Honiron Manufacturing is an industry-leading provider of project management services to the sugar, oil and gas, petrochemical and refining, LNG, food processing, and carbon black industries. Over the course of our 160+ years of building complex industrial equipment and facilities throughout the globe, we’ve developed a very clear understanding of what does and doesn’t lead to project success. In this blog, we offer up three best practice guidelines when it comes to project management.
1. Stay Lean – Over the years, as owners and operators have elected to build larger and more complex industrial facilities, lean project management has become critical to staying on schedule and on budget. Adopting a lean philosophy will allow you to stay flexible and adapt to unexpected events/complications as they arise throughout the development process. It’s also necessary to eliminate the three types of waste that all too frequently slow projects down and inflate costs. They are:
Muda – Waste within the manufacturing system, such as defects and overproduction
Muri – Waste created by overburden
Mura – Waste created by uneven workloads
2. Engage Early and Often – Continuous engagement between owners, suppliers, and the project management team is necessary to ensure that the equipment and/or solution being implemented within a facility is optimal given project-specific objectives. Engaging early is also important for the simple fact that the project scope will become less flexible as the schedule progresses. At Honiron Manufacturing, we’ve learned that by keeping communication lines open and active throughout the development process, all involved parties are able to reduce one another’s costs and take advantage of opportunities for improvement that would otherwise be impossible to identify when working separately.
3. Always Strive for Continuous Improvement – Continuous improvement is woven into the fabric of Honiron Manufacturing, and it’s one of the reasons that we’ve been able to stay in business since 1852. Certainly there are methods of facility development and equipment fabrication that are tried and true; however, owners, operators, and project managers should adopt the mindset that these methods can always be tweaked and tailored to fit the unique needs of the project. Whether it’s working with a solutions provider to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO), or seeking the advice of a qualified fabricator to source the right materials for your equipment, there is and always will be ways to optimize the development process and maximize ROI.
Stay on the lookout for the second blog in this series — Honiron Manufacturing: Project Success Series – Procurement.