Enhancing Project Gains

Many manufacturing organisations have experienced the frustration of projects that, despite hard work and good intentions, fail to deliver their expected returns. These failures are rarely due to technical deficiencies—instead, they often stem from weaknesses in the project process.

Best practices developed in response to these weaknesses anchor projects in operational reality by targeting hidden losses to minimise asset life cycle costs. This is the Early Equipment Management (EEM) approach which organises projects as a set of decision steps to trap problems, update priorities and reinforce cross-functional engagement. These steps are:

• Define: Concept & High-Level Design

  • Where to invest, what scope to set, who to involve, how to deal with knowledge gaps, what to change, what vendor to select.

• Design: Detailed Design & Manufacture

  • How to collaborate with vendors, plan detailed changes, understand new operation, develop new skills, identify and mitigate risks.

• Refine: Installation & Commissioning

  • Coordinate the transition, manage safety, develop new capabilities, enhance local processes, manage the glide path to start-up.

• Improve: Full Operation

  • Optimise ramp-up, coordinate handover and set out the road map to operational excellence.

The end of each step includes a stage gate to surface latent project issues, confirm risk mitigation, engage stakeholders with enhancing project value and guide the forward glide path to flawless operation from day one. The result? Projects are delivered with fewer surprises and better long-term performance.

What Does That Add?

This approach enhances traditional project management processes by formalising the role of project stakeholders in the following areas.

1. Project and Risk Management

Up to 50% of project success factors lie outside the reach of traditional project management controls. EEM builds on project management best practice to de-risk design and delivery processes by ensuring that project teams have:

• Clear design standards that codify tacit knowledge including lessons learned from current assets. This also highlights knowledge gaps and skill development priorities to be dealt with as part of the project process.

• An agreed quality milestone plan with defined exit criteria to clarify project accountabilities at each step and align detailed project plans.

• Witnessed inspections, linked to the Project Quality Plan, with milestones that:

  • Confirm progress

  • Highlight risks

  • Govern transitions with clear exit criteria.

2. Design and Performance Management

This workflow turns tacit knowledge into practical design standards to ensure that decisions are informed by real-world experience. That covers:

• Process Technology benchmarks for safety and reliability

• Operations benchmarks for ease of operation and maintenance

• Customer and Life Cycle Cost (LCC) benchmarks for Customer Value and LCC.

In the early steps, standards provide the basis for shortlisting viable options. As details are added during the project process they provide a cross functional framework for witnessed inspection and testing to confirm commissioning and guide progress towards process optimisation.

Key Benefits include reduced equipment life cycle costs, shorter, smoother commissioning cycles, faster skill development, improved operational reliability and capacity

3. Specification and Life Cycle Cost Management

This workflow manages the evolution of the project documents from tender to operational readiness including:

• Concept layout design goal definition and visualisation.

• Invitation to Tender specification, vendor selection and detailed planning

• Factory Readiness plans including the creation of a new working culture prior to day one operation.

• Tactics for ramp up and achievement of self sustaining operations.

A Vehicle for Enhancing Project Added Value

The above enhancements involve internal project stakeholders in shaping key decisions during each project step. That engages them with the challenge of delivering flawless operation from operations day one covering three key performance drivers. These are:

• Area Leadership: Adapting local management processes, data management and trouble shooting routines.

• Execution: SOP and capability development for Normal Operation, Set up and problem prevention.

• Planning: Layouts, Material flow, Production, Inspection, Servicing.

During each project step, the use of Life Cycle Costing (LCC) highlights opportunities to enhance project value and minimise the total cost of ownership. That might include low cost or even no cost fixes to existing problem hot spots. While LCC is sometimes seen as complex, this is mostly used to compare options which can normally be carried out using a simple rapidly developed model. In addition to increased project added value, this processes increases internal project ownership, operational performance and readiness for "day-one" success.

Developing A Better Project Process

If you're serious about driving performance across your project portfolio, here's how to embed project team training into your governance programme:

1. Assess your current project management approach to uncover gaps and select a pilot project to develop internal capabilities, trial and refine improvements.

2. Launch a “plan-the-plan” workshop with pilot project team members to define project quality milestones and actions to progress to the next project milestone.

3. Use stage gates to capture lessons and adjust plans proactively.

4. Codify insights into repeatable standards for future projects.

5. Define project skill learning plans to develop project team member capabilities over multiple projects. Skill passports are used to capture demonstrated capabilities which also provides recognition of achievement to reinforce proactive engagement with the project management process.

6. Make project management skill development a requirement for each project—no exceptions.

Driving Up Project Capabilities

Engaging project stakeholders in this way doesn’t just improve individual project results, it creates a platform for sustainable project performance improvement, lower manufacturing costs, and higher operational effectiveness.

That provides a vehicle to learn from each project and apply those lessons to the next.

Let’s talk about how this can be integrated into your next capital project—or scaled across your entire portfolio.