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Engineering Design Vs Construction Project

28 replies [Last post]
Sun, 2004-04-18 04:14
Bahari Sulaiman
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Is it true that the Engineering Design projects are more difficult to plan as compared to Construction projects.
The activity sequencing are more flexible and thus is not easy to draw the critical path.
Any comments?
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Fri, 2015-11-27 10:03
#1
Kevin Young
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I feel both are equally important Engineering Design projects and construction work as both are correlated to each other:

  • Almost every option is custom designed and constructed, and often requires a long time to accomplish.
  • Both the design and construction of a facility must satisfy the conditions peculiar to a specific site.
  • Because of technological complication and market demands, modification in design plans during construction is common. 

There are several urban design and planning services available by which you can get relevant information about such topic. 

You can also consult various urban planning firms about this. 

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Wed, 2004-07-07 18:17
#2
Ed Fish
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Folks, this is obviously a goldmine discussion area.

We are all in the projects business - project = the engine of change [if things haven’t changed when you’re finished why are you doing the project?] Thus we are all in the change business. None of us like to think of what we’ve done as having failed.

What is important is to think of your timescale for measurement of success. You can build a factory on time and to budget that makes a product that no one buys. Is that project a success?
Project manager = yes;
business = NO.

Sorry, I can’t find a solid reference but I do have a tutorial note that puts it between 50 and 70%. I have a note about "Change Management" by Burnes, which looks like it was my original point of reference [not everything can be found on the web!]
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Wed, 2004-07-07 08:53
#3
Ernesto Puyana
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Ed: I supose so many managerial esquemes promising so much, one after the other, end up galvinizing people against changes. But then what? follow the old paradigms: "don´t fix it if it ain´t broken", "It´s always being done that way", and so on????
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Wed, 2004-07-07 08:46
#4
Bernard Ertl
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A quick search on the internet turned up the following documents:

Of 99 completed reengineering initiatives, 67% were judged as producing mediocre, marginal, or failed results.

Nearly two-thirds of all major changes in organizations fail.

Standish Group Chaos Report - Several references on the web to this report claiming 80% of IT projects fail. The report is not free, but can be ordered.

Research shows that 75 percent of all attempted change initiatives fail within the first three years.

There are also several references to studies by Gartner, but none (that I found) specific enough to reference.

Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems - eTaskMaker Project Planning Software
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Wed, 2004-07-07 08:07
#5
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80% of all (cultural) changes fail. ??

I think you will find that in business change management it is 80 % of the effort that goes into chaging the culture...any one can sit in a workshop and dream up processes
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Wed, 2004-07-07 05:37
#6
David Watters
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I agree with Ed on this one. I tried to implement complete project controls in a manufacturing comapny a couple of yesrs ago based on my experience in EPC and BOY did it ever backfire. I think most cultural changes fail as they generally tend to be resisted as people become comfortable with the methods they use over time.

I have also worked on It projects, and found it to be particulaly true in that industry. For example, we had 1 year to complete a rool out or the FDA would stop GlaxoWellcome packaging in the US. We had to try to get the programmers to think in terms of schedule, and they resisted it every step of the way. My favourite was "We dont need planners - we all know about the Cost Time Quality Triangle" re Dennis Locks’s book on Project Management. When you asked them how do you implement a triangle, they got very upset !! Cultural differnces, and unwillingnes (Spelling??) to change !!

I have also seen the same in Manufacturing, Pharamceutical and Oil & Gas projects - I suspect that this a constant amongst all indutries.

And I suppose this ties back into Ernestos question on getting people to convert to Project Management. Sounds like his architect was comfortable being able to continuously change the design, and is not comfortable with being constrained by time. Which again feeds back to my discussion with Ed a few posts ago over which is easier to plan Detail Design or Construction. Detail design teams tend to be more closed to new practices, whereas Constgruction Teams will tend to try anything new to get the job done quicker.

However, I have never seen any report on the exact numbers/statistics, and would love it if Ed can post a link to a good document for reading. Ed please remember !!

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Wed, 2004-07-07 03:33
#7
Chris Oggham
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I found your statement that 80% of cultural changes fail to be very interesting. If you could find the reference for its source I’d be most grateful as, personally, I haven’t found this high failure rate to be the case.
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Wed, 2004-07-07 02:58
#8
Ed Fish
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OK, I know it seems a big number and I was sceptical when I first read it. It is, however, the figure generally accepted by researchers in the field of change management to be about right. [I apologise I can’t find a reference at quick note, but will try to remember to post one]

Stop and reflect for a minute. How often have new procedures been introduced where you work that somehow don’t make any difference to the way people really do things? How often has software been "upgraded" and user just treat it the same way as before? How many projects have come in late or over budget and failed to improve the company’s return of capital or profit compared to the situation before the project? Those are all failures and many of these failures just blur into the background.

If you are still in doubt, when was the last time your organisation jumped on a management bandwagon only to jump off within a couple of years. Think TQM, TPM, CRM, ERP or any other acronym that might apply to you.

Hard to believe, but the more I looked at it 80% seems about right. "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
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Tue, 2004-07-06 18:46
#9
Ernesto Puyana
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80% of all (cultural) changes fail.
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Mon, 2004-07-05 08:33
#10
Ed Fish
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If your project lifecycle phases aren’t being respected then either they aren’t lifecycle phases (are you using stage gates?) or the project manager ain’t doing his job.

And what was so preposterous that it needs expanding?
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Fri, 2004-07-02 12:18
#11
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I´m back. you are right, the phases of the life cycle have to be respected and enforced. But sometimes our friends keep on designing past their time slot, into the construction phase and beyond
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Fri, 2004-07-02 12:01
#12
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Your last remark sounds preposterous. Could you expand?
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Fri, 2004-07-02 11:10
#13
Ed Fish
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I have a brother who is an architect, and I can understand your feeling that they see themselves more as artists than engineers, but I think that is right.

To get passed your problem you need to develop a better project management process based on a good project lifecycle. In the "petro-chem" sector we take this for granted because if we didn’t have one we could never build the complex factories that we do.

But remember, 80% of all (cultural) changes fail.
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Fri, 2004-07-02 10:57
#14
Ernesto Puyana
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Most posts on this subject have come from petrochemical and engineering people. I’m in building construction and perhaps there is a difference there that makes it even more difficult to plan and control design with CPM.

It´s some architecs. They tend to consider themselves much more artists than members of a technical team with a goal to fulfill within a timeframe. If you say you have 6 months to start bidding, they take for granted that those 6 months are theirs to fill (parkinson’s law thrives there)and pretend to make "slight changes" up to the last minute, which blow any structural design, budget, etc.

No scheduling system exists to manage such characters.
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Wed, 2004-06-30 14:15
#15
David Watters
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Yep agreed. Enough time on this. I suppose it would be fair to say it boils down to quailty of norms and statistical record keeping. If you’ve got em them then detail design is simpler - if not - your right and it becomes a pigging nightmare cos no one will commit to anything.

Fair enough ?

PS those Planners were taken outside and "shot" by the way. And it wans’t during detail design, it was during FEED. Guess Mote Carlo is one of those "love it" or "Hate it" things eh?
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Wed, 2004-06-30 12:04
#16
Ed Fish
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David,
I think we are onto a 3 pint discussion about some planning points, so I am going to leap back to the original question.

"Is it true that the Engineering Design projects are more difficult to plan as compared to Construction projects.
The activity sequencing are more flexible and thus is not easy to draw the critical path.
Any comments?"

The phrasing of the question is perhaps what throws us all. It is not that the sequence of activities is more flexible, but a lot less certain. From my previous post - Is the next activity pipe sizing for the steam supply or substation design for an electrical supply? Similar generic activity but different resources.

Now the next point I’m getting at is that for planning you need to know both the sequence AND the duration. The design sequence is not that vague (perhaps we agree on that point), but the duration is much more variable than during construction (perhaps we agree here too if this is what you mean by managing the project) and the detail is much more prone to change.

Just a comment on a couple of your points. If people are bring up substantial VO’s late in the job they should be made to cost them out properly (including all the design impact on other areas) and justify them and then kick them and the designers for not getting it right first time (that’s their job). If you’ve got people using Monte Carlo for anything other than before the detailed design phase then take them out and shoot them, they are wasting their time and yours. Monte Carlo is not a substitute for good planning and using experience to get the timing estimates right (including allowing for those little changes you just "know" are going to come along).

There is plenty that could be talked about, but I think where overdoing the original question now.
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Wed, 2004-06-30 03:15
#17
David Watters
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Ed - Dont think we are at cross purposes here. The original question is which PLAN is harder to establish, design or Construction. As you state BOTH have elements of doubt and uncertainty.

You site changes to design that occur when construction is underway. How do I account for such instances? I can’t. Its in the future and unplannable that such changes to equipment design and specification will be made based on Engineering decisions for efficiency of design.

On the flip side - how do you, in generating a construction plan account for Variation Orders to scope of work yet to come / Input from Sub Contractors clause 14’s / Variation of local environment / Regional economic variables / Local workforce efficiency / Change to legislation / HSE directives / etc etc etc. Hey looking at on paper, I’d kinda think that details design looks easier to establish than construction now!!

Q>How do you build these into your MonteCarlo?
A>You don’t unless you have a crystal ball and a brain the size of a planet.

As for using Monte Carlo - Maybee a bit cynical here - but I have often seen people grinding away at machines burning expensive menhours on that thing to now effect. Design managers have no time for it. Directors have no time for it. Engineers couldn’t give a damn either way.

I personally would rather be out there glued to their hips making sure the are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing and not being interupted by studies or VOs if on site.

Anyway, the engineers involved in detail design aren’t daft and many have been at it for 30+ years, so the norms used for estimating hours per GA, Iso, P&ID are well established. Plenty of data to back it all up.

EXCATLY the same as in construction. From a purely planning of activities point of view.

Remember this is all about which is easier to PLAN and not manage.

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Tue, 2004-06-29 16:10
#18
Ed Fish
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David,

Big problem of being at crossed purposes here. You are saying that there should be a process for designing the plant and I couldn’t agree with you more. The question is not that you need to know that you have to do something, but what it is you are going to do and how long it is going to take.

The key factor is uncertainty.

When I am constructing a plant I know what equipment I am going to install. Yeah, there are plenty of little (they may not seem like it at the time) problems that come along, like a connection that was on the last drawings etc.

When I am designing a plant I can choose different pieces of equipment that achieve the same function to the main process but require different ancillaries, say steam versus electrical. Now depending on which one I choose the plan changes. So, how do you plan before I’ve chosen? How long is all of this going to take the electrical designer; no time or 50 hours?

There are methods for dealing with some of this, Critical Chain and Monte Carlo, are the two big ones. But if you can’t accept that the design phases is more uncertain, and hence harder to plan then you’d be wasting your time learning them, unless you are open to changing your mind.

Remember, I am not saying there shouldn’t be a process (cf a project lifecycle) for planning the design, just that it is harder to be certain of your plans when designing.

----------

Alice: I dnot much mind where I go from here.
Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go
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Tue, 2004-06-29 14:29
#19
David Watters
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Not too sure I agree that Detail Design is harder plan than Construction.

Detailed Design, like the construction phase, must follow a certain path for the engineers to have any chance of working as a team and getting information out/Steel errected.

Process Design > Process Specs> Mech Specs > Layouts > Isos > Pipe Supports > Fab etc...

Whatever path your company prefers, it is a chain of events. Now, how is that any different to construction?

You mention the usual "Its harder to measure things in the head", what about AFC deliverables. Surely they can be progressed in excactly the same manner as spoil from an excavation? So I do not agree that it is intangible - quite the opposite instead!

The only difference lies within the head of an individual. Wether or not you are comfortable planning design or construction.

In construction, you can blame the design team.

In Design, you can blame the lack of design critical vendor data - and Pipe Supports cos they usually deserve it !!!

But there is one great constant. They all blame planning.
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Thu, 2004-06-17 05:24
#20
Ed Fish
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Yes, Design phases in a project are harder to plan, as one reply puts it, things in the head are harder to measure.

The bugbear here is about uncertainty. In the design phases uncertainty is high and the appropriate tools should be used. Planning is better with Critical Chain rather than with simple Gantt charts.

So, yes the design phase CPM is harder to find because you don’t know how long each activity will take. But the idea of chopping the project into smaller chunks (by area, as other suggest) reduces each area of uncertainty and gives a more accurate estimate.
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Wed, 2004-06-02 23:35
#21
razif r
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    Is it true that the Engineering Design projects are more difficult to plan as compared to Construction projects.
    The activity sequencing are more flexible and thus is not easy to draw the critical path.
    Any comments?


Not at all. In the part of the whole project development process, consultant designers are used obviously to design, of course in the design stage.In the Construction stage, the contractor comes in the play.

Now there are two seperate contracts. One with the consultants ( normally we set one lead design consultant amongst all the design consultants) and one with the Contractor.

Of course, these two will sit parallelly and have a milestone to catch up with. Designers must and shall abide these milestone, complete their design as competently , fit for purpose and performance measured within the targeted milestone. There will be different phase of design stage like conceptual, schematic, detail, approval, construction drwgs, calculation & specs etc. not to mentiond the bid-award/tendering stage. All thses activities have a duration for the designers to comply with and criticality of the design phase for the designers to comply with would be definately a problem i.e. the critical path as you mentioned.

Designers have a respoinsibility, despite authorities approval which is something designers not fully control, but it is the resposibility of the designers to produce the competence design for the approval. These datelines included in the schedule. Remember : flaws in the design could vitally jeorpadize the construction works/phase.. and how these could be turn back to designers is a different issue.

The bottoml;ine is that (as per your question), there is absolutely not a problem to draw any critical path in all phase of project development fr. design stage - bid/award stage - construction stage - clsoe out stage.

The only MAIN challenge is for the designers to understand the critical phase and fully commit in it as per schedule.

peace



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Tue, 2004-05-04 04:55
#22
Luca Basile
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I am agree for the process calculation report is for the entire plant, but when You come to compile the process data sheet can be set up for work package,a s well as the P&iD for area. The same for electrical and instruments.
Also for civil, piping, mechanical I will have a common engineering for procedure/standards.
Also You will have some for management including Your progress measurement, planning, cost, document management, etc ... procedures.
I am agree to Your statment "You don’t need to breakdown all activities to develop CPM of Engineering Design, simplify links by selecting only key activities will yield a clear CPM."
Pay attention to not loose the feeling to what is happening to near critical activities or to the critical mass.
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Tue, 2004-05-04 02:24
#23
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You don’t need to breakdown all activities to develop CPM of Engineering Design, simplify links by selecting only key activities will yield a clear CPM. P&ID status is the main one from where all other activities depend on its status. Breaking engineering network in to area wise ? I don’t agree with you, it’s ok for civil, piping and equipment eng’g but not for process system, elect, and intsr. Beside that, area wise is usually used in construction. I suggest you do break into facilities for engineering.
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Thu, 2004-04-22 11:34
#24
Luca Basile
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I am agree You have also to divide by area, that will be Your work package.
For example Glycol, CO2, Compressor, etc...
You can not do for the whole plant!
So split by areas, You can proceed with the inter-connecting and then to develop the tie-in to the package you have to wait the vendor info. No way to do different.
But at least most of all the bulk materials can be ordered, in gran part. For piping bulk You will issue 3 (more or less) material take off, and complete the order with the last one when all will be finalised (with the vendors).
But this not only for piping, also for electrical the operandum is the same, and so on for the other disciplines.

What can change is the number of material take off before the final, I saw it depend a lot from the Company policy, and for a pipeline project is much more easy.

The stage for the deliverables are again as per progress measurement procedure that must be agree with the Client, as well as the weight for each deliverables and bla bla ...

How You done different?
I am interested to know, and change my mind.
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Thu, 2004-04-22 10:12
#25
Bahari Sulaiman
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Yes Luca,

you don’t produce piping isometric before piping layout. What I meant by complex is that you can link by FS, SS with lag, of FF with lag. Imagine if you divide a plant into several areas, and the drawings are issued with several stages.

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Mon, 2004-04-19 02:49
#26
Luca Basile
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What do You mean to plan?
The relationship between the different phases or the effort
associated?

About the relationship there is not so much room.
For example, in civil engineering there is a sequence, that could be calculation report, formwork dwg, reinforcement dwg, bar list. With some overlap. It depend from the software tools the company use as in an integrated design process all this can be mixed up.

For the effort again depend mainly from few factors: the engineering solution adopted, the tools available as well the designers experince.

In the same way I will never produce any piping isometrics without have before developed the piping layout, and so on ...


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Sun, 2004-04-18 09:21
#27
Bernard Ertl
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IMO, all design fields (including engineering) are creative processes and therefore, much harder to estimate than construction and maintenance work.

Work that takes place inside the head is harder to measure/predict/estimate than work that takes place with the hands IMO.

Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems - eTaskMaker Project Planning Software
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Sun, 2004-04-18 07:43
#28
MK TSE
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My comment is: NOT SURE.
CPM still can be worked out for Project Engineering Design. First, we can define some milestones for achieving different design stages. Then within a stage, we list all concern issues. From issues, we work out the sequence how to resolve those issues. Base on the details, we can work out a CPM.
But I agree this CPM is more flexible. I think the available resources is the major. The resources are more or less various professional, like structure engineer have time to work out design before CADD team to prepare the structure drawing. Or like architect to final lobby or entrance disgn first.
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