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 may start your day on Project B, writing work permits and getting contractors going for the day, spend the rest of the morning writing a Capital Expenditure Request (CER) for proposed Project D, then sit through a Design Safety Review (DSR) for Project C, over lunch. Oh, and how are those work instructions coming on Project A that’s been in operation for a month now? I get it.

Some organizations are staffed with folks that can assist with all the project-related work and the Project Managers/Engineers can truly just manage the project. Or so I hear. Then there’s the rest of us.

Every company is staffed differently.

Some sites have strong Maintenance or Operations folks that can manage contractors day-to-day: work permits, safety monitoring, even monitor crane and rigging work.

Some sites depend on their Maintenance team to fully manage projects.

Some sites have strong support teams to assist on projects: Operations folks that can create and update work instructions; HSE folks that help update procedures, handle environmental permitting, machine-guarding reviews on new equipment, and monitor project safety; Maintenance folks that can update BOMs, PM schedules for new equipment, spare parts recommendations, and redline prints.

Other companies/sites outsource some of those things and leave their internal folks free to focus on their jobs.

At some places, it’s all on the Project Engineer.

Nobody has a perfect system, and every site is different.

Below is a high-level outline of the most common steps in a manufacturing project.

1. Funding Request docs – writing and editing CER/AFF/AFD/AFE docs.
2. Management presentations – creating presentations for Scope, Justification, Gate and Risk Assessment reviews.
3. Design reviews – meetings with site staff: managers, operators, safety (HSE), process engineers, maintenance, vendors .
4. Project schedules – creating and tracking project schedules in Excel, Microsoft Project, P6, Procore.
5. RFQ/RFP Documents – writing accurate docs to solicit bids from vendors and contractors.
6. Sequence of Operation docs – explain to the programmers, engineers, and vendors how the new system should operate.
7. Project execution phase – installation, startup, commissioning:
   • Contractor scheduling,
   • Work permitting,
   • Safety huddles,
   • Cost tracking,
   • Change Order tracking.
8. Post-installation Phase – done well, this is the “invisible” part; if it’s not, “why is this project still open?”
   • Work instructions (Operations, Maintenance, Safety),
   • Training material,
   • Prints,
   • Manuals,
   • Spare parts lists,
   • PM/PdM schedules,
   • BOMs,
   • Equipment labels,
   • Project binders/directories, etc.

Leave a comment and tell me:

• Where’s your pain?
• Where could you use some help? And if you don’t need help, what’s your secret to getting it all done?

Thanks!