float, and the planned-versus-actual comparison with a forecast. Without the resource assignment, a date is only a statement of intent – planned hours with no available capacity never produce a reliable delivery date.

Which software is right for project planning and control in industry?

Industrial projects need software that plans dates and capacity on one data foundation and receives progress from execution continuously – not a pure scheduling tool. Linetrack is built for exactly that: project planning with native capacity planning, task tracking and the planned-versus-actual comparison in one system, tailored to machinery and plant engineering, building and energy technology, construction and infrastructure, and engineering departments. The features of the planning module are on the product page high-level and detailed planning.

Is Excel enough for project planning and control?

For a single schedule, yes; for control, no. Excel draws a bar chart but does not link tasks, check capacity or receive feedback from execution – the planned-versus-actual comparison is then built by hand once a month. As soon as several projects share the same departments, every file has its own version of the truth. 91% of Linetrack customers named Excel and tool chaos as their starting problem. Where exactly the spreadsheet breaks in operation is shown in Linetrack and Excel compared.

How detailed should a project plan be?

As coarse as possible at the top, as fine as necessary below. Project management plans phases, milestones and delivery dates; the departments break their part down into tasks small enough to report progress meaningfully. A task that runs for three months only reveals at the end that it is stuck. What matters is less the number of tasks than how they are linked: only dependencies and assigned capacity show which delay hits the end date.

How does project monitoring work while a project is running?

Project monitoring runs on two data streams: progress reported by employees through task tracking, and actual hours from time tracking. Both are set against the plan. That shows not only that a task is behind, but also which successor tasks and which parallel projects are affected. Pure single-project tools are missing exactly this cross-project view.

Do you need an ERP system for project planning and control?

No. Project control and ERP solve different problems: the ERP holds master data, bills of material, procurement and invoicing, while project control plans dates and capacity and measures progress. Linetrack is deliberately neither an ERP nor a time tracking system – it plans and controls, it does not invoice. Actual hours arrive through an interface: 50% of customers with a live connection import them from time tracking. Which systems are connected is documented under integrations.

What does project planning and control software cost?

Linetrack starts at €10 per user per month. The licence model is modular: the price depends on the number of users, their roles and the feature modules booked. An employee who only reports on tasks costs less than a project manager with full planning access. Implementation and rollout are calculated separately; go-live in project management takes ten working days. How that works is described under implementation.

Case Study

From status report to continuous control

Before Linetrack, the project status was assembled from individual reports and spreadsheet versions, pulled together only in the meeting itself. Today planning, feedback and planned-versus-actual run on one data foundation – the status meeting assesses deviations instead of first having to collect them.

How Schnaithmann got there is told in the Schnaithmann Maschinenbau case study.

At Krüger & Salecker, the departments keep the work breakdown structure up to date in their daily work instead of filing it after kick-off.

LANG Technik keeps complex development and automation projects in view, planned collaboratively across departments.

At InVENTer, the project plan, status and open items of large development projects now sit in one place.

„With Linetrack, we've eliminated countless opaque plans."

Niklas Reitinger

Head of Project Management

Schnaithmann Maschinenbau GmbH