Background
The client, like many large chemical companies operates a number of sites - each of which draws upon the services of a local engineering team. At one of the largest such sites, previous restructuring efforts and the formation of new Business Units had placed increasing demands on the system which could not be met.
With many young and inexperienced staff and apparently conflicting demands, the client decided to embark upon a programme to increase efficiency, and build on core competence such that it would not be over-reliant on contractors.
Previous studies had shown a clear need to focus on basic or conceptual engineering thus placing greater emphasis on developing advanced solutions and allowing third parties to undertake the detailed engineering and calculation-based work.
Given the increasing complexity and internationalisation of projects and the mixed success of previous consulting projects, the client turned to T.A. Cook Consultants because of its track record in similar organisations, engineering process and project management expertise.
The consultants were asked to provide an independent assessment of capability and work together with the Senior Engineers to determine a practical way to refine engineering processes and project management systems.
Approach
Because of the sensitive nature of the exercise, a joint decision was taken to work on a two-phase analysis-implementation programme with general site-wide agreement required before moving to implementation (Phase II).
The T.A. Cook team consisted of qualified Engineers and Mature Consultants well versed in the complex relationships between production, engineering and site management.
Phase I – The Analysis, kicked-off with over 40 in-depth interviews with Project Managers, Engineers, Production Managers, BU Heads and Site Directors. Having established the basic demands and offerings as well as the essential strengths and weaknesses of the various parties, the T.A. Cook team commenced a series of detailed studies which looked in turn at: project and process management, roles & responsibilities, skills & core competences, resource management, scoping definition and changes, time logging, cost allocation and also justification mechanisms.
Finally, a series of detailed project audits were conducted with the participation of relevant Project Managers to ascertain specific opportunities for improvement and match these against the general findings. In this way overall targets could be filtered and quantified by project type and phase – factors which play a significant role in the quantification of accurate benefits.
Findings
Whilst some findings were broadly in line with expectations, such as known lack of resource management, poor scope definition and accountability in the project execution phase, the detailed nature of the analysis also unearthed previously unknown facts.
These included a wholly-underestimated workload of small subprojects taking up an estimated 30% of many Engineers’ time. Many staff were found to taking on many unofficial requests for assistance without logging time, effort and associated costs as accurately as is desirable.
This led to a vicious circle of poor scope definition, indifferent project performance and hence rework. Too much rework reduced the time available for good preparation on other projects which, in turn, led to more difficulties.
Coupled with inconsistent levels of local production, maintenance and technical knowledge in the newly reorganised Business Units, overall engineering and project management performance was some 15-20% beneath where it should have been.
In effect, this meant that the same teams of people, if well organised, motivated and trained could liberate around 15% more time for both additional and better run projects. If one took into account marginal opportunity costs and savings arising from fewer overruns and lower contractor hours then it was clear that a project to increase efficiency would pay for itself many times over.
Definition & Next Steps
Having established broad opportunity, the joint client – T.A. Cook Team, defined the minimum number of core themes which coherently and succinctly covered the key issues and would allow for the creation of manageable workshops and discussions. Having just 5 core themes also meant not creating an unnecessary additional workload or the sense of initiative overload.
The workshops were organised to refine the findings further so that specific targets and activities were agreed for each theme – collectively creating a set of interdependent actions and timescales which in turn were turned into a provisional project implementation plan which was submitted for approval to the board.
This plan now forms the basis of Phase II – a project which will start in Q3 2008 and run for nearly 12 months touching at least 300 people and bringing significant benefits to the Engineering Department and the Business Units as well as a sense of improved worth for the staff themselves.
For more information contact:
Rupert Clark
Marketing Manager
Direct: +44 (0) 1183 260 229
Mobile: +44 (0) 7792 926 696
r.clark@tacook.com |
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