Helping people improve processes for successful projects and programs

TWIST as a Service for your next Turnaround, Shutdown or Outage

2017-06-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

The easy button for a complex event

The Problem

Your plant, or a part of it, is to be 'turned around' in 12 months or more. You want to ensure that all members of your company teams, and the contractors that will help you, are always on the same page, along with the Safety, Inspection and Operations teams. This is a big project that involves costs of $1,000,000 or more a day - not including lost revenue due to no production during the turnaround. Integration, Collaboration and Communication will help ensure that things go well, ie.: no one gets hurt; the plant starts up on time; costs are controlled; no environmental issues affect your neighbors; and you have no problems starting up the plant.

You have done many of these turnarounds before, yet you know that you keep re-inventing the process, mostly due to newer team members not having learned from the lessons that were learned by their predecessors.

Spreadsheets are massaged; meetings are large and not very productive; timely permits are consistently a bottleneck; time entry is cumbersome and expensive and not accurate; The list goes on - you can add to it based on your experiences.

Today, you manage your turnaround with a number of tools and people - for readiness, scope development and optimization, procurement, timekeeping, cost control, scheduling. It takes a many people, each working in his/her/their silo and trailer, who then share their reports via emails and in meetings. This is the way it's always been. All that's changed is that more people now work in more spreadsheets and systems and this means data is more fragmented (i.e. not integrated) than it ever was.

It's time for a change to a better, less costly, more sustainable, more predictable, less complex to learn and use approach, that that uses tools available today. Everyone in your workforce is already familiar with using apps on their smartphone. You need a system that works like apps do - easy, no learning and with great results.

The Solution

You need a single system, with all of your stakeholders, planning and execution teams working off the same data. This includes scope development, estimating, budget development, procurement of long-lead and off-the-shelf items, delivery tracking, tool shop management and also management of the time spent (incurred) by each contractor and company team member. There should be no place to hide your data. Hours worked must contribute to incurred cost immediately. Materials procured immediately affects cost and schedules immediately show the delaying effects of based on commitment and committed date. There is no need to re-enter the data - they are re-used as needed by the reports and dashboards to always present a current picture of the turnaround / shutdown / outage / project health in your 5 major aspects: Safety, Environment, Cost, Schedule and Quality.

Some of you have also worked hard to build your own system. We understand your pain - we've experienced it as well. Luckily, our hard-won experience and laser focus on improving the game for all turnaround management teams is what makes our results more sustainable and all-encompassing.

The Service

TeamWork Group is happy to present a service that we have developed over 30 plus years that includes all of the lessons learned in real turnarounds / shutdowns / outages / projects in plants and refineries: TeamWork Integrated Solutions Technology (TWIST). TWIST is your answer to the nagging issues of poor and inefficient communications in meetings; non-collaborative use of budget, commitments, incurred, expended, workforce and other data; and the lack of integration between systems and teams.

TeamWork Group offers this service on line - the only software tool each user needs is a system or device that has a Microsoft Internet Explorer or Google Chrome or Apple Safari browser. 

TWIST service is quoted and billed on a per turnaround / shutdown / outage / project basis, with discounts for multiple events or multi-year contracts. Support for a turnaround /shutdown / outage / project starts approximately 1 year prior to the execution phase and continues for approximately 1 year after startup or commissioning.

The cost for the service is a fraction of the costs that you now incur due to multiple handling of the same data by many people in a silo-ized environment.

What can you expect to be included in this service?

24x7 access for each member (no user count) of each of your teams - including company and contractor users;
Standard Management reports and dashboards for Safety, Quality, Environmental, Cost and Schedule;
Initial Data Imports from ERP, data or spreadsheet-based systems;
Pre-Turnaround / Pre-Shutdown Readiness tracking;
Scope development, including collaboration tools for discussions with Operations, Inspection, etc.;
Estimating - of labor, equipment, materials, consumables, services and subcontractor costs;
Budgeting of costs as a baseline for tracking costs;
Planning of sequential, resource-loaded equipment and system-based work;
Scheduling of work based on available resources from company and contractor pools, and based on the turnaround / shutdown / outage milestones;
Change management to track changes to the Budget and Schedule based changes in scope or trends due to extenuating circumstances such as weather and unexpected events;
Procurement management, from material take-off, to estimate, to requisition to request for quotes (RFQ); to purchase order (PO), to receiving (MRR) or materials, consumables, equipment rentals and services;
Quality management of received materials;
Tracking of Risks and Hazards and Safety incidents and mitigation measures;
Time management of all crafts based on timesheet entry against planned work items;
End to End Earned value management-based (EVM) Cost management and reports - a result of the rest of the data already being in the system - with no need for any additional entry or management;
Company and Contractor rate management ensures that accurate rates are used in determination of labor, equipment, materials and services costs - this data is protected for each contractor and company;
HR-related data for company and contractor people - including attendance and leave management;
Invoice accrual and validation against issued POs;
Gate entry/exit log used to validate time reported;

You get the picture - we really do mean one system to manage your turnaround. Ready to get started? We are. Contact us at www.teamworkgroup.com

Why TeamWork Integrated Solutions Technology? An Answer to a New Developer or Analyst

2017-04-25T07:55:00.001-07:00

TeamWork Integrated Solutions Technology - that's a mouthful. It does, however, provide a solid start to understanding what TeamWork Group does, why it does it and how this helps our clients. This article reviews the broad reasons that our solution is needed in the marketplace, and the means that we have adopted to provide the solution. Finally it also discusses why our approach is compelling, while differing from much of what is available in the market in 2017. In the incessant noise of the technology job world, we think that an explanation such as this is useful for people looking for both a career as well as a mission that is sustainable.

The Market for Technology Solutions

Virtually any business today, regardless of size, relies heavily on the use of spreadsheets to manage critical data. Companies (including agencies and institutions) with deep pockets for a deep bench of IT people may also have a strategic data solution - such as an enterprise resource planning system (ERP). Much money has been spent on deploying expensive ERPs and for consulting services following the deployment of such systems. Rather than reducing spreadsheet usage, however, ERP limitations cause users to export even more data to spreadsheets in order to accomplish basic tasks. An ERP is a behemoth of a database that requires expensive consulting resources to navigate the terrain.

TeamWork Solutions stands in contrast to such systems, by being much less expensive and intuitive and easy to configure to meet virtually any data management need.

Because of the 'unwieldiness' of enterprise systems, people use spreadsheets to expedite their work. A TeamWork System Analyst can quickly adapt these spreadsheet needs into sustainable processes, thus enabling our clients to focus on their core business mission, rather than engaging in complex wrangling of spreadsheet-based models of their data.

Mobile and social media apps have shown the importance and the pervasiveness of collaboration and integration. These abilities are integral to cloud-based apps - with data delivered to users on platforms and devices of their choice. TeamWork Solutions has tightly linked collaboration opportunities to each data line in each app. This means team members can discuss a data item specifically - rather than generally in an email, as is now done.

With over 20 years of integration with ERPs, we can also co-exist and leverage ERP data, so that customers who have already invested in these technologies can increase their return on those investments by using the data warehouse concepts built into TeamWork Solutions.

TeamWork Group's Technology

What makes us different? Simply put, we have, over 20 years, developed a metadata method that enables quick, error-free configuration of solutions which we call 'apps'. We configure each app to support the daily tasks that a person's role requires him/her/they to perform. This focus on Role, and our acceptance that a user, department or company can have different requirements today than they did yesterday, is what makes us different. Our experience makes us comfortable that we can easily deliver the solutions expected with less effort than is needed with ERPs.

Our databases are hosted in the cloud and are backed up to alternate locations in the cloud - thus ensuring redundancy in the case of disaster recovery procedures.

Our proprietary, next generation, data communication manager (which we call NextGen or NG) is at the core of our solution. It acts as the traffic cop that gets requests from the client, directs the request to the database, then gets the result from the database and sends the requested information, properly packaged, back to the client.

The client is a standard browser that does additional processing to format the results for the client user to view.

TeamWork developers are engaged in each level of this stack of software - which gives us control over the end user experience.

TeamWork Group Team

We recruit TeamWork System Analysts local to the area that our clients operate. The internet has enabled us to work with you as long as you have an internet connection. Training, for the technically adept, is quick (4 weeks) and results are seen by the client in days or weeks instead of months and years.

As our potential clients include 1000s of contractors in the US and Canada, 1000s of City, County and Local Government entities, TeamWork Group's potential need for System Analysts is huge. We have also worked with owner companies to help manage their assets in maintenance environments.

We are doing due diligence in preparing repeatable processes and documenting techniques that will enable quick knowledge transfer to TeamWork System Analysts as they come on board.

Want to Join Us?

As stated previously, we are always looking to meet and connect with technically adept people that could fill the role of system analysts. As our client base increases, we'll be able to engage in an employer to employee, business to contractor, or business to business relationship - depending on what makes sense for you.

Managing Maintenance in Programs and Projects, Including Turnarounds

2017-04-21T13:50:00.001-07:00

OVERVIEW & PURPOSE

Maintenance work is what we do on equipment that is operational and that helps keep that equipment running in peak condition. Sometimes the equipment has to be shut down (i.e. made non-operational) and, while it's down, it represents lost revenue due to lost productivity. So, we need to, effectively, efficiently and safely, do the work needed to get it back online. If the equipment is part of a larger process, the process may need to also be shut down, meaning that an opportunity to maintain other equipment and facilities may be presented. If a number of processes are shut down at the same, or in overlapping, time-frames, this may be considered a 'turnaround' or an 'outage' of the process unit being shut down for maintenance.

This overview is the first step in a series of steps that together will help your maintenance and turnaround scope development, planning and execution effort benefit from the integrated approach to work management, that is enabled by today's cloud technology.

TeamWork Group's people and partners are experienced in managing maintenance and turnarounds and this expertise is built into the cloud-accessible solution, TeamWork Integrated Solution Technology, for companies, agencies, institutions and departments of all sizes. You are invited to proceed, with the processes outlined here, in a website, with your data, now! No need for complex, time-consuming, expensive system analysis. The data you manage here is yours always and can be easily migrated to another system, should you choose to do so. Go to www.teamworkgroup.com to get started with TeamWork Integrated Solutions Technology. Tell us what you want to see and do and be pleased with the quick response that you receive that amazing efficiency that you generate over current approaches that are tied-down with ERPs or out of control with spreadsheets, or both!

Steps in Managing Turnaround and Routine Work

Build and Maintain the Site/Area/Unit/Equipment foundation

Your plant site consists of a number of Operating or Business Areas, each of which encompasses one or more Operating Units, each of which, in turn has a number of Equipment Assets. Each of these Equipment Assets and its components is the primary entity being maintained and is created as a package of work steps that is included in scope of the turnaround project or the routine maintenance program.

This Site/Area/Unit/Equipment foundation brings consistency to your processes. Once you commit to maintaining this consistent foundation, you are on the way to saving your information for future analysis, you can see work what was done previously and compare scope and cost and lessons learned more easily. This also saves your team a huge amount of effort and money.

Want to get started at no cost to you? Send us your email address and we'll contact you. You can also send us your Area, Unit and Equipment lists to be uploaded - or enter them yourself directly in your dedicated, secure area of the cloud.

We'll discuss each of the remaining steps in blog posts, and to provide you with a view of the remaining discussion points, we provide and outline below. Each step is echoed in the TeamWork Integrated Solution Technology work site. Contact us to have this system made available for your team in support of your upcoming turnaround or other maintenance program.

These steps and topics may change based on your input and questions.

Build an Operations Plan for upcoming programs and turnaround projects, and build shutdown and startup plans for each operating unit.
Use the Asset list as a source for Building the Scope of the maintenance needed for your program or turnaround.
Build, share and Review and Approve the Scope for maintenance and capital work in each operating unit.
Use the scope to build a detailed Cost Estimate and Plan for the project or program based on approved scope.
Procure Long Lead Items to ensure timely availability within your planned schedule.
Use the scope, estimate and plan to prepare detail bid packages for contracts for construction work packages (CWP) in the RFQ Packages (request for quote) process.
Complete the Bid Analysis, and Award Contracts to the winning bidders.
Confirm Project and Program Procedures for Collaboration, Communication and Escalation during execution phase.
Establish a Detailed Integrated Schedule for the work, including delivery of critical equipment, materials and personnel.
Procurement of Consumable Material Items, Tools and Rental Equipment.
Use Contractor Execution Daily Work Lists to deploy crews and to collect progress data each day.
Collect Incurred Time and Materials Hours and Costs against each activity of the Daily Work List.
Collect Progress against each item on the Daily Work List
Receive and Ship Materials, Tools and Equipment that were purchased or rented.
Review Critical Work Report to mitigate potential Safety, Quality, Environmental, Cost and Schedule issues.
At completion of the project or program, Review Lessons Learned and Modify Processes as needed for the next project or program.

Up next: Build an Operations Plan for upcoming programs and turnaround projects and build shutdown and startup plans for each operating unit.

Are we overselling the value of Integrated systems?

2017-02-22T07:00:00.006-08:00

Many of us have two separate aspects to our lives: Our Work World and Our Non-Work World.

In our non-work world, we use smartphones constantly. Each phone has dozens of, apps that each do one thing extremely well:

A weather app helps keep you dry and bundled up wherever you are;
A social media app has replaced the need for newspapers;
A media app lets you bypass the social media filter;
A cab-hailing app gets you from A to B, pronto;
A music app helps you spin session go smoothly;
Your airline app lets you check in for your flights easily;
The list goes on - and is different for each person.

These apps do not talk to each other, yet they are incredibly helpful as they focus solely on your preferences and needs.

They are certainly not integrated!

In our work world, we are likewise heavily dependent on technology. Here, however, the technology is NOT focused on you. Your company (or agency, or institution, or department, etc.) has spent a significant amount of money to provide a suite of secure, protected, intrusion-proof systems to enable the business to proceed easily and within the standards of the business. This appears to be a solved problem. Logic implies that a business's systems are integrated - that would be a key to its success!

When reviewing your business's practices, the evidence shows that you are succeeding despite a lack of integration.

Emails in Outlook or GMail are not integrated;
Excel spreadsheets are not integrated and provide a means for data to land in insecure areas;
Storing files in a common location is a start to integration, that needs to link to the data that relates to the file. For example a photo or video of an associate should be visible when that associate's data is being viewed;
Repetitive assembling monthly reports from disparate, disconnected systems is an indicator of lack of integration.

So, what are examples of real integration?

You initiate an email from within your data - and have the email link to that data for others to see;
You build and use data tables to manage your data - and have auditability for each change of significant data;
You attach your files to a data item - so that these files are available to team members when they look at that data;
You create a process to consistently assemble your monthly report data in order to be consistent and predictable;

It's not hard to see that Integration increases opportunities for improving all aspects of a business's performance. So, why is integration not the norm?

That is a subject for another blog.

Let's get integrated!

Note: Trade names mentioned in this post are the property of their respective owners.

The Missing Bridge to your Successful Strategy? Logistics!

2017-01-16T08:35:00.000-08:00

Company websites and literature loudly toot their Corporate Objectives, their Mission Statements, and offer nice 'sound bite' forward-looking comments.

What's not so clear is the means that they employ to get to the ends that they seek, or that they will employ to meet the customer's needs.

Each company or agency or institution has strategic objectives. These objectives drive the organization towards a commonly accepted set of outcomes - i.e. over a long period of time.

They also inform the actions that team members take to help move to the goal. These actions are tactical, usually short term actions, that, taken in aggregate help to deliver on the strategic objectives.

Organizations have turned to 'strategic solutions' (like ERPs) as a vehicle to manage strategic data. These systems promise to help assimilate all of your corporate data into a centrally-accessible database, that is usable by team members.

After 25 - some years of ERPs in the market, we have a good idea of their successes and failures. Qualified successes center around back-office tasks like Accounting and Payroll and possibly Procurement and Supply Chain. These process are now organized more cleanly than in the pre-ERP era.

ERP failures are related to tactical day-to-day tasks in Project Management, Cost Control, Maintenance Management, etc.

What are the determinants of a Fail?

Actions being taken outside of the ERP - which leads to the inability to know when mission-critical decisions are taken, by whom, and the reasons for these changes in direction;
Exporting of data from ERP to tactical tools for manual processing and decision-making - again, outside the ERP;
Lack of Audit trail for decision making;
Lack of a consistent, business process-based flow, including sign-off on significant data and costs.
Lack of a feed-back loop for improvement of functional processes

What's the solution - what can overcome these fails?

A Logistics-sensitive system. It is cost-prohibitive to involve ERP vendor or Consulting resources to help you manage constantly changing and evolving business processes. This leads to what we now see is the continuing failure of ERPs to deliver on their promise.

How would a logistics-sensitive system be different?

Build your Business Stages and Deliverables or Procedures required for each Stage in the system as an integral definition of the Strategy;
Build the Process steps and sign-offs required for each Deliverable or Procedure - i.e. Tactical steps;
Create timely, notifications to each team player and track sign-offs and data management actions silently and efficiently as part of the Logistical support for the organization.

Spreadsheets do not have Logistics - you do not know who made a data change.

ERPs have little control on Logistics - as much work is done externally to the ERP.

An integrated, logistics-enabled system, like TeamWork Integrated Solutions Technology (TWIST), empowers teams to,seamlessly, follow defined tactical steps - in the knowledge that each step leads to the strategic objective and contributes to an improvement in business processes when gaps or bottlenecks are discovered.

Not a bad result for an economic alternative to expensive, traditional ERP-type solutions!

Let's help you get started. We'll even integrate with your expensive ERP!

Data Governance - why your spreadsheet is problematic

2017-01-11T15:00:00.002-08:00

I remember my first spreadsheet. In fact, I remember hearing about electronic spreadsheets while I was working on a real live paper spreadsheet. Estimating for structural steel in the pre-PC days meant using a spreadsheet and tallying columns of numbers on my HP calculator (an HP-35, in case you are interested).

So, I was thrilled with the prospect of an electronic spreadsheet. The first thing I stopped doing when I started spreadsheeting - was coding in BASIC. I started using macros instead.
This romance with spreadsheets last about 5 years, by which time I was tied up in knots with all of the flexibility that I now had. I could do anything, when I wanted to. I could come in the next day and undo anything and re-do it differently the next day again. I noted that I started saving versions of the spreadsheet I was working with, in order to go back, if I needed to. The hard disk started getting a lot of versions of a lot of spreadsheets. But this is all old news.
We are currently enabling a history tracking tool in our web-based solution and this reminded me yet again, of the fact that corporations, agencies and institutions that continue to use spreadsheets for mission critical data suffer from a huge loss in productivity, especially of their key personnel.

A well-designed data management system ensures that any mission critical data has an associated audit trail - so one can easily track: Who made what changes? And when? Who approved the changes? When were the changes approved? When were the changes ready to be approved or signed off?

Your business processes must ensure that business-critical data is managed via timely approvals and sign-offs. This needs to be implemented easily so that it is not a brake on the business flow.
The 'well-designed data management system' does this tracking and helps make your company, agency or institution hum with efficiency. You cannot afford to do this any other way. It's also the only sustainable approach.
Sayonara spreadsheets! I'll continue to use them for analysis and computation and prototyping concept for data management. But not for mission-critical data entry, reporting or management.

Into the Woods (of Corporate IT Governance)

2017-01-05T13:01:00.000-08:00

In 30 plus years of delivering solutions to clients of various sizes, one dichotomy continues to perplex - 'conventional IT governance' versus 'cloud-enabled updates'.

A simplified view of conventional IT governance procedure for desired changes to a system is:

A User identifies a system need and logs it for the System User Group (SUG) to review;
SUG community builds a list and prioritizes system needs for submitting to IT;
Requirements are presented to the System Steering Team (IT SST) - that is comprised of IT or consultants as IT Surrogates;
Vendor Requirements are developed by the IT SST;
Vendor completes design, development, testing and deployment tasks in collaboration with the IT SST.
SUG Team performs user acceptance testing
Users get to use the system.

This sounds simple and intuitive enough and it passes the logic test of being, and sounding, commonsense.

Much of corporate, agency and institutional IT process embrace this procedure.

So, what's the downside? Well, there are a few. Each of the items in the quality triangle: Time, Cost, Quality (Fast, Cheap, Good) are adversely impacted in this arrangement.

A short discussion of these impacts and a proposed alternate approach follows.

Time, Cost and Quality Impacts of the Conventional Governance Approach

Consider the user experience. Users discover a systemic issue. They are told to place it on a list and prioritize it. The System User Group (SUG) will review and decide whether it's worth escalating over other, already identified issues. Escalated items are passed along to the IT SST, who then spend a few weeks creating appropriate requirements documents. These are reviewed with the SUG to ensure accuracy and completeness. More weeks pass. The Vendor has its list of items and goes to work based on the service level agreement (SLA). In a best-case scenario, the design, development, testing takes a few more weeks. Before the changes are available to the users. A few months have elapsed. Users have developed and operated with Plan B, while the improvements we being created. Time is not on their side. The improvements may now fall short of the results that they are now obtaining with Plan B. The requirements have changed, due to improved and increased awareness of the users. This request to completion process is too long and cumbersome to keep up with the user's real-world needs and so a spreadsheet solution is employed for Plan B. This further erodes the system's value. Quality is diminished. IT SST is now presiding over a degraded system, while their costs remain elevated to maintain the procedure for other requirements. Costs are excessive.

All three sides of the quality triangle come up short - this is not good!

Cloud-enabled Service Delivery

TeamWork Group is evolving an alternate, user-driven approach. Our TeamWork Integrated Solutions Technology (TWIST) service is available on line.

Users record their requests on line. The vendor, TeamWork Group, is immediately aware of a potential shortcoming or feature request, etc. and with our central role in the TWIST cloud, can determine whether that issue is resolvable and can be a part of a solution pack that is already underway. Time is less. The economies that this approach affords are huge! Cost is lower. As the - as the system is available online and in the cloud, the deployment to a test environment can be done in hours or days and the production environment can get updated in less than a week. The chances that the user has moved-on to other approaches is lower. Quality for the user is high. This approach is currently employed by all app builders as well as by Microsoft when deploying new versions of the Windows OS, so it is not really unique to TeamWork Group.

What are you waiting for? Time to head out of the woods! We'll make it easy for you.

The Road to Operations Management Excellence

2017-01-02T10:37:00.000-08:00

The Road

Over 20 years with TeamWork Group, we have helped major clients manage work in many different environments, including:

Turnaround management for process plants
Routine maintenance for for process plants
Construction management for contractors
Infrastructure management for pipeline companies
Capital Projects management for plant and facility owners

These clients span from the West Coast to the East Coast and from Canada's Oil Sands to Texas's Gulf Coast. We spent time in the field, and on the shop floor, working with people that did the work of construction, fabrication, maintenance and inspection.

The Learning

The big commonalities of issues and concerns in each of these diverse environments were:

Lack of true collaboration - evidenced by numerous, wasteful meetings with much repetitive messaging;
Lack of a consistent adherence to business process - evidenced by people doing their own thing, ex. create an ad hoc spreadsheet to manage your project data, and duplicate lists of work in different departments;
Lack of integration of data - again evidenced by spreadsheet over-usage as well as a reliance on a rigid ERP system, and use of data islands or silos - like Scheduling and Cost Management;
Lack of an 'Improvement ethos' - little focus on learning about what did not work as well as expected and tweaking the process to improve the company's performance - instead people had a 'keep your head down' attitude.

As we continue to work with clients, it's obvious that these issues are not specific to just the environments we've worked in. These are issues present broadly, across all sectors, wherever people perform processes and use systems.

Many companies have already attempted to solve these issues by implementing enterprise resource management (ERP) systems. These systems have been installed and implemented, at a high cost, and have yielded decidedly mixed (less than stellar) results.

The Result

While meeting the needs of our customers, we have paid attention to each of the gaps and are happy to report that TeamWork Group has evolved a set of solutions that systematically addresses all of the issues that we see affecting each of our clients. TeamWork Integrated Solution Technology, or TWIST, is an integrated, collaboration-enabled, business process-driven, learning-focused system that will provide significant mission-critical value to your department or division or company or agency or institution. To minimize your costs even further, it is delivered on the secure, always available internet. You do not need to buy hardware or software to use the system.

How You can Get On Board

In order to quickly demonstrate the viability, reality and accuracy of these assertions, we will create a private, secure (HTTPS) url for you to operate with your company people and data - at no cost to you while you learn about how the system can help you. All we need is your name and company email address and we'll get you started. We'll be glad to agree to non-disclosure requirements, and our own privacy rules prevent us from disclosing client information.

How we lost, and are still losing, the Integration Game

2016-03-09T20:26:00.001-08:00

Integration – is a commonly used term in business. It describes the, intuitively desirable, end-state that operations managers, CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CIO, maintenance managers and their teams, believe would make things better.

Here are some of their ‘If only items’:

If Only:

· we did not have to re-enter our data into multiple systems;

· we could see what we need to see without having to crunch the same numbers every week/month/year;

· we were able to see email data linked with the equipment/person/project/WBS that it related to;

· we could reduce the need for printing reports and wasting paper and use dashboards instead;

· we would spend more time analyzing our data - rather than transferring or merging it;

· I could leave the office for a week and know that all the info that the team needs is available to them;

· our clients could see easily access weekly/monthly project reports based on what we have done;

· our costs are based on what was ordered (committed) and received (incurred and earned)'

· our time entry was linked to work done - automatically - with no additional coding;

· tracking each change was as logical and as simple starting a new project

These are just some of the predictable, and often-stated, reasons for getting better integration.

The RealWorld Experience

A quick review of what companies have done during the last 20 years. In a word,or rather, an acronym: ERP. ERP (enterprise resource planning) and similar accounting and other corporate, ‘enterprise’ systems have pervaded the work place - mostly in larger corporations and government institutions - as they have the budgets to tolerate the huge costs involved.

A few regulatory shoves helped corporations move towards this pervasive use of ERPs - think Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in the US and Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) in Canada.

So, what did these expensive ERPs deliver to their stockholders and stakeholders? Another magic word: Governance. Now, each company, agency or institution has a costly IT team (in-house plus contracted consultants) to govern the use of the data systems that hold corporate data. This is an ongoing cost for resources to simply keep the system running, with minimal changes (due to the cost - yes, even more bucks) due to the onerous strictures of the governance entity.

Another single word describes the IT environment in these organizations today: gridlock. You simply cannot get any changes made to the ERP so that you can get your day to day work accomplished efficiently.

So, what's an avid worker bee to do? Thank Microsoft and Google! The spreadsheet systems that they build are the workhorse of the modern office. The ability to use a spreadsheet is second-nature to all desk-bound people in organizations today. Skill levels may vary - but spreadsheet use is ubiquitous.

So, in summary, Integration was pitched as a selling point when ERPs were sold, and now spreadsheet use has grown exponentially, with no sign of slowing down. People who use these spreadsheets get mighty defensive of their multi-tabbed, formula-strewn, beautifully-formatted

creations. They each reflect the skill (or lack thereof) of their creators. And therein lies the rub. To paraphrase Forrest Gump's quote, with a nod to whoever wrote this timeless line: A spreadsheet is like a box of chocolates - you don't know what you are going to get.

Amazing, isn’t it?

Costly on-going ‘Governance’ has led to total control and static, passive data and processes within the ERP, while total chaos and anarchy reigns with data that is exported from the ERP and now lives in spreadsheets!

Does anyone else feel this strangeness in businesses today?

Do you feel that you and your organization need to achieve some of the ‘If Only' items mentioned here? Do you think that the bottom-line benefits along with improved quality of work and adaptive use of data justifies looking for an improvement to the status quo?

Why TeamWork Solutions?

2016-01-21T09:42:00.000-08:00

TeamWork Solutions is your secret weapon to get a lot more done with a fraction of the effort that you are expending by using unintegrated, disconnected and disparate tools and team members.

Do you feel this pain?

Do this. Make a list of the software tools you (or the team you support) used yesterday - just for your job - ignore the ones on your mobile device. Does this list include spreadsheets (like Excel), text managers (like Word) for meeting notes, email (like Outlook or GMail), presentation tools (like Powerpoint) for snazzy reports and slides, scheduling systems (like Project or Primavera), ERPs (like SAP, Maximo, Oracle)?

Do you, and your team, feel that there ought to be an integrated way to work with all of the data in each of these systems? Do you suspect that much of the information is handled in multiple places somewhat randomly? Do you agree that meetings and emails that discuss specific issues in your project (like a module or an equipment item or a person) should be available to others that access that module, equipment or person's data?

Are you routinely exporting data from your ERP or scheduling system to an Excel spreadsheet? Ever get the feeling that some of this data transfer should happen, and be processed in a more streamlined, and therefore, less wasteful and costly way?

Are you resigned to thinking that "This is just the way it is. I'll just have to deal with it."

Or do you feel that: "There is nothing out there that can help us deal with these issues. Disparate, disconnected, spreadsheets for procurement systems, warehouse systems, timekeeping systems, estimating systems, budgeting systems, receiving systems, equipment lists, cost reporting, scheduling, etc. are just part of the job. We simply have to suck it up and deal with it." Right?

Read on for a different perspective.

A new paradigm

Your data, your way, on demand, no excuses.

This is a tall claim! How can anyone deliver on this open-ended scope?

TeamWork Solutions apps are configured to meet specific business needs in support of your business. The secret ingredients - the things that help us make TeamWork Solutions magic work include 3 primary elements:

A data entry and presentation development toolkit,
a cloud-based system to make you able to work from anywhere, and
people focused on listening to your specific business-driven requirements and providing you with your focused solutions.

Let's review each of these briefly.

TeamWork App Toolkit

Each app presents its data to you in a tab with a spreadsheet - this is a favorite way of viewing data. Columns may be moved, hidden, sorted or selected against - all with a few logical clicks or taps.

Related data is shown in drill-down tabs. For example, the people in a company are added to a tab called Team Member. A drill down tab, called Role, lets you see and add roles for each member of your team. Icons with floating tooltips help you to decide which drill down you need to review next.

This hierarchical representation of your data can be used to transform virtually any spreadsheet that you are maintaining laboriously, into an elegant, consistent, accurate, reliable storage for your mission-critical data. No testing is needed as our tool-kit is pre-tested - the configuration process is error-free and you get a dedicated set of screens that directly meets your needs. Our confidence in the efficiency of this system and its ability to deliver on your data management needs, leads us to provide you with a fixed price monthly or annual cost - that includes dedicated configuration needs that you have now or as you learn about the system's inherent abilities. No cost plus support plans! Really.

To summarize: your business operates a certain way, and is successful operating that way. TeamWork Solutions apps help you business streamline your successful processes by using integrated apps for people in your team with roles like Accounts Payable, Project Manager, Accounts Receivable, Materials Manager, Equipment Manager, Procurement Manager, Estimator, Timekeeping, Cost Analyst, etc. If you have a role that needs to be integrated, TeamWork Solutions has an app that supports that need.

Cloud-based Delivery

The cloud has provided a huge cost-savings opportunity for business and and organizations that are looking to save overhead costs. The need for back-office hardware, such as servers, including the resources needed to run them, is negated. Your data resides on secure servers that are managed to a level that your in-house teams would be hard-pressed to maintain, and in doing so would add huge costs. Is your data safe in the cloud? Your credit cards and bank data is safe - and has been for years. The same technology, including use of secure websites, is what is used to protect your data. Backups are automatic and can even be backed to systems within your organization firewall, for extra peace of mind.

Cloud delivery means that you can access you data with any device from anywhere. Imagine the benefits, and peace of mind that this brings? You can check in or be alerted to any critical event wherever and whenever you wish.

In summary: Cloud provides nothing but upsides and takes away a whole raft of downsides to running systems in-house. You will save huge costs by being in the cloud.

Business-focused Consulting

Many organizations fill the need for system development and support by having an internal IT Group take on the task. This IT Group has a problem from the get-go. As an in-house group, their needs are equal to the needs of other entities in the business. So, their focus and design thrust seldom actually meets the needs of the business people. Software developed in house is also narrowly focused on currently identified needs. So, as the business team gets more sophisticated and their needs evolve, the in-house software is not nearly as adaptable to evolving requirements. The IT Group's backlog increases. They delivery cycles take longer. The business team resorts to heavy spreadsheet use in order to get their needs met, while they wait for a better solution. No one is happy. This is a common scenario. Luckily, we have a fix for this.

TeamWork Group's DNA is finely tuned to listening to a client's needs and fitting solutions to those identified needs. This is far more difficult and time-consuming than simply building a solution and having you download it and use the parts of it that you wish to use. If you need another function, download an app for that. Integration between each of your apps would be nil.

TeamWork Consultants will work with your in-house IT teams to help them be more efficient in their support of the business teams. Or, if you prefer, we can work directly with the business teams and get what they need even faster.

Takeaway: TeamWork Group consultants are a key to simplifying the entire deployment of systems. Your cost for deployment is around 25% of current ERP and CMMS deployments. This savings is achieved by ensuring that your team's business-driven needs are the primary focus, not the features and abilities of our solutions.

TeamWork Group's people and its TeamWork Solutions apps are an adaptable, effective, least costly way to manage the complex business environment that thriving companies operate in today.

You are welcome to see for yourself how well we meet these assertions. You invite to our business site is your ticket to learn more, get some real work done and help your company move to the next level in data management.

Note: All trademarks and tradenames mentioned in this and other articles in this system are the property of their respective owners and are used here simply to help the reader understand the context of the discussion.

Selecting an Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP)?

2015-12-03T10:05:00.000-08:00

The ERP evaluation and selection process is quite lengthy and time consuming. We'll discuss the pitfalls and how to avoid them.

In order to select a solution, your company typically creates a selection team or committee with people from relevant corporate groups, such as accounting, projects, procurement, business development, safety and IT. This committee's mandate includes creation of a requirements list.

System Requirements Analysis

Requirements identification is a typical and logical first step. It’s logical to think about what the system is to be used for, and to make a list of these requirements. Each committee member includes his/her individual department requirements based on his/her experience. Requirements and needs that fall outside this area are neglected, omitted or in some way diminished in importance.

For example, we can all agree that collecting actual timesheet data is a hard requirement for an ERP HR module. HR and Payroll require time worked by each employee so that each may be paid. However, time data is also input by Billing (accounts receivable) to invoice clients. Time data is also input by Project Controls, to track project, program and portfolio progress. Time data is also input to equipment, to track maintenance, which helps determine the cost of running that equipment asset. So, time data is required for many purposes. This makes determining the single point of entry (SPOE) of time data of utmost importance. By using an SPOE we ensure data consistency across all functions. Many ERPs promise the benefits of an integrated system, but experience has shown that they are incapable to deliver, because they have not established this SPOE concept. This leads companies to implement 'bolt-on' systems in order to address these gaps.

A similar discussion can be had for materials management as it relates to schedule and earned value.

These gaps are sometimes discovered in the requirements phase, however, due to ERP system constraints, they are added to a 're-configuration list' and remain unaddressed due to schedule and cost constraints.

In the meantime, users are forced to use spreadsheets to complete the basic requirements of their daily job functions and to work around the constraints that the ERP imposes.

It is imperative that the ERP Committee ensures, up front, that the selected solution is capable of being adapted to new and evolving requirements. During implementation and as each department comes on stream with the new ERP, additional requirements that were missed by the company ERP Committee are identified and additional changes to the system is required.

Experience over 20 years has shown that ERP systems require you to use their template, rather than being adaptable to your business process and requirements, and make it onerous and costly if you wish to deviate from this template.

To ensure that you get the best solution and the team to support it, we suggest asking the following questions:

Does the vendor team have a self-documenting system for responding to newly identified requirements?
How quickly do they develop the work scope for a change?
Do they collaborate well with end-users? How?
Do they keep key stakeholders engaged? How?
Is the system designed to effect quick responses to changes in direction?
How costly is it to make a change?

A sustainable approach is for the company to tap into the knowledge and experience of its people to influence the evolution of a system, which may include a mix of ERP and “fit for purpose” solutions as opposed to having a template imposed by a vendor’s widely-used, rigid, ERP system. A huge benefit of this approach is that the “change” impact to your current business is minimized. Your star associates and team members are motivated and recognized for the value of their input, – as opposed to chafing under a rigid externally imposed ERP – that often encourages them to seek other opportunities and ultimately leave the organization.

Optimal Mix of ERP and 'Fit for Purpose' Solutions

Your company will invest millions in an ERP intending to standardize and streamline all work processes, gain efficiency and worker productivity. However, after implementation and years of use, many companies are left wondering whether the Return was worth the Investment. For example, job functions were changed to meet the needs of the ERP, at the expense of the business's needs. Also, spreadsheet use increased as users scrambled to meet the daily, changing needs of their work environment.

So, in an environment of constant change and unpredictability, it makes sense to employ systems that are nimble, flexible and adaptable without losing the integrity of your core functions and business processes. For these reasons, we suggest that ERP and 'Fit for Purpose' solutions can coexist synergistically. Identifying those business aspects that are best served by an ERP or those that would be better served by a 'Fit for Purpose' solution is important. For example, your company may determine that the requirements of your accounting system is better served by an ERP because it is part of a company global strategy however, the projects, maintenance, timekeeping, estimating, planning functions are best served by a 'Fit for Purpose' solution because each project or site location has specific requirements and processes.

Why TeamWork Solutions?

TeamWork Solutions is a grassroots system is based on the awareness that the real -world system must easily reflect changing customer requirements.

Project, Turnaround and Maintenance Management, each involves many different functions such as: work identification, estimating, budgeting, planning, scheduling, cost reporting, timekeeping, materials tracking, materials receiving, etc. These functions are performed by people in the team that are assigned a specific position or role, such as: Planner, Cost Analyst, Project Manager, Estimator, Purchasing Agent, Expeditor, Warehouseman, Contract Administrator, etc. TeamWork Solutions' apps are configured to make it easy for a person in a supported role to follow your company's business rules. Correct data is saved in a central place that means that it does not need re-entry or to be imported into Excel for further analysis.

Owner and contractor companies can each use TeamWork Solutions and this provides for deeper integration and further reduces data re-entry. System and data security is maintained while Contractor companies and owner companies work is integrated in TeamWork Solutions. For example, rates and timesheet data entered in the contractor's system can be instantly reflected in their client's (i.e. owner's) system with no additional data entry needed.

TeamWork Solutions’ open ended design ensures that, as requirements are identified or changed, the solution can be adapted easily and painlessly. In fact, the pricing model for TeamWork Solutions includes support for these ad hoc changes that we have seen occur with every customer.

TeamWork Group, in essence, becomes your partner by ensuring that your continued project and corporate success is driven off a consistent, available and adaptable data-driven solution set.

Millennial-ready + Boomer-sensitive

2015-07-10T17:36:00.000-07:00

What does Millennial-ready mean?

How does a discipline, like Project Management or Reliability-Centered Maintenance, that has been built and modified over decades by Boomers and their predecessors, be made accessible to the kids of the Boomers?

Millennials have grown up with technology that did not exist when the Boomers developed their techniques and tools. This has given them a completely different perspective on what makes an effective tool to enhance their work day and their work product.

Here are examples of the differences in Millennial and Boomer feature expectations in 2015. These are based on my observations working with customers, contractors, consultants, vendors and associates over the last few years.

Feature	Boomer Expectation	Millennial Expectation
App flow How the app appears to me	Menu driven Top-down, numbered menu options help bring familiar order. One menu option can lead to an action – or another numbered menu of options.	Show only options that lead to something that I need. No dead-ends. My time is precious. Never show an option that does not let me do something that gets me to my objective. Don’t make me decide!
Data Entry How I prefer to enter data	Forms Forms with entry fields nicely designed so that I can enter what needs to be entered. I may skip over fields that are not important to me.	Small forms If the form requires more space than on my smartphone screen – that’s too much! You do the work to ensure that only the important stuff is required from me. Default everything else.
Display of data How I like to analyze my data	Spreadsheet-like table I like to see my data in tables and to use order the columns or select data from the columns to help me understand my data.	Dashboard objects Do the work to decide which graphical of drill-down tables I can see on my smartphone in order to get an understanding of key aspects of the data – information that I can use now to move the objective forward.
Reporting of data How I would prefer to store my information	Tabular and Graphical ‘Hard Copy’ printed reports PDFs that I can print and file for reference – this is a strong need.	PDF’s of HTML (web page) reports I’ll likely not print these – so be sure to make this data available at any time that I’ll need it.
Location of System What makes me comfortable about my system	On-premise I like having it on our company system. This way nothing changes and I have total control.	Cloud-based I like the fact that I need not hassle with any hardware, software or IT people to manage them. I use a system in the cloud. Updates happen automatically – my apps are updated to the latest version and this ensures that I am using the best and the latest – and I don’t even need to think about it.
Vendor Relationship My interaction with the software solution vendor	Paid system support I like being able to email or call the vendor when I run into issues. I especially enjoy attending user conferences conducted by the vendor. I’ll join local user groups for this software.	No support fee I want to use my system to get results – not to have a relationship with a yet another company. I want the vendor to go the extra mile to do what I want, and not bug me. I also want to be able to easily request changes and get those changes or an acceptable workaround quickly – I don’t want to wait days to hear about the status of my request. Basically, do it and don’t get in my face unnecessarily.
Integrated Business Solution Apps that integrate with each other	Select apps I’d like to select the apps I need and use my other systems and spreadsheets as I wish. Integration is a good idea and I’m willing to run daily transfers as needed to move data between systems.	What I need, when I need it Please don’t tell me that I don’t have an app that I need. I prefer to have all options available, when I need them. Keep the path smooth. Do the analysis needed to ensure I have what I need, when I need it. I’ll be happier with the system.
Communications and Collaboration Working with others	Meetings Want to get others on board? Have a meeting. Want to ensure you don’t drop a ball? Have a meeting. Invite everyone that is relevant. Do you have 50 people in the meeting? Reserve a bigger meeting room. Order in donuts, sandwiches.	Facebook – type collaboration Ensure that all relevant people are subscribers to a thread of discussion. I hate repeating something for people who can’t make it to a meeting. Besides, I hate meetings – they seldom use my time well. Oh, and please don’t make me use my phone to call anyone – I prefer texting.

The big difference?

Mobility. Millennials can, and want to, work anywhere – and at any time.

As every millennial is completely conversant with his/her mobile device, it’s a no-brainer to engage millennials using mobile apps of Android and Apple platforms at a minimum.

This is a tricky – and expensive – proposition as boomers are still the primary decision-makers in the areas of work, project and maintenance management. Many boomers (certainly not all) wear their lackof Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn accounts as a badge of pride and honor!

The people responsible for the TeamWork Solutions suite of apps have sensitivity to Boomers, Gen-X, Gen-Y, Millennials, etc. – because that’s who we are! Talk to us, or use a discussion thread, if we need to improve in any area and you will discover an attentive and action-oriented partner for your business needs.

Get TeamWork Solutionsinto your way of life. You can save yourself a lot of trial and error – we’ve already been there, and done that.

Note: Tradenames used in this article are the property of their respective owners.

Good Timekeeping: Who manages project time? Accounting or the Project Team?

2015-05-01T12:33:00.003-07:00

Introduction

You have a decision to make - timekeeping is a requirement for all work on projects for a client. This time is required to bill the client for incurred costs - if the project is based on a Time and Materials (T&M) contract type or to inform the client of the headcount and effort being expended on behalf of the project. So this is clearly a Project function, right?

However, the same time is also used by the Accounting department's Payroll group to determine the hours that each employee will get paid.

Many companies have ERP or Accounting systems with Payroll and Work Order systems included in the same system. These companies opt to empower Accounting to manage this time entry and time reporting.

Best Practice for Time Management

Rules for determining the 'best' practice:

Choose the method that makes the most sense to users.
Data flow should be based on business logic - not software systems.

What makes most sense?

Again, the best method is based on the answers to a questions.

What cost code or activity is time charged to? Is this code intrinsic to a project? The only clean, unambiguous assignment of time is to a plan item or activity. This is based on the principle that you should ONLY be working on a planned item - if not, why not? It is counter-intuitive to be working and billing the client for an item that is not planned.

So, if a plan item is the focus of the time charges, who manages the plan item?

Accounting? No.

Accounting manages general ledger (GL) accounts that are used by all projects. These buckets of cost enable Accounting to help the company to manage its business with the benefit of hindsight.

Plan Items are typically in a Plan.

A plan, when scheduled, provides a timeline over which the planned costs are spread.

Each plan item is associated with a project-specific work breakdown structure code (WBS) that can also be used as a charge code for time.

So, it makes sense that, as the Project team manages the plan (in addition to all of the other project aspects), the project team is best positioned to manage the collection and recording of the project's incurred time.

Change Management

As a project proceeds, there is often a rapid scope development and approval cycle that results in additional WBSs and plan items being available to be used in Timekeeping. This further reinforces the need to ensure that timekeeping is project-centric as opposed to Accounting-centric.

Project KPI Management

Primary among the indexes that are used in project management are the Cost Performance Index (CPI) and the Cost Variance (CV). These are calculated using these formulas:

CPI = Earned Value / Incurred Value

CV = Earned Value - Incurred Value

Incurred Value is either the actual hours or the costs that are associated with the time and materials expended in getting the planned work done.

These indexes are valuable for the entire project as well as for each breakdown level in the project. Incurred value that is derived in an Accounting, GL-based recording system will simply not have the granularity needed for a KPI-based understanding of the project's status.

Conclusion

It should be clear that Timekeeping is logically an intrinsic Project function. A timekeeping system should be tightly integrated with the project plan, the project WBS, as well as have a means for each WBS cost to be translated to GL codes for integration into your ERPs time management and Payroll.

Put the responsibility for accurate time tracking on the back of the project team - they created the plan, they should be allowed to track its costs and then pass their data electronically, seamlessly into your Accounting department's ERP.

On-Ramps for Project, Turnaround, Maintenance and Asset Management

2013-03-20T17:39:00.000-07:00

Moving from Boring and Convoluted to Exciting and Rewarding

Mention to someone that you are involved with project management, maintenance management or asset management and be ready to see their eyes glaze over.
The very terms evoke the opposite of management and organization. Instead visions of endless convoluted spreadsheets with tabs of related and un-related data, random business rules, confusing terms that seem understandable (like earned value, KPI, daily scheduling) but have arcane, company-specific interpretations spring to mind. In other words, what you do is too complex or too boring to talk about - let’s move on to the next person.

Despite the valiant efforts of organizations like the Project Management Institute (PMI), Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International (AACEI), the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP), the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) and many others, including national, international, and local jurisdictional organizations, to formulate standards that provide consistency between projects and maintenance and asset management programs, a review of a company’s process routinely reveals huge variances between corporate processes and these standards.

So, is this an indication of a problem? Does it matter that a corporation or agency seems to be quite successful in accomplishing its business objectives in a manner that is not compliant with standards from these professional associations?

I think not. What each company or agency does is their business. If they choose to establish internal measures to help them improve their processes, that is their choice.

For these reasons, TeamWork Group has configured its easy-to-use tools to be configurable to adhere to each client’s business rules. We understand that each company or agency wants to evolve at their pace and we see our value-added as being there to support their chosen trajectory, rather than attempt to change it.

Having said this, we need to approach new clients with something more than ‘Let us configure our system to adhere to your business rules.’ For one thing, this process is seldom a short one. Our experience indicates that, even with close collaboration between company or agency personnel and TeamWork Group personnel, a multi-year period is optimal. This lengthy timeframe allows for company /agency personnel to get on board with the notion that they are in charge of their TeamWork Solutions and apps. Secondly, we have observed that close collaboration between company / agency personnel and an on-site TeamWork Aassociates and Consultants provides the best opportunity for both sides to distill each business rule into an implementable process within the system.

So, what do we show a potential new client? How do we illustrate that we are knowledgeable in their business, are innovators in data management methods, have the depth of staff and skills to support their needs and have the software solutions that can easily be configured for their use?

To demonstrate the functionality of our solutions and apps, we have created a fictitious owner company called Evergreen Resources. This company has infrastructure that includes facilities (plants, mills, etc.) and transportation systems (pipelines). It has work that includes building new infrastructure (capital projects), maintaining existing infrastructure (routine and preventive maintenance), overhauling existing infrastructure (shutdown, turnaround, outage maintenance or STO). This work will be done by a combination of company personnel (in-house) and contractors working under various types of contracts - including fixed price (FP), lump sum (LS) and time and materials (T&M).

We have configured a demonstration process for each project, STO or maintenance scenario. These demos should provide potential users with the means to understand how TeamWork Solutions apps interact with each other and provide automated adherence to business-rule compliance. Emphasis is placed on the user experience in the various platforms that deliver these solutions: web browsers, tablets and smartphones.

A demo has been created for each of the following scenarios:

Project to build a pipeline and pump-station;
Turnaround of a Refinery Process Unit;
Prepare a Daily Schedule for a crew of routine maintenance workers;
Establish and record Preventive Maintenance processes.

We will add to our list of demos as we hear from potential customers about their needs.

Organizing your team’s work

2013-01-21T14:45:00.000-08:00

Organizing work so it can be assigned to the right people at the right time is one of the more difficult challenges of achieving plant and facilities maintenance excellence.

Do your 100 team members have a clear idea of the work on their plate each day? Or when they show up for work, do they mill around, seek out supervisors, and search for required tools and protective clothing before they can even start work?

Organizing your team’s work effectively and efficiently involves three important ingredients:

Work priority/category
Dedicated resources
Schedule compliance

Work on the right things at the right time

If you don’t prioritize and categorize your work, you will not work on the right things at the right time.

Prioritizing isn’t enough; you must also put it in the context of the type of work. For example, a #1 priority for project type work may not be as important as a #1 priority for operations or preventative maintenance type work. Consider adding target dates to take this a step further towards defining when the work needs to be done.

Make sure priorities like 1, 2, 3, or 4 have definitions that are meaningful to the planning and scheduling process. Here’s an example:

Emergencies – Must be done immediately or as soon as possible
High – Serious adverse operational consequences (within 24 hrs)
Medium – Must be addressed if resources are available (within 3-10 days)
Low – Can be done whenever time or resources permit (within 3-5 weeks)

Get the resources you need

Dedicated resources are required to ensure that you can do the work you need to do.

Labor must be assigned and dedicated in order to effectively plan work.

Come up with a method for getting organizational commitment to dedicating available resources. Here’s an example:

Total # of people in department	100
# of sick/vacation/absent	-20
Total # available for planned work	80
Project work	-10
Routine maintenance	-30
Preventative maintenance	-25
Emergency, unplanned	-5
Remaining for Planned Work	10

Calculating schedule compliance

You don’t know how you have done unless you measure what you have done.

Did you do what you planned to do when you said you were going to do it?

The ingredients discussed above provide the foundation for planning and scheduling your work. Also consider materials (what good does it do to send people out on a job without the materials they need to accomplish the work?).

Over-schedule work to accommodate work that may be finished earlier than expected or was not able to be started because of unforeseen circumstances.

You improve the things you measure, so develop metrics to measure performance.

The project ecosystem

2013-01-01T14:38:00.000-08:00

Projects evolve, are configured, then executed, and finally completed within a set of company or agency’s business processes. Whether well-defined or not, all of the processes involved in a project combine to define the project’s ecosystem. This post discusses traits of project ecosystems that are common today and discusses how a better, more integrated ecosystem leads to consistent success in project completions.

A review: Inefficient processes in current project ecosystems

We have all been there: Project or turnaround meetings with 40 or 50 or more attendees. Think about that for a moment. Is a two or three hour meeting with this many people really productive?

Sure, the attendees represent key stakeholders and team members such as contractors, managers, field supervision, etc.

But what happens after such meetings?

Data is distributed in hard copy spreadsheets, emails, and documents. People return to their cubes and work on their isolated islands of data: Contractors go back to their standalone schedules and spreadsheets. Planners return to their ERPs and spreadsheets. Cost analysts return to their spreadsheets and presentations. Superintendents and foremen return to their printed spreadsheet-based work lists and timesheets. Inspectors return to their inspection systems or spreadsheets. Operations returns to their process management systems. Safety returns to maintaining their safety data, often in spreadsheets. Each attendee then spends time keeping their paper and digital files up to date with project data that should be available to everyone all of the time.

People keep in communication with each other using emails to hold critical information. These emails are lost to the project record. People’s hard disks and shared folders (ex. in Sharepoint) are chock-full of job-site photos stored in folders—which make them just as hard to find later as a page in a filing cabinet—it’s possible, but it’s too time-consuming. Each photo or document that is related to a data item should be easily found when you are reviewing that data item. For example, pictures that were taken in the field—of a job site—should be attached to that job’s work packages and work items and be easily visible to the planner or project manager as required.

Projects and turnarounds require dozens of different deliverables to be produced in a specific order with specific approvals that are based on spending limits for each person and role. Deliverables include: project or turnaround charter; requirements; scope of work; estimates; budgets; change orders; schedule; work orders; purchase orders; contract documents for each contract; timesheets for each day, daily, weekly, and monthly cost; control; and other reports. Team members need to manage all of these deliverables consistently and based on company standards; all projects need to follow similar processes. This is hard to enforce with a spreadsheet-based "dis-organization." Many examples of the lack of connectedness exist within current project ecosystems. Another such example is the inconsistent management of the movement of a project through each project gate to the next project stage.

An integrated project ecosystem

Why, with all of the great data management tools and systems that are available today, can we not have a project ecosystem that ensures that:

No data is entered twice—by anyone in any system
No data is lost
Data is used as often as possible, thus increasing its value
All systems are linked into a single vibrant, connected, cost-effective ecosystem

This ecosystem would enable the free flow of data between ERPs, scheduling systems, and CMMSs to be consolidated and presented in a way that makes all of the data actionable. Decision-makers would not hear the commonplace "I’ll have it ready for you in one week" or other similar delaying and progress-diminishing words. When the cash flows in a project or turnaround are $1,000,000 per day, why is the exact data about those flow not available on that day?

An integrated project ecosystem is designed to help PMOs, turnaround management, and maintenance management teams to seamlessly link all of their data islands and processes into a single, effective, time-saving, decision-support system for all stakeholders.

TeamWork Group has built a series of role-based apps and services that function together as a TeamWork Solutions ecosystem that is focused on your specific business and adheres to your specific business rules and also integrates your specific legacy systems and processes.

Are You Focused on What Leads to Plant and Facilities Maintenance Excellence?

2012-12-19T17:36:00.000-08:00

Three things that lead to excellence in plant and facility maintenance

Are you focused on the most important factors leading to a well-maintained plant? Here’s a rundown of the three things you need to ensure excellence in plant and facilities maintenance:

Asset reliability

If your equipment or facilities are not up and running, you are not in business. Doing the right things at the right time, with eyes on what matters most, should be your primary objective.

Focus on assets failures that could result in:

Loss of life or serious personal injury
Regulatory compliance violations
Adverse effect on the environment
Loss of revenue or productivity

Streamlining business processes

The credibility of your business depends on collecting accurate data and establishing crystal-clear work directions. Focus on collecting accurate data--no more, no less.

Remove unnecessary steps in your business processes that impede productivity. Constantly question why you do, what you do, how you do it, and who does it. Get down to the essence of your business processes and close the gap between perception and reality.

Optimizing information technology

To make good decisions, you have to have accurate and timely information. Focus on optimizing the use of dashboards, start centers, smart phones, tablets, and handheld devices to push and pull data in ways that are native to the way you work.

Everyone from the person turning wrenches to the executive in the corner office reaps the benefits of timely and accurate data that is relative to their jobs. Make it easy for them--all of them--by optimizing their IT experience.

Three things that lead to excellence in plant and facility maintenance

2012-12-19T14:34:00.000-08:00

Are you focused on the most important factors leading to a well-maintained plant? Here’s a rundown of the three things you need to ensure excellence in plant and facilities maintenance: reliable assets, streamlined business processes, and optimized information technology.

Asset reliability

Loss of life or serious personal injury
Regulatory compliance violations
Adverse effects on the environment
Loss of revenue or productivity

Streamlining business processes

The credibility of your business depends on collecting accurate data and establishing crystal-clear work directions. Focus on collecting accurate data—no more, no less.

Remove unnecessary steps in your business processes that impede productivity. Constantly question why you do, what you do, how you do it, and who does it. Get down to the essence of your business processes and close the gap between perception and reality.

Optimizing information technology

It's Time to Stop Simply Making Do

2012-08-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

At the recent American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers' (afpm) Reliability and Maintenance Conference in San Antonio, I noticed a theme—turnaround, project, and maintenance managers are challenged to do more work while maintaining and running assets.

That work could include improved scope development starting 18 months prior to the turnaround, risk analysis, tracking lessons learned, improved safety process adherence, improved schedules and better cost management.

And—by the way—they are expected to do all of this with fewer resources and in less time. And to do it right the first time.

That’s the rock that they have at their backs.

The hard place in front of them?

They are provided with ERP systems and scheduling systems to manage their data. Anything that does not fit into these systems cleanly is manually and laboriously entered into an endless stream of Excel spreadsheets. This requires untold amounts of regular and overtime hours to be spent in the re-entry of data and the maintenance of spreadsheets whose data remains on an “island” and are prone to errors.

An informal poll of attendees at the AFPM meeting indicated that people are simply not happy with the tools provided. For example:

They are tired of maintaining spreadsheets, Powerpoints, documents, and emails that are required to simply keep tabs on all of the loose ends.
Communications with the steering committee are buried in emails.
Changes to the scope of work are deep in a spreadsheet somewhere.
A day’s work list has to be built in its own spreadsheet.

So, you and your peers make-do. You make do with the situation as it is because that is what is expected of you. Effectively, you have to operate between a rock (the work to be done) and a hard place (the make-do tools provided to do the work).

Do you think that this is an appropriate solution for our industry? Simply making-do? In most cases, you have no choice but to continue with the tools that have been provided. But, you don’t have to just make do. TeamWork Group provides a 21st century, web-based turnaround and maintenance-focused solution that ensures that you and your team no longer have to just make do.

Get the best outcomes for your turnaround projects and and routine maintenance programs. Make no compromises in your expectations for state-of-the-art scope development, risk analysis, estimating, budgeting, planning, contract management, scheduling, cost control, execution, lessons learned tracking, etc., all in a single coordinated tool that reflects the organization of your single coordinated team operating in your single coordinated plant.

This solution is the result of over 30 years of experience and research and on-site development. Our objective was to build a solution to be easy for your team to use, while dealing head-on with tough issues like period-based planning, parametric planning and logic, asset estimate history management, approvals tracking, scope change management, contract tracking, limited resource management, and live scheduling.

We even ensure that your investment in those corporate-supplied tools continues to be leveraged by aggressively integrating with these tools to make what they have to offer more compelling.

Are you ready to learn how to get your team to move to the next level? We are ready to help.
Please fill out our contact form and we will follow up with you.

It’s time to up our game in this industry and to stop simply “making do.”

Good luck in your upcoming turnaround projects and in meeting your maintenance objectives.

Which work management solution you use doesn’t matter—it’s the process that’s important.

2012-03-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

A review of project management and maintenance management-related discussions on the web indicates a consistent trend: experienced users avoid mentioning specific tool vendors or specific controls software solutions and tools. The following is a typical statement:
“It doesn’t matter what solution or software you use—what is important is the process and that you follow.”

The implication is that the the solutions and software that people are using are all basically the same, and the process is more important because the solutions can’t get the job done in and of themselves. (Note that I, too, am declining to mention any of the solutions and tools that are common in our industry! But I am not doing so because any names that I mention would not constitute a complete list.)

Current scheduling tools are just that—scheduling engines that take your activity lists, your logic, and your resources and crunch the numbers using the critical path method, (CPM) and produce diagrams and lists of those activities with calculated dates. However, the scheduling function is but a fraction of the entire scope of issues associated with managing a project. The same limited function applies to estimating, procurement, accounting, and cost control tools.

So, project management and maintenance management teams typically use each of these tools as required to accomplish the work that they need to complete. Where a solution is not available, or the skilled personnel required are not available, they can always use their trusty Excel spreadsheet! Simply put, none of these tools are integrated work management tools.

With such an approach, you never have all of your project data in a location where all use of that data is made possible within the same tool. Use of isolated tools promotes the creation of data islands—one island for scheduling data, one for estimating data, one for commitment data, etc. It’s no wonder that a common concern among PMs and MMs is the need for an integrated work management solution.

Current practitioners have grown adept at navigating between and linking these islands, and this expertise now defines and delineates who they are and the skills that they have. They train the new crop of project managers to continue this with this non-integrated paradigm.

By continuing to use this 30-year-old paradigm and ignoring newer technologies, our industry now runs the risk of falling way behind the capability curve. We risk having another generation of project managers tied to aging tools and concepts.

The amazing simplicity of use of the Apple-inspired suite of products has ushered in a new mindset that where users expect to get the information that they need when they need it. They do this without:

Finding the source data (on some island?)
Merging it (in Excel?)
Formatting it (in Excel?)
Sending it for approval or reviewing it (in Outlook?)
Receiving it and tracking comments and approvals (in Outlook?)

In order to keep up with the technology that is available today, 20 or 30 years after the introduction of the tools we currently use, we really should consider using a newer, more effective set of solutions and tools! A well-designed solution integrates the functions of each of the tools and maintains integrity by adhering to company business rules across the board, regardless of specific processes.

New technologies are enabling these new solutions to take shape

In 2012, the technological foundations that the new tool can—and should—leverage in order to perform in a way that meets user and customer expectations include:

Web: The web has been around long enough to become so well used that many people do not even think that they are working on the web. People now bank online, buy online, socialize online, etc. We should ensure that they can work online as well.
Mobile: The availability of laptops, tablets, and smartphones allows people to access their data wherever they have access to a cellular signal or a Wifi hub. This means that they can be completely untethered from their desks.
Cloud: With your data in the cloud, you now have your organization in all locations (cities, states, countries) accessing the same data set. This enables economies of scale that could only be imagined (someone did imagine the cloud!) a few years ago.
Improved User Experience: Apple and Android-based web app products amply illustrate what I mean by “improved user experience.” With these products, it is nearly impossible for you to enter bad data or have a user experience that results in you feeling that you have just wasted your time due to not having the results that you expected. Traditional (Windows-based) systems have many opportunities for you to enter potentially incorrect data—without complaint from the system. This data may then remain in your system for a long time, cluttering the view of future analysts and costing unimaginably more in wasted analysis and questionable conclusions.
Improved Team Collaboration: By integrating the required reporting and data management for your project or program, each team member is kept in the loop and can contribute to the preparation of and approval of the deliverables on a predictable and trackable basis. This feature reduces dramatically the need for face-to-face meetings and ensures more productivity in those meetings that do occur.
Integration with Legacy Systems: All businesses have legacy systems that contain data and use processes that are integral to the operation of the business. The Internet provides a means to ensure that this data is securely moved to your cloud-based solution and made available to all of your team members. So, your investments in systems can continue to be leveraged despite the use of new technologies.

What are you waiting for?

Clearly, the time is right for a change to a less risky, less confused, less expensive, less disjointed model with fewer training requirements than what is currently in place in the majority of departments and work places in industry today. Are your budgets tighter? Are you happy with the current situation? Your SaaS (software as a service) vendor’s cost and implementation costs should be low enough to make you think twice before continuing on the path of the current experts.

Solutions and Apps for Managing Work

2012-01-08T15:22:00.000-08:00

Introduction: What is Work Management?

We all spend some part of our day doing work. The work might depend on walk-in customers, so you can’t predict the number you’ll have in a day. You work as required. A park ranger, for example, measures the work by the traffic through the park, and requirements that may arise if one of the visitors needs help. So, work, and work volume, that is not cleanly defined or planned, is what project controls people refer to as "indirect work."

Supervisory and routine tasks, such as management and security duties, are also examples of indirect work. This work is very necessary—it is not as quantifiable as direct work, i.e. work that is planned. For example, people, who are members of a project, a construction or a maintenance crew, have their work planned in advance. The term "direct work" effectively describes planned (estimated and scheduled) work, as this type of work is defined prior to being done. Consumable materials and equipment that are required for direct work have to be procured in advance so that the crew can execute and complete it efficiently.

This distinction between direct and indirect work helps us to focus on how we manage the work as we move through the work management process. The major aspects of work management help us to focus on the tools that are needed to perform the tasks that need to be done.

Work Management tools are designed to enable people to do the following work-related tasks easily:

Define the scope of the work to be done to a new or existing asset
Estimate and budget the costs of the labor, equipment, and materials required to complete the work
Plan and schedule the work
Execute the work per the plan and schedule
Report progress of the plan
Track changes that affect the budget and the plan
Commission or start-up the completed asset
Review actual performance of project versus planned performance and record lessons learned

While performing each of these tasks, other elements help ensure that the work being done is compliant with regulatory standards such as health, environmental, and safety requirements. Financial regulations associated with spending controls, risk assessment, and mitigation are factored in. Lessons learned are recorded to enable the development of best practices for the the execution of future projects.

How does TeamWork Group manage different types of work environments?

Work environments define the type of work we do, and, therefore, the type of work that is to be managed. Examples of different work environments include construction sites, fabrication shops, software development teams, Project Management Offices (PMOs), shutdowns, turnarounds or outages (STO), movie sets, maintenance shop floors, process plants, college and school campuses, hotels and building management, website development, etc. Each environment requires a focused and consistent methodology to manage the type of work that predominates in that environment. Additionally, the organization responsible for doing the work is often a contractor, vendor, or other service provider company; we’ll call them a CSV company. In order to manage all the project or maintenance work, the CSV company has to have a set of tools similar to those of the owner of the assets—the company that benefits from the completed project.

How TeamWork Group’s solutions address the needs of different work environments

TeamWork Group configures a solution that fits each work environment. Typically, this is done in consultation and in conjunction with the Owner’s or CSV’s Project or Maintenance team. To speed this process along, TeamWork Group has predefined solutions for a few environments that are made available in the Evergreen Company Demo available on the website. Please contact TeamWork Group via the business website at www.teamworkgroup.com in order to register your interest in reviewing, exploring, and test-driving these solutions. Let us know if you want to work on a solution not listed.

Solutions that support specific work environments and management modes are included in the table:

Work Environment	Work Manager: Owner	Work Manager: Contractor, Service Provider or Vendor (CSV)
Capital Projects and Portfolios (PMO)	TeamWork Solutions for PMO	TeamWork Solutions for CSV
Shutdown /Turnaround /Outage Projects (STO)	TeamWork Solutions for STO	TeamWork Solutions for CSV
Routine and Preventive Maintenance Programs (RPM)	TeamWork Solutions for RPM	TeamWork Solutions for CSV

Each solution may be combined with components from other solutions to meet the needs of a specific work environment. For example, a city or county has a portfolio of capital projects involving streets, water and treatment facilities, etc. Additionally, they need to maintain city or county buildings or utility plants. TeamWork Solutions for City Project and Maintenance Management (City PMM) is a solution that would combine project, portfolio, and program management to manage all of these classes of work.

Note that all of TeamWork Group’s solutions have been designed with the awareness that they will not operate solely in a 'TeamWork' bubble—they include the data hooks and flanges required to easily import data from and export data to current and future external systems such as Financials, Condition Monitoring (CM) systems, Real-time Process Control systems, etc.

What is in a TeamWork Solution?

A TeamWork Solution is an assembly of TeamWork apps. A TeamWork app is a functional (job-focused) set of processes and procedures that ensures the person using the app automatically adheres to all of the company business rules—without the need to be intimately familiar with those business rules. Each app is designed to be simple and effective and have a minimal training curve. All apps are available on secure web pages via the cloud-enabled internet.

Here is a matrix of apps included with each of four selected solutions. The apps you have for your solution are determined by your business rules for your work place.

Sample of apps available and the solutions to which they are applicable	STO	PMO	RPM	City PMM
myProjects app: used to manage projects, programs and portfolios through each project stage and phase; develope scope, manage team, deliverables, RACI assignments, compliance, approvals management, report distribution	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Estimate: used to estimate labor, equipment, materials and sub-contracted services for each scope to a Class 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 level of detail, WBS-based, basis for casting into a budget	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
WorkMan: used to manage the work request to work order process for tracking reactive maintenance work	Yes		Yes	Yes
AIM: Asset information system holds historical asset data including all work, reliability KPIs are derived from this data	Yes		Yes	Yes
Budget: WBS-based budget for direct and indirect costs, change management, budget baseline management	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Contract: contract-specific cost and deliverable-based breakdown and reporting, change management	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Plan: Plan activities allow for spread of budget costs over time and leveling of limited resources, use of schedule constraints, milestones and phases, schedule baseline management, change management	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Procure: Use estimated materials to drive materials requisition (MR), Request for Quote (RFQ), Quote comparison and review, purchase order (PO) processes, include delivery dates in the plan and schedule, auto-update the schedule from the expediting process	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Execution: Create daily work lists for fine control of critical project execution phase, obtain accurate incurred costs and progress	Yes		Yes	Yes
Cost: app tracks WBS-based commitments and expended costs internally or import from external sources, track variances between budgeted, planned, committed, incurred, expended costs	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Contractor: app provides contractors with a system that complies with owner’s system maintenance, delivers one-time data entry, maintains contractor resources and rates	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Incur: app provides a single location for reviewing and collecting timesheet data for labor, equipment and consumable materials and associated costs, ensures accurate collection of costs against approved work items only	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Note that a solution evolves to contain only the apps that your company needs to support your project and work management model. The combinations shown serve to illustrate the possibilities of mixing and matching TeamWork Solutions' apps. We can also easily create a special app for a job function that is specific to your work management environment.

How do we get started using TeamWork Solutions?

Establish contact with the TeamWork Group via www.teamworkgroup.com. Let us know your work management concerns. We find it is best to review your company’s situation starting at the point of greatest current concern. It’s easier to focus on the most serious symptoms of the problem first. As we progress, we review the underlying causes of problems in the process, which may lead to analysis and development of more useful process for your company or department. As TeamWork Solutions is an end-to-end system that covers all aspects of the project and work management space, be assured that it remains easily molded to your needs as they evolve in the spirit of continuous improvement.

How long will it take to start using the system?

Depending on the urgency, you can get started in less than a week. The broad steps are as follows:

TeamWork Group sets up your data instance on the web on the TeamWork Solutions host.
You get your login credentials and security.
You have a short orientation (1 hour or so) to understand the navigation of the system.
You enter data and run reports as needed.
Contact us if you need help. We are also available on a consulting basis to help direct and review your proposed actions.

The more you put into the system, the more it helps you and your company manage your work in an efficient, collaborative, non-redundant, cost-effective, and holistic way.

We look forward to working with you and your team to improve your work experience.

What can a company lose by using these apps?

The biggest thing that you will likely lose is the need to manage hundreds of spreadsheets with different iterations on each team member’s system!

TeamWork Solutions' built-in, object-oriented, document management will help you also lose the need for directory-based storage of related documents. This ensures faster recovery of related documents without the penalty of knowing where to file (and later look for) them.

You will certainly lose the tension that currently accompanies the production of weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports, because all of your data is readily available in one place and not ferreted away in innumerable ‘shadow’ systems.

You will lose the need to justify huge start-up costs that are typically associated with the deployment of enterprise systems. This system grows with you—at your pace—and accommodates all of the disparate work classes and teams that exist in your organization.

Good luck in your adventure!

Simplify

2011-11-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

Simplify. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

The challenge? Make our user tools simpler. Examples of these simple tools abound. Steve Job’s design-oriented approach has led to innumerable simple apps that even children can use with no training.

And yet, our industry (involving project, cost, asset, maintenance, people, materials, reliability, earned value management) continues to be plagued with applications that:

Cost millions of dollars to implement
Take months or years to roll out
Require large numbers of people in implementation teams
Grossly under-deliver following long delivery cycles—as is evidenced by the spike in use of spreadsheet and other data tools
Burden end-users with mind-numbing processes that clearly are not logical in their particular work environments

These are just some of the challenges that accompany the installation of ERP (enterprise resource planning), EAM (enterprise asset management), CMMS (computerized maintenance management), and PMO (project management office) systems.

Alan Cooper, in his book The Inmates are Running the Asylum, pinpoints the root cause of clunky apps—the lack of a design approach to solution development. So how does that complicate the "simplicity" we're all aiming for?

IT’s View of Simplify

Simplification is one of the primary reasons that IT departments, and the corporate officers that they influence, love ERP, EAM, CMMS, and PMO systems. They hold the promise that other ad hoc systems and spreadsheets currently in use will be swept away and replaced by the shiny new, one-size-fits-all system that allows the entire enterprise to snuggle into a single system. It is a compelling vision! Which manager could not like the image of all of the worker-bees doing their work in their predefined slots while the big enterprise database is humming away, happily delivering exactly the data you want, when you want it and how you want it?

So, the company jumps into the ERP world with both feet, no holds barred. An employee that protests that the new ERP does not do what he or she needs done is sidelined as an obstructionist, his or her career adversely impacted. A request for a review of business rules is viewed through the lens of the new system—can the ERP support this? If yes, then it’s OK; if no, then we need to re-visit the business rule. Never mind that it is a business practice that has been one of the key factors leading to our years of success, until now. IT needs trump business needs.

The User’s View of Simplify

OK—we now have the ERP in place, let’s make the best of the situation. I cannot do what I want to do, but I can get most of the data that I need in the ERP. I can export this data to a couple or three spreadsheets, combine the data, and do the math in the spreadsheet and, voila, I can still do what I was doing! Days and weeks and months go by and my time is now pretty much settled into a routine of exporting data, combining it, and reporting it.

This is just one, all too common, user scenario. Spreadsheets now fill up the hard disk or the file-storage system. The results of all of this spreadsheet-based analysis is nowhere that enables historical trends to be viewed. User job satisfaction plummets. Users that used to spend time in the field working with equipment and people are now tied to their workstations. The apparently simple solution of using a spreadsheet has now morphed into a convoluted, tangled mess that the user is hard-pressed to even train another user in.

Consultant’s (Our) View of Simplify

Corporate IT and business users have now both landed in a messy relationship—not part of the original plan—that was based on the promise of simplicity.

Big forces (Corporate IT) have caused the ERP to be deployed. The money has been spent. Our solution needs to include the ERP, not ignore it.

Spreadsheets (and other user productivity tools) are so intuitive to use, that people with initiative use them to simply get their work done. They need to be commended. These spreadsheets need to be analyzed and, if they contain business processes that are mission-critical to the department or corporation or project, their functionality needs to be included in a simple, function-focused app.

This simple app, while being easy for the user to use, does amazing things under the hood. It uses data from the ERP, puts data into the ERP, and utilizes whatever legacy tools and repositories and other systems that it needs—all the while maintaining its simplified user interaction. In other words, the user does not have to be burdened with following that data maze that was created by poor decisions and poor design.

Sound simple enough?

Buy a BIG box solution, build your own, or move to Web 2.0?

2011-07-15T14:04:00.000-07:00

The Problem

Ever since the immortal promise of "information at your fingertips" that Microsoft made in the 1990s, people have been able to truly manage their own data and have their information at their fingertips. The MS Office suite of software tools has performed a huge supporting role in this arena. MS Word lets you compose anything you wish.

However, a review of your maintenance, project, STO (Shutdown, Turnaround or Outage), or MS Sharepoint folders shows you just how many DOC and DOCX files are in existence in your department. Many of these files are simply forms that hold valuable data that could, and should, be stored in an easily retrievable mode.

The effective storage of data would cause a huge reduction in document-based forms, which in turn would reduce the number of files that need to be reviewed by analysts and auditors when studying your project’s history.

MS Excel, like MS Word, has played its part in the creation of untold millions of spreadsheets that hold data that should rightly be stored in more appropriate and well-designed databases. Microsoft did ride to the rescue—they provided us with MS Access, a database tool that, like Excel, allows the masses to tie ourselves up in knots developing ad hoc databases to hold data in small amounts while allowing us to continue being smug that we still have information at our fingertips. No one else can access this data—but I can, and that’s all that matters.

Imagine the huge cost to corporations, governments, and institutions that these ad hoc MS documents, spreadsheets, and databases represents! They are costly to maintain, they are out-of date as soon as they are saved. They are redundant because there are so many copies of each. They take up huge amounts of space. The list of bad effects goes on and on. These issues and drawbacks are well known to IT departments, yet they often continue to actively encourage users to keep their information at their fingertips—implying that it is less costly to do so. And so the chaotic situation grows more chaotic every day!

So what is a logical alternative to this unsustainable situation? I see three options:

BIG Box Solutions from Solution vendors
Solutions Developed In-House
Web-based Solutions, also known as Web 2.0 solutions

BIG Box

As you would expect, many companies have provided a huge array of potential solutions. Mostly, these are focused on vertical markets. In the work management space, where I have my exposure and experience, companies such as SAP, Indus, IBM, Oracle, and countless others (these are just the big boys) have database products focused on areas such as Accounting, Project Management, Maintenance Management, Asset management, etc. These are typically LARGE systems that require LARGE budgets and HUGE amounts of time and people to configure and deploy.

Many companies have already been down this path and the industry has a huge store of anecdotes about the successes and failures of these BIG systems. ROI does not manifest itself for years and a huge upfront cost is the norm. Due to the large cost, failures are spectacular. If you can afford it, this might be right for you. In a time of slimmer budgets though, it seems to me, these solutions are not the obvious best option.

Home-grown - In-house Development

So, what about simply getting what I need from a local software shop or contractor? Maybe our IT department has a few computer geeks that could easily throw a database solution together and we would be good to go. It would cost less, plus we get just what we want. Training would be easy too as we have the people on staff.

Another word for this approach is customized solution.

Here, too, there is a huge anecdotal record of successes and plenty of failures with this approach. In-house developers typically do not have the passion for the subject and are not necessarily experts in the specific business requirements or the state-of-the-art development tools. The resulting product is often under-whelming, late, and a disappointment to all but the initial users and designers—assuming there were any.

Problems are compounded when the primary developer leaves or is moved on to another project. While inexpensive initially, maintenance costs will add up as user requests for changes come in. ROI is pretty quick and having dedicated support is pretty nice—until the provider gets focused on other, newer, and more exciting development projects.

To me, this option seems like a good way to go to prototype your ideas—if you have a good support team. However, sooner or later you will need to face the music; maintenance and keeping it functional in newer environments will be tough to do and get tougher due to the non-scalability of such applications.

Web 2.0

With the advent of Web 2.0 (applications on the web) a new solution option has appeared that provides a great opportunity for companies to finally solve these problems of huge numbers of ad hoc files created in ad hoc tools and the associated data loss. The incredible speed of improvements in the mobile space also helps these Web 2.0 apps to flourish on ubiquitous handheld devices such as pads and phones.

In addition to the ease with which these apps can be used, the web has ushered in a new pricing model: It is possible to get the the benefit of these apps for a small per user cost for the use of each app. Imagine that! No licence fees as you are not running the software on your system. The system is hosted in the secure, easily accessible cloud. Also, you pay no maintenance fees as these are built in to the user rates. You may have to pay a fee for the size of your database if it exceeds a threshold amount. And there may be a fee for bandwidth usage. These should all be fairly insignificant compared to costs incurred with the traditional BIG Box solutions and also the home-grown solutions.

Web 2.0 allows the solution to feel like a traditional (non-web) app. A well-designed solution allows for configuration to meet your specific needs. You should have virtually no costs associated with additional development.

Conclusion

You guessed it. I think that the time has come to make the switch to the Web. Find your ideal vendor and start saving money. The sooner you do this, the sooner you will realize the benefits of that promise in the 90s. You really can now have useful, actionable, timely, accurate, secure information at your fingertips. Finally!

Sound too good to be true? Get in touch for a workout of the TeamWork Solutions.

Note: All product and company names referenced in this article are the property of their respective owners.

A KISS Approach for Turnaround Management

2011-07-07T15:56:00.000-07:00

A turnaround (or shutdown or outage, depending on your industry) is a complex project that must be executed in a short period of time with a large number of people and equipment resources. Many people and short duration translates into a high cost in a short time. Significant cost savings are obtained by reducing time, number of resources and uncertainty (risk), and improving clarity, work scope, communication, change management. A successful turnaround has quality work delivered safely, ahead of schedule and under budget.

As complex as this type of project sounds, it is possible to be successful by following a few basic steps that ensure the right work is available to be done by the right people at the right time. Carefully managing the work process delivers the desired outcomes in the key aspects of the turnaround, like completing quality work safely at a reasonable cost and on schedule.

What follows is a simple, succinct process that you can use to manage your turnaround, shutdown or outage (TSO) project. As each plant, mill, refinery or facility has its own jargon and business practices, this process will be configured as required to suit the needs on the ground. This is simply a good foundation from which to build your standard process for your facility. The goal is to keep it simple and succinct (KISS).

Phases of a Turnaround, Shutdown or Outage (TSO) Project

Phase/Stage	Basic Process Steps	Discussion
1. Scope Development	Create work requests, screen work requests, and approve work requests	A TSO project’s scope is typically generated in one of the following modes: CMMS (ex. Maximo); ERP system (ex. SAP); other work management system (ex. TeamWork Solutions) or spreadsheets. Plant personnel create a work request. Planners make a ballpark estimate of the costs and the timing for the work involved so that the correct scope of work will be developed. Planners send the request to stakeholders in Operations, Engineering, Inspection and Safety, etc. to make each of them aware of the work request and enable them to approve continued work on it.
2. Estimate /Budget Development	Estimate work orders, develop TSO project budget, establish change management baseline and process	At the culmination of this screening process, the work request becomes a work order. The work order is created and provides the starting point for a detailed materials, labor, equipment and contracted cost-based estimate to be performed. A work package is auto-created in the plan to hold the execution plan for the work order. A budget baseline is developed and forms the basis for cost tracking and forecasting as well as management of scope changes and tracking of trends for using contingency, forecast management, etc. A work package is auto-created to hold the execution plan for the work order. The planning occurs in the next phase.
3. Plan Development	Develop work packages, develop work items in each work package, assign manpower and equipment resources to each work item, develop task lists as needed for each work item, Link work items logically, assign work items to appropriate turnaround periods (ex. Pre shutdown, Maintenance, etc.)	The plan consists of work packages (one for each plant asset or equipment item or equipment type). Each work package has the tear-down, clean up, build-up and testing steps involved with maintaining an equipment item. Each work item has associated manpower and equipment resources. Safety requirements such as securing appropriate Safe Work Permits are an integral part of the plan for each work step.
4. Schedule Development	Assign milestone and constraint dates to the turnaround milestones and specific work items as needed, perform a daily update on the scheduled work so that the latest progress data is included in the schedule	Each turnaround milestone may have a required date. This date should be entered into the system. Limiting the human and equipment resources used on each activity causes work to be delayed until the resources become available, thus resulting in obtaining achievable schedules within the date constraints and milestones that are defined for the turnaround. Progress data that is entered into the plan is used by the scheduling engine to calculate new and achievable dates for the remaining work. The scheduling process is based on business rules and runs automatically each hour, each shift, each day, or on demand. This requires no additional human input, as all data that has already been entered is leveraged in the scheduling process.
5. Contract Management	Develop contract packages, receive bids (tenders), award bids (tenders), resolve contractor questions, establish contract controls for tracking, establish change management process for contracts	Contractors are a critical component of the turnaround workforce. They are used to supplement the facility’s normal crew. Preparing the contract packages, establishing the contract type (ex. lump sum or time and materials), securing bids for each contract, awarding the bid, establishing a contract budget and schedule baseline, and ensuring that these baselines are integrated into the project baselines so that data is entered once are important core processes in managing contracts and contracted work execution.
6. Materials Management	Prepare MRs (Material Requisitions) from the estimate, consolidate into POs (Purchase Orders), send POs to approved vendors, receive bids from vendors, award PO to vendor, merge committed dates into the schedule	Timely delivery of correctly estimated materials items are critical to ensuring that turnarounds are not delayed. Be sure to create purchase orders that require that delivery dates are adhered to. Ensure that these dates are automatically assimilated into an integrated schedule so that the team is aware of potential delivery problems early enough that they can evolve a plan B—rather than delay the entire turnaround. The integration of PO delivery dates into the schedule should be accomplished as a function of managing the PO and not be an additional data maintenance chore.
7. Execution Management	Develop daily work schedules by crew, track progress for each crew, track actual hours spent (incurred) by crew	Using the schedule as a live tool to produce shift and daily work lists ensures that the right work is done when resources are available. This work plan is automatically communicated to the Operations people that approve the system-generated Safe Work Permit requests. The shift-based collection of progress and actual hours and other incurred costs ensures that there is a timely computation of the critical measures that help the management team to direct the progress of the turnaround. Schedules and budget controls are automatically maintained, thus minimizing the need for additional repetitive data entry.
8. Reporting	Provide shift, daily, and weekly reports showing cost and schedule performance and controls, including projected trends and forecasts.	Controls reports and dashboards with drill-down ability help the management team to review progress and areas in need of additional attention. These are available based on being run automatically at preset times each day, or on demand without the need for additional work in setup and configuration. Performance measures are plotted against time to provide trends that can help management to fix problems early.
9. Post-Audit	Conduct analyses of each aspect of the plan and compare to the dates and costs for actually doing the work, record lessons learned for each aspect of the TSO project, archive the data for the TSO project so that it is available for use and analysis, but may not be changed.	If we do not learn from mistakes, we are doomed to keep repeating them. The post-audit process ensures that we do what we can to record - for each asset - the lessons learned in scoping, budgeting for, planning for and managing the work as well as in running the asset in operating conditions.

In a future blog, I’ll discuss how this standard turnaround process gets turned into a list of requirements, which then forms the basis for the configuration of the work-related data management tools from TeamWork Group.

Spreadsheets, Lists, and Words: Data in the Project Management Process

2011-06-19T14:01:00.000-07:00

Consider a typical project process:

You start by listing your requirements in an e-mail or Word, and then you send them to your engineering contractor or department. This is the project’s Scope of Work, also known as the Requirements.

The design work, if needed, is done in a digital environment that is appropriate for the project. For example, steel structure design, landscape design, software design, or railroad design are each done in software packages that are dedicated to those processes. The result of the design process is a product (such as a building, garden, or software solution) that needs to be built using people’s time (resources), together with equipment (such as cranes, welding machines, ditching machines, computers) and materials (such as steel, mulch). The Project Estimate is the result of determining the amount of resources, equipment and materials that will be required to complete the project. The most common and intuitive way for performing the estimate is by using a spreadsheet tool such as Excel.

If the estimated cost of the project is acceptable, the project proceeds and funding is allocated to ensure that it can progress. A Project Budget is developed based on the work breakdown structure (WBS). The WBS ensures that the project has a consistent baseline for budgeting costs for specific WBS accounts and provides a tracking tool as the work progresses through the contracting, execution and start-up processes. Again, as with Estimating, the Budgeting process is often done in a spreadsheet.

The scope of work is now ready to be parceled into work packages that are designed for bidding by contractors that will complete the building or construction. These packages may be functional (electrical, HVAC), discipline (civil, structural, mechanical), or physical (pipeline spreads, terminals, pump-stations). They must be logical for the project being managed. Most projects are split into work packages by adding a tab for each work package to a spreadsheet. The process for work package creation is Project Planning. As details are added to each work package, the tabs begin to be different from each other. The project planner consolidates the plan on to a summary tab using a set of pretty complex tab-straddling formulas.

One or more work package plans are configured into contract packages. These contract packages include specification and terms and conditions for executing the contract. Contracting companies that are interested in doing the work are vetted and placed on an Approved Bidders List. Approved Bidders are issued contract packages along with a deadline for their bids to be received. The bids that are returned are reviewed and analyzed and a winning bidder is selected for each contract. Some bid clarification takes place, following which, the contractor and the owner (your company) sign a contract that awards the work to the contractor. The contract becomes the guiding baseline for tracking the execution of the work to completion. Much of the contract execution work is modeled in Excel spreadsheets. These complex spreadsheets are used for daily tracking of progress, recording of time spent (incurred costs), reporting to field management, reporting to project management and tracking changes.

During the execution of the work, the contractor provides (daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly) a pro-forma invoice that includes incurred costs for the period. The owner (you) validates this invoice and pays the contractor in a timely manner as specified by the contract’s terms. This is a manual process. The invoices are entered into an accounts payable system. Typically this resides within a larger ERP or Accounting system.

Projects are typically scheduled using a scheduling tool such as Primavera or MS Project. This means that WBS-related data and work packages must be exported or re-entered into these tools from their source in spreadsheets.

When the project’s contracts are complete, the project team, in collaboration with the customer’s staff, performs a process that is called, predictably, different things in different industries; Commissioning, Hand-over, Go Live are some of the terms in various industries.

Smart companies then perform another vital step––they conduct an audit of the project in order to determine how the project team performed against how they had expected to perform. Did they do better or worse? More importantly, they examine the root causes of the successes or failures. This process can use the contractors, contract packages, the work packages, WBS or assets as a basis for their comparisons and analyses. As all of the data thus far has been in Excel, it is not unusual for this process to link of those existing spreadsheets.

As you can see a project’s scope evolves quickly from a relatively simple set of requirements into complex and interwoven data sets that are required in order to ensure that the project completes safely on time and under budget with no surprises. You can see that the process is currently an intricate one that requires significant spreadsheeting, scheduling, and communication skills in order to keep things on track.

Experience has shown that the use of an integrated project management solution, that can handle a variety of different project types and complexities, is an effective way to ensure that projects will not be left with a need for armies of staff to maintain complex spreadsheets and schedules. Instead the integrated system would enable fewer people to leverage their data non-redundantly and faster than is possible with the prevailing approach.

This is the basis for the integrated project solutions that TeamWork Group (TWG) provides for managing projects in a number of different contexts and industries. Future posts will discuss how TWG handles each of the business needs required in a project management process.

Note: All referenced products and product names are the property of their respective owners. These names are used here for clarity of the discussion.