A complex industrial conversion within an existing facility.
The challenge
Repeated schedule slippage exposed gaps in planning and coordination across the owner, engineering partners, OEMs, contractors and the owner’s construction-management representative. Individual plans did not adequately account for dependencies and obligations across organizations.
Communication had deteriorated, and attention had shifted toward protecting individual contractual positions. The project needed a credible, shared basis for coordinating the remaining work and reaching its completion objectives.
Sand Hill's contribution
Establish a credible integrated schedule
Sand Hill deployed a lead planner/scheduler to develop a detailed schedule grounded in the information requirements, material movements, construction sequences and dependencies governing turnover, checkout and commissioning. The plan connected the participating organizations’ work with the requirements for completing assets and systems.
Identify the capability required for completion
The assessment revealed a further gap: the project lacked the capability needed to coordinate turnover, punch-list resolution, start-up and commissioning at the weekly and daily levels. Addressing that gap required additional management capability alongside the integrated schedule.
Provide systems and field leadership
Sand Hill developed a tailored system to track construction completion, turnover, punch-list items and commissioning activities. A commissioning manager and an electrical construction manager joined the engagement to coordinate the remaining work and facilitate completion across assets, systems and participating organizations.
The outcome
The participating organizations began working against a common plan, with discussions focused on the requirements, resources and actions necessary to complete the remaining work.
The integrated schedule credibly predicted asset start-up, enabling participating organizations to plan the resources needed for their contributions and giving the owner a reliable basis for production forecasting.
The project was completed on time against the rebaselined plan.
How this work connects
The engagement connected project recovery with delivery of a brownfield conversion and the planning, information and management capability needed for start-up. A credible start-up forecast gave the owner a basis for production planning as the converted assets approached operation.