Owners that develop large complex projects sometimes have to synchronise the work of several engineering contractors at project development stage (pre-Final Investment Decision). Since engineering processes often differ between those contractors, it can be difficult to achieve this synchronisation. Our new White Paper 2019-01 ‘How to Synchronize Different Engineering Contractors at Project Development Stage’ investigates the issues at stake and proposes some proven approaches for solving it.
Owners generally use a project development and definition framework involving successive stages of improved definition and increased commitment, such as for example, framing, preliminary design and basic design stages. Those stages are often separated by formal gate reviews by senior management. The FEL (Front-End Loading) process developed by IPA is a well-known example of such models, which are proven to be best practice.
It is essential to impose the Owner’s model on the contractors and make sure the design development plan of each contractor is aligned in terms of expected deliverables at each gate, with a consistent maturity level of the design across all contractors. In addition, comprehensive design reviews of the full facility must be carried out in a collaborative manner to ensure full alignment of assumptions and interfaces in preparation of the main gates.
In order to achieve the best development of a project definition plan, we recommend holding planning workshops at the start, involving key representatives of all contractors, so as to share the expected Owner approach and discuss all the interfaces that are required to happen. Those sessions can sometimes be difficult and may in that case need to be facilitated to achieve their objectives. The outcome should be an overall plan for the full project scope development, and an understanding of each contractor’s project development plan, that aligns with the essential requirements of the overall plan.
Some Owners might find it difficult to organise such collaboration or get into the details needed to synchronise the processes of all contractors around a single project development process. However, it is unavoidable in the case where several contractors are involved. We observe too often that the Owners are not up to that responsibility and definition phases falter because Owners are not sufficiently engaged. Owner engagement is needed in those cases. This signifies a higher upfront investment, that will redeem itself by a shorter project definition stage, a much better apprehension of interfaces between contractors, a much-improved decision-making framework for senior management, and finally a smoother and more predictable project execution. Read our new White Paper 2019-01 ‘How to Synchronize Different Engineering Contractors at Project Development Stage’ for more thoughts on the subject.
If you can’t access the link to the white paper, copy and paste the following link in your browser: http://www.projectvaluedelivery.com/_library/2019-01_Project_dvpt_contractor_synchronisation_v0.pdf
