Planning And Progress Control Of Larger Offshore Projects
Authors: Lindeberg Per Gustav 
Published: December 2007

The problem with offshore projects has been time delivery time. This has led to a conclusion that offshore projects are something special. They are not. The main object of this paper is to show that a successful control of both planning, progress and cost of a large offshore project can be obtained by simple and well known planning techniques.

Introduction

During the period 1973 and up till now Aker Group has built or completed 7 gravity structures + 2 jackets for the North Sea.

These projects have all been in the range of 0,5 - 4 million man hours. Up till 1973 Aker Group was mainly a shipbuilding company. During our first projects (Beryl A and Brent B) we experienced that our projects (Beryl A and Brent B) we experienced that our existing planning technology was not suitable for offshore projects. This was mainly because our existing system was developed for products with a rather firm scope of work. Our new products for the oil industry, had to be constructed while they were developed and engineered.

During the course of the projects we felt rather confused. Neither planning nor progress reporting were under control. The budgets followed the same trend.

Based on this experience, we had two choices:To develop or buy a new planning systemModify our existing system.

We chose to do the latter.

This paper describes our system. It is based on the following main parameters:It shall be simple and logicalIt shall suit both planning, progress control and cost controlIt shall be possible to use, both computerized and manually.It shall be hierarchal.

The system (and also this paper) is very simple. "Experts" have tried to mystify the planning and control technique. But the basic philosophy planning and control technique. But the basic philosophy of planning is always the same. One describes one piece of work to be done, and tries to estimate the piece of work to be done, and tries to estimate the manhours in that connection. If you do that for all activities, you have a plan for the whole project. The planning technique only describes how you arrange these activities.

THEORY AND BASIC CRITERIAS

The planning procedures are developed for a project. For a contractor to the North Sea, this means to design, engineer and construct a structure, a plant or a platform. The project has a clear completion time (generally strict) and the total work is rather extensive from 300,000 to millions of manhours. The procedures shown here will be too complicated to involve in full, if a project is of small nature.

Aker uses EDP for many purposes. We have a complete EDP registration system for manhours.

This enables us to sort all manhours invested in a project into different kind of parameters. They can be project into different kind of parameters. They can be sorted pr. trade, pr. subcontractor, pr. area etc. We also have totally computerized systems for planning, based on a CPM technique. With correct activity definitions, this enable us to sort planned activities into the same criterias.

For material take-off and material control we use a combined computerized and manual system. When ordering and controlling purchase deliveries, we use computer systems, for the actual take-off of material pr. work order, we mostly do it manually. To save time for sorting of data in a larger project, computerized systems are a great advantage.

Another basic criteria for a planning and control system is that the project manager has authority and communication line to all parties involved in a project. Anybody, who performs actions which have an input to the progress, must report to the same system.

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