Project – Spare Parts
Any equipment you install is going to need spare parts – components fail or wear out. Delivery times over the past few years have gotten longer. Parts that vendors previously kept in stock are no longer on the shelf. You can’t always depend on getting that spare you need to get your line back up…
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Version Control
How is the version control on your projects? Are your contractors, engineers, and management all looking at the latest revision of the project prints, scope documents, and schedules?Of course! That’s a given, right? Not necessarily. I was on a project, in a support role, where the project sponsor requested several significant changes directly from the…
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Project Scheduling
Project Scheduling What’s your success rate on capital projects? Usually on time? On budget? If you commit to a Total Installed Cost (TIC) of $450k and a line downtime (DT) of 22 days, do you make it? What’s the over/under bet the Maintenance guys have running? 30 days? Typically, you do your best estimate on…
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Project Cost Tracking
Project Cost Tracking Are you on top of your project spend? If you work for a large company, you may have to do monthly forecasting and accruals, and have a forecast accuracy metric that gets reported up. I did that for years. I feel your pain. I had a great spreadsheet I used for entering…
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Project Safety
This post is about 2 aspects of “project safety” – safety during the installation and safety of the finished project. Installation safetyYou’re probably on top of this, but here are a few highlights, whether it’s contractors or your own in-house folks: Equipment/Machine safetyHere I’m talking about the safety of the finished project.You really need your…
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Project Engineers – Q4 – Wrap It Up
I’ve been doing a “Plant Manager Walk” post on Fridays. Today is the first of a weekly post for Project Engineers. We’re now suddenly in Q4 – if you’re finishing an installation or upgrade, it’s time to wrap it up! I spent years installing and upgrading equipment in manufacturing plants. All those “fun” things that…
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Projects – and Eye Bleeds
So, you’re the project engineer on an equipment upgrade at your manufacturing site. Let’s say it’s an existing line and you’ve been given 3 weeks’ downtime to do the installation. I’m sure you’ve already reviewed the design, in great detail, with Operations, HSE, and the Maintenance folks, right? Vendors and contractors understand the scope and…
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Catch-Up Time!
Project Managers – do you have plans for the weekend. Wait! Are you planning to work Sunday morning to “catch up?” Again? Work instructions on the project you just wrapped up? Wordsmithing the capital request docs on the next project? (CER, AFE, etc.) Making a project schedule in Excel or MS Project? Doing that Operational…
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“It’s not the Same” or “Go see”
One rookie project manager mistake is deciding you don’t need to check something yourself. I started one project engineer job years ago and took over a project on a plastic compounding line. The folks before me had already ordered a screen changer and melt pump. “We ordered the same thing this other line has so…
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Where’s your pain?
Project Engineers and Project Managers in Manufacturing – Where’s your pain? If you do installation/upgrade projects in a manufacturing environment, it can feel like there’s never enough time. You rarely get to start one project and stick with it until it’s done—more likely, you have multiple projects going simultaneously, each in a different phase. You…
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