Refinery Capital Project Construction
“Help us stop the slippage!” We moved into this distressed capital project after successfully helping the same client in a maintenance turnaround on the same site.
“They were very effective in influencing people and giving them tools to execute their work more efficiently. Think of a [big-box consultant], but with some actual experienced smart people who are very customer-focused… and the service is much more cost effective…they were a key contributor to our seamless start-up in Singapore.”
– Project Director
Context/Challenge
We entered this $1 billion refinery co-generation capital project, the largest project in this client’s history, when it was already underway.
The capital project faced significant hurdles, and our client sought to “stop the slippage:”
- Lagging construction progress: (26.8% actual vs. planned 42.9%), necessitating multiple schedule revisions and broken promises to stakeholders.
- Inadequate safety: Widespread safety concerns with high incident rates.
- Frequent changes: Rework and quality issues, evidenced by numerous P&ID changes and contractor field notices, were dramatically affecting cost and safety performance.
- Inefficient communication: leading to changing decisions and misalignments between stakeholders
Approach
We mobilized an experienced team who spent the first month on site in discovery, fully understanding the context and situation. This resulted in a 6-point Case for Change document, spelling out key concerns and necessary mitigations. In consultation with the joint venture partners, we co-created and helped implement a robust Change Management Plan. These enabled a significant improvement in performance:
- Improving the Contract. We facilitated constructive dialogue and help realign the contract structures to enable a win-win outcome between owner and contractor.
- Adjusting the Organization. Increased focus on system completion and stronger QA/QC through adjusted organizational structure, roles, and accountabilities.
- Enhancing communication patterns. Using evidence-based coaching and reporting across silos, focusing on the critical path.
- Standardizing Processes. Introduced System Completion processes to sequence walkdowns, handovers, deliverables, and efficient start-ups, understanding and improving the owner and contractor’s existing processes.
- Improved systems. Data collection and reporting on deliverables was dramatically improved, enabling task prioritization and resource decision making.
- Streamlining Plans for Execution. Leveraged Turnaround-based Schedule Optimization techniques to drive readiness and urgency into critical scopes.
Result
The project finished in the top quartile in cost and schedule, and achieved two key project objectives:
- Achieved flawless tie-in, start-up and ramp-up of the new facility.
- Achieved sustained continuous operations at full nameplate capacity on the targeted schedule.
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