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Musings on new ideas, developments, and tools for conceptual design of process industry projects
Subscribe to Front-End Loader by EmailAs the advisory committee member for the excellent and well received ChemInnovations 2010 conference in Houston in October, I was responsible for organizing the content for Session 1C: Cost Estimation and Project Justification. I have already discussed Thane Brown’s presentation in a separate article. Another great session was Felipe Taveres’ presentation on using online information for competitor information. In his talk titled “Transforming Publicly Available Information Into an Innovative Tool for Business Decisions”, Felipe discussed how his Brazilian firm, Intratec, provides process technology intelligence to its clients by researching information in patents, trade magazines, and research journals. In particular he mentioned Google Scholar and Google Patents as two of the online tools that his firm uses.
I mentioned some of the same sources in my article for Chemical Engineering - Using Web 2.0 Tools to Increase Your Productivity.
As the advisory committee member for the excellent and well received ChemInnovations 2010 conference in Houston in October, I was responsible for organizing the content for Session 1C: Cost Estimation and Project Justification. One of the three excellent speakers at our session was Thane Brown (link to bio) whose talk was titled Economic Design: An Economic Optimization Methodology. It was an excellent a summary of his paper available online at che.com - Capital and Production Costs: Improving the Bottom Line.
Using the concept of technical function diagrams, Thane urged the audience to avoid the trap of selecting unit operations too early. He mentioned that, too often, process engineers start project development by pre-selecting unit operations based on their experience without really verifying if the selected unit operation is really the most cost effective choice. Thane provided examples of developing technical function diagrams can help process design engineers identify lower cost designs. You can read more about his method at the www.che.com link above.
My article discussing the five types of barriers to productivity based on an article by McKinsey consultants was just published today on the new ChEnected online community. ChEnected is a thriving online community of chemical engineers sponsored by AIChE. You will find engaging articles from a variety of experts.
I recently came across a survey of senior executives in industrial manufacturing firms about the state of project management within their firms. The survey - Closing the gap: The link between project management excellence and long-term success - is available at the Economist Intelligence Unit web site. All of the firms represented in the survey consider project management a key competency but most admit that the performance on their projects can be better. The survey uses graphics and charts to summarize the responses. I am sharing some key excerpts from the survey below.
Following a structured project management method enables companies to predict and mitigate risks, better manage costs and deliver quality results that satisfy clients. In the most mature project management organisations, these project goals are directly linked to strategic business objectives, giving these organisations a powerful competitive advantage.
Yet few companies consistently meet their project goals or measure project success. This inconsistency stems largely from a failure to implement and follow well-defined project management practices, despite ongoing efforts to improve processes with the goal of delivering better, faster, cheaper results.
Aware of their shortcomings, companies are trying to do better, but they struggle to find the best ways to address the challenge.
Although many executives and project managers say that their organisations have strong project management strategies and that using those strategies provides them with a clear and measurable competitive advantage, most admit that they do not adhere to them consistently. Until that gap is closed, project success will continue to be a daunting task.
Training and recruiting are the top ways companies invest in improving their project management programmes.
To prove that a project was a success, it is necessary to measure more than timeliness and adherence to budget; companies should also measure outcomes against project goals, determine whether the project delivered bottom-line results and assess the satisfaction of clients and stakeholders with the project.
I found this survey well written and educational and recommend it highly.
In a recent article on CIO.com, Jason Westland proposes five goals that a project manager should strive for:
In the process industry, there is also a sixth goal for projects - zero injuries.
How do you prioritize the goals on your projects to allocate resources and time properly? Do you agree with the order that Jason presented the goals? Should you demand overtime from your team members to ensure that the project finishes on time? On projects that I have led, the goals actually have been prioritized in the same order that Westland presents them. The safety goal is first followed by the five goals listed above. In most cases, team member happiness is a luxury to consider only after the first four goals have been addressed.
The challenge in being a great project manager is to plan and lead your project so that not only the top goals are met but that you do not have to ask your team members to perform heroics to meet them. Proper planning and ability to manage risks can help you meet all six goals.
A final note to consider about prioritizing project goals is that the order can shift depending on the what phase the project is in. Priorities can also and usually do shift in response to outside business, economic, or customer conditions.
