What Makes Successful “Project Management / Commissioning”

I have been involved in projects now for the past 20 years and I am often asked,  “What makes a project successful”? I was asked this question again just recently so thought I would give my opinion on the subject as I do believe my credentials are suitable in this area with some 120 new build rigs / upgrade projects under our belt. While there maybe companies that have had similar experience in the number of projects I would say our experience “Challengers” is fairly unique which I shall go into later.

This topic may also be timely as there will be projects starting up with rigs being “Reactivated” from the stacked position, plus other “special purpose” rigs built in the near future.

The following is based on actual facts and 20 years of experience in the project management / commissioning field mainly in the drilling industry, however, this subject matter is related and applicable to any project type. Within this article I give some examples of good and poor project management plus some experience examples. 

Firstly credentials / experience, you could say OCS and myself started the modern era of commissioning in the drilling industry. In saying this meaning we have been involved with many “first rig builds” with most of the major shipyards today, with additional heavy involvement with some of the major drilling companies since the resurgence of the drilling industry from the late 90’s. Examples of experience;

? First Rig Build for Keppel Shipyard, Singapore; Drillship for Falcon Drilling (now TOI) – P4 – Commissioning Manager

? First rigs builds for shipyard, PPL Singapore, two jack ups for Santa Fe Drilling First JU 2000 series – Commissioning Manager

? First rig build for Hyundai Ship Yard, Korea – Transocean – Deep Water Horizon – Commissioning Manager

? First Rig Build for Dalian shipyard (now DSIC) China, - Semi – Noble Drilling – Full Commissioning Team

? First Rig Build for SWS, China – DP Semi – HSY 981 – Commissioning Supervision team

? First series Rig Builds Jurong Shipyard, Singapore – Semi – Commissioning coordinator/manager for second rig – Global Santa Fe

? First rig build, COSCO Shipyard Dalian, China – Commissioning Supervision Team

? First series of Drill ships in Samsung Shipyard, Korea – Rig / commissioning acceptance Team

? First Rig in Daewoo Shipyard, Korea – Semi – Thunder Horse (drilling production)– for BP – partial Commissioning team and later Commissioning Manager

? Set us Commissioning Process for Transocean – completed all upgrades several from around 2001 to 2005/6

? Set up Commissioning Processes/procedures for Ensco – completed most of upgrades with lead commissioning engineer up to around 2012

? Development of the first “System Integration Test” (SIT/IAT) test

The above mentioned shipyards would now produce approximately 80% or more of the world’s offshore drilling rigs today and involvement with first rigs built in these yards has had considerable challengers, experience gained and lessons learnt.

The IAT / SIT (simulation Integration Test), acceptance testing would now be an industry standard acceptance test procedure used on every new build rig and upgrade project in the industry.

The main point that I am trying to get across here is not so much the amount of experience gained, but the hard earned experience gained with involvement with shipyards on their first rig builds, and the difficulty in building a first rig in a shipyard, the problems faced, these lessons learnt are just irreplaceable with no former processes to follow. Those people having built first series of rig will understand the problems faced, never-mind a shipyard that has never built a rig before.

The other interesting point you may have noticed I have mentioned “Project Management / Commissioning” jointly, and not just one of the disciplines. The reason for this, they cannot be separated if you wish to have a successful project and I will explain this in more detail by example of my first commissioning experience at Keppel Shipyard – the P4 a little later in this article.

Incorrect Assumptions

Many companies believe they will be able achieve a successful project by engaging the best experts in their field and have a strong project team, this will help but sorry, it’s the incorrect assumption.

Everyone has heard of “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link”. This does not mean that the individual is not an expert in his field but rather the amount of links in the chain and how they are interconnected. Let me give you an example what I mean. Projects are divided into department or sections, mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, drilling, subsea, QA/QC, Construction, (I will place piping in a separate category), procurement and third parties, it’s not just the project team members. Each and every one / group knows their job well. In saying this if I am responsible for commissioning, I cannot control QA/QC or a third party, and QA/QC likewise control construction. Each of the departments stated, are dependent on each other group to complete their task on time. If construction is waiting for a part to be delivered to be installed, then QA/QC is also waiting before they can inspect and this is passed all the way down the line to commissioning. So that one delay can have an impact of a system being delivered late by one day for a single item, not too bad is it???

While this seems fine being only one day late, it’s not, because we may have somewhere between 150 to 300 or more systems pending the project structure and over 100,000 of pieces equipment / components to be installed / inspected / commissioned, and each of these cause one day delay on a system. While is a delay of one day on every system may not add up to 150/300 days delay, it will certainly add up to 3 months or possibly much more delay.

Let look at it a different way, a project lead, say a Mechanical or electrical commissioning engineer responsible for his sectional systems, how many systems can he “really” control, by control I mean know what is going on with every system in all departments. I will guarantee each lead will only be thinking approximately 7 days in advance in most cases, they are too busy commissioning and preparing for the next couple of days work to look much more ahead than this. It is really not possible that they can be fully aware of the status of 50 systems or more in all departments because this will not happen.

Example of my first project

I joined this project some months after the project started and was employed by both Keppel Shipyards and Falcon Drilling (now part of Transocean), to develop the commissioning procedures and assist with and accept the commissioning activities. This project was running probably 4 months late at around 70% through the project. As you can imagine, being this late, there was a great deal of agitation. In one of the weekly meetings with the project team, vendors and shipyard personnel present etc., there was some arguing and fault blaming for the project delays. Then one person asked, “Does anyone know where we are”, all of sudden the meeting room went silent, not one person answered, not even the scheduler. Anyway after sometime I raised my hand and said, “I don’t know where we are but I can find out”. I was only there for the commissioning, it was not my job to tell them the schedule project status, however I could advise the commissioning status but not the project as a whole. From that time I started to develop a very comprehensive tracking/information system for everything which would affect commissioning start-up, this later developed to be a full project management / QA / commissioning software system.

Why did I do this, mainly because being responsible for the commissioning, and with the commissioning being at the end of the project, blame/pressure tends to fall the commissioning group as it’s the last item to be completed, never mind other factors delayed the commissioning from starting on time.

LESSON 1 don’t rely on other areas / departments completing their work on time. What I found is you have to ensure that the other areas from construction, QA / QC have their work completed so that commissioning can start on the scheduled time. This is where I say Project Management / Commissioning is inseparable, I use the term “Project Management by Commissioning”. “Information is Critical on all phases of the projects for commissioning to be on time.”

Well what is the Answer?

Well what’s the answer? Is a good project schedule going to help you tell you where you are, the simple answer is no, it’s not, because it will not be accurate. Why is it not accurate? A few reasons for this, a project schedule will not have enough project details included in the system, the shipyard/construction yard is always going to tell you they are further ahead than what they are (they will take credit in areas when its’ not due). For example if a call out for mechanical completion was called and it failed they will call it 50% completed (as a re-inspection), never mind it will be need to be re-inspected 100% again. The project team may have their own schedule however this will not have the enough details in the schedule for detailed planning, it is basically a hierarchy system, it’s not going down to cable, junction box levels which would be required to know what is needed before I can even start to do the commissioning.

Information is the Key

The key for successful project management is “Information” and this come in many different forms, mainly that information which is readily available, and that which is not. I will go into this only briefly as these are complete topics in themselves and if someone does want more information let me know I will be happy to help to assist.

1. Project Management / Commissioning System – This is a tool way beyond what Primavera or Microsoft Project offers. If it’s used it will identify every single component / inspection activity plus outstanding items such as punch items, technical queries and much more. If I want to know the status on a system I can press a button, it will tell me what piping spools testing and status and outstanding items needed to be completed, what cables need to be installed / tested, what technical queries are outstanding etc. At a glance I can see the number of inspections to be completed/day or man hours required to complete the project on time and when it is likely to finish based on “performance to date” (not as schedule based on your best estimate made to suit a desired date), and what needs to be completed by what time. – This is the information that is “readily available” if a company is willing to use such a system for planning.

2. The above is only part of the story and there is no better system in preparing the planning, and when executed your project is so well planned well as you have identified every single item and inspection required. However, it does not take into account the “Human Factor” “information that is not readily available”. What is the human factor? This is the mistakes, non-actions, information not passed on, thinking someone else is doing the job, or none communication for issues/delays.

Item 2 needs the ability of someone usually the Project Manager / Commissioning Manager to be bring together the project team, shipyard, vendors to gain the missing information / links, to make a task happen on time, with item 1 you have all the known information what is required on a physical level to complete a project, but also we need to identify the human elements, any delay that is waiting to happen. There are various methodologies/systems (which again is a paper by itself) of achieving this but basically it needs a team that is willing to go beyond individual bounds of sectionalisation and requires intersection communications to succeed.

Example of a Project Management / Commissioning System capability. - INFORMATION

1. I was commissioning manager on the Deepwater Horizon, and the shipyard stated they were on time to have the heavy lift arrive on particular date. I advise the project manager, then “Lindsay Clark” that the rig completion was impossible on the proposed date and the heavy lift needed to be delayed a minimum of 2 months. After some discussion and proof of project status with the shipyard (Project management / Commissioning System V’s the shipyard progress schedule) the heavy lift was delayed 2 months. The rig was over two months delayed, and I am guessing saving many millions of dollars for Transocean.

This would not have been possible without this Project management / commissioning system software and the PM would have no option but to listen to the shipyards advice.

Examples Poor Management

2. I was on a project late 90’s in Korea on a new build drillship. The project manager whom will remain nameless on his very first address / kick off meeting to the project team, with vendors and third parties present. His opening address statement was, “My name is Mr XXX and it is my job to make your lives as miserable as possible”!!!!!! NOT the way to motivate your team and get cooperation and bring them together. How is someone like this going to get information and support for the stakeholders?

Good Project Managers

3. A good project manager is a person who has the ability of good communications and be able to get the information from the stakeholders. He will need to find out what is required to meet schedule/task, fix the problems and bring teams together. Lindsay Clark who worked for Transocean at that time was about the best I have seen at doing this, he was tireless, good to work with and likeable, he managed to get all parties involved and extract information that was needed and was very approachable.

However a Project Manager also need good information to be able to make informed decisions.

Conclusion

Without going into all the many project management elements, projects require several factors to be successful. Without the highlighted 2 items listed below the chances of a successful project will be limited no matter how good the experts are.

1. ? A strong team
2. ? Project manager / leads with the above abilities
3. ? Good Planning – (comes with a PM / Commissioning system and heavily related to information)
4. ? Information
5. ? Communications

One closing point, Project Management is no different than any other business, if you do not have the information how can make you make informed decisions, i.e. “if you don’t know where you are, how do you know where you are going, information is your road map to success”. A successful project in made in the planning stage with careful monitoring of the execution.

Further Information

Anyone that would like further information or assistance on project management / commissioning /reaction please feel free and contact me.

Mark Tranfield | Managing Director | OCS Group

Project Management / Commissioning & Rig Inspection Services Specialists