Im new - hello!

Hi Frances

Welcome to Planning Planet.

Please read the PP rules - particularly Rule 10.

And then convince me that you are complying.

Best regards

Mike Testro - Moderator.

Hi all,

I'm new to the site, browsed the forums a bit, came accross this thread, so I figure I will also introduce myself too :)

This site definitely looks like a great place to share knowledge, tips, and tricks! and I'm happy to see some lady planners on here!

By the way, (I hope this is the right forum to ask) does anybody here use email fax tools? I read a little about this feature - fax exchange, thinking of trying out something like that instead of "old school" fax.

Thanks and nice to "meet" you all!

Fran

hai dear all,

i karthik, i am here new person for planning, at present i m working in oil & gas project

Dear sabri sir,

i was send the mail to mail id , pls clear my doubt sir,

my dear friends, could u have idea about following below mention the details

manhour calculation

fabrication(1 unit) = whats mahour

erection(1unit)  = what is manhour

same for piping ,equipments,

hi expects pls guide me

Greetings to all of you !!



Im also new here in PP and im learning a lot from your sharing info and discussion.



Thanks !!



-Lot

Greetings to you all!



I’m a newby in Planning. I just thought I would say "Hello" to all of you. I guess I will sit here and learn from your brilliant ideas.



I work at Desalination Plant.



so I say "Hello all"



-Jay

so people,



i’m new too; new to the forum. i’ve been in oil & gas construction for more than 10 years.



any question regarding any topic related, please ask. we will discuss with open minded.



my email

sabrighanisan@gmail.com

Hi Victoria,



Gosh! How long have you been a planner?



James.

Hi all,

I am new too.

As for me...definately city.

So far in my short existence as a planner/scheduler, I have done London, Paris, Hong Kong and Singapore. Dubai is up next, moving over there in April.

Look forward to learning some tricks from all of you (steady).

Vicky

ooooohhhhhh, thank you Gwen, that felt sooo goood.......woof woof.

James! Slap! We already have had this conversation



I am not planning on this job, the Main Contractor is.



Thats not to say I are sitting at our desk with our feet up.



Watchdog Rotweillers I would say.

Gwen,



Why should women planners be quieter? I thought you could multi-task. Talking & planning (plus doing the washing, cooking, cleaning, nappy-changing, popping Anadin and Nurofen, swallowing Persil automatic etc) should be a doddle for you lot........or is it because, actually, you take so long over compiling a plan that you have no spare time.



Please slap me :-)



James.

I definitely prefer teh site to HQ in conventional building.



I was HQ based in Hong Kong for a few years and the politics almost made a murderer of me. It was horrible.



Of course the downside of site offices are they are by nature temporary, depending on your outlook.



OTOH there’s nothing like a proper Xmas bash in a 1/2 finished building in central Hong Kong to make you feel disconnected from reality.



I’m quite enjoying the refinery. seems to have the advantages of both (although no booze on site, while very sensible, reduces the opportunity for silliness somewhat .. oh, perhaps that’s the point :P )

Guess I am rare then. Obviously Boiler Suit has to fit in the right places.

Was discussing this thread at lunch (7 of us in our "kitchen") whilst the Doc Controller made us waffles, her Mums home made jam and Norske cheese.



Hard life eh?



There are times in your life when you do want to be stuck at the ersend of no where.



City life not for me. Good job everyone is different or we would all be chasing the same jobs.

it’s a rare woman indeed who finds anything attractive about men in boiler suits



- Paris Hilton*







*may not be true



working abroad is aces. do it. I’d still be wary of ending up stuck in the ar53 end of nowhere though, but if location is near the top of your list then I suppose you can’t go too far wrong.

Sorry I forgot to mention. Men in boiler suits!

Oi! Work 3 years digging holes and fighting the local government in Beijing before calling me a softie, sweetheart :-P



Hm, fair enough though. How about life for nonworking spouses? In cities it’s easy to answer of course, but on facilities away from population centres? I suppose I can answer my own question by saying it depends on the facility...



my jobs have always been population centre based as most of it has been onsite on commercial development projects meaning city centres. Onsite in Refineries, Rigs and gas fields often means more isolation is the impression I get and I’ve met far too many people who have blamed the job for the breakup of their marriage (although when I think about it ... first; this happens on commercial developement projects aswell and second; well, lets just say male misbehavior probably had more to do with it than work stress in many cases...)



so, in the end, you’re saying that most facilities (that you have been on at least) are commutable from somewhere pleasent or there is a decent life set up otherwise. That does bode well, as I’m considering a move back overseas in ’10 or ’11 and am rather enjoying O&G

Compound life? I was on site not Battersea Compound for Dogs.

Heres the guide for Site Work for Softies.

Sullom Voe lived in B & B and cute farm houses, Ireland, fab new house, commuted to Barrow Island NW Oz but lived in Freemantle near the beach. Upside social life revolved around beach, Rotto, local bars and vineyards oh and sailing. Was on Melkotrazz (Artic) compound but it was like living in an Ikea show room, en suite wet room, sauna full of naked Norskie men at the end of the corridor, cinema, bar on site, all the seafood you could eat, otter and whale spotting, Northern lights. Downside social life revolved round drink. Great!

Working near Rosenberg at present but staying at a 5 start beach resort. Social life drink, visiting local restaurants in cute moated historic towns. Sailing and cycling in summer. Visting freinds in Paris in spring.

Compound? Hard life? Site work - Worlds best kept secret!

Gwen - you have been to some interesting places. Did you find the compound life hard? I’ve always been able to base in cities, even now I am in the Antwerp Haven so able to live in Brussels and commute (Brussels rather than Antwerp due to my wife’s work) and have always been a little aprehensive about the strain of living somewhere like Sakalin or equally remote, especially for my family.



Christine - It may be a bridge too far time wise, but Beng is only a year more than HND. That said, HND should be enough to get you a work visa in most of SE Asia. Most employers seem to think a degree is necessary to label you as a "foreign expert" but in fact the law tends to say something like "proof of tertiary education" which HND would definitely cover. Policies do change though and BEng is a good ticket to have, if you have the time / inclination.



I had 12 years in the far east and enjoyed it thoroughly. Singapore is a very easy place to live, if you’re looking for a soft landing. KL and Bangkok are more chaotic but still great. Borneo quite isolated and Johore Bharu ... well .... just don’t. If you like spicy food you will be in heaven in any of these places!



With 7 years as a turnaround planning clerk on an ICI plant and whatever exp you’re getting now plus the HND, I would think you should be able to talk yourself into a planning position in European O&G. The firm I contract to is currently recruiting in Belgium and Holland and is desperate to the point that they gave me a start 2 years ago with no O&G exp and no dutch language (albeit >10yr non-O&G construction exp). The site Gwen posted is a good one, you can also sign up for alerts here, there are international jobs that come up, although most of the O&G stuff posted here seems to be in the UK.

Job, location, weather, day rate are main driver. Not necessarily in that order.

Experience and learning as I go. Planners in short supply Perth WA. Try Fircroft.

Heat I can cope with humidity, spiders, sharks, snakes I cant.

Personal opinion. Dubai (very expattie) and Quatar a tad souless unless you are into traffic jams and shopping. Oman has more soul.

Always more interested in playing with lego than dolls.

Father was in the construction (housing) business.

Saw the day rates when I was a staffie with a major operator and knew that, in general, men were/are lousy organisers.

Started off doing well sequencing and planning in the Drilling & Completion, then Offshore Installations Maintenance and Scheduling Offloading FPSOs. Never got an opportunity to go offshore so went to oil terminal in Shetland for 3 months. Was there for 2 years. Then to Monaco SBM but site work there (Singapore, Dubai, Brazil) dominated by male planners so went to site Oil refinery in Cork Ireland, Barrow Island WA, Hammerfest in Artic. Now in Rotterdam in a shipyard as Client Planner Rep. Presently there is a MPU, a jack up, semi sub, the Siapem 7000 and the FPSO Voyageur. Usually get my jobs via oilandgasjobseach.com.

My wife says everything twice, she thinks I don’t hear her the first time.



The truth is, of course, that if I didn’t hear her it was because I wasn’t listening ;P



Construction in general (and Oil and Gas in particular) is a terribly male dominated profession. Something that I would hope is changing as the years pass, but having left Europe in ’91 and returned in ’06 I couldn’t really tell the difference. The sheer shortage of planners in Oil and Gas at the moment should help level the playingfield somewhat, did you get the rotterdam job?

Yes there are female construction planners out there.

Usually get the comment "Dont see many women planners/You are the first woman planner I have interviewed"

On site in Rotterdam integrating a FPSO. The reason why we are quieter then the boys is because we, generally, are busier.

I await, with bated breath, constructive witty comments.

No Nerds please!

Hi Christine,

May be knowing what are your responibilities as project planning professionnal & what we can do with your plan other than hook it on the office’s wall, could help a little! here below some references that you can download for free from the AACE website.



NB: Just to appease you, YES there are female planners in PP...and certainly you’ll have the opportunity to chat with some of them...





AACE International Recommended Practice No. 14R-90

RESPONSIBILITY AND REQUIRED SKILLS FOR A PROJECT

PLANNING AND SCHEDULING PROFESSIONAL.



AACE International Recommended Practice No. 53R-06

SCHEDULE UPDATE REVIEW – AS APPLIED IN

ENGINEERING, PROCUREMENT, AND CONSTRUCTION

TCM Framework: 9.2 – Progress and Performance Measurement,

10.3 – Change Management



AACE International Recommended Practice No. 52R-06

TIME IMPACT ANALYSIS – AS APPLIED IN CONSTRUCTION

TCM Framework: 6.4 – Forensic Performance Assessment, 7.2 – Schedule Planning

and Development, 10.2 – Forecasting, 10.3 – Change Management



JK

Welcome,



this is the place where u can share and gain the knowledge.....



Cheers,

Abhi

You should have no problems then, welcome to the club!

it’s a long story Christine.. for me, Construction Planners are usually Engineers who doesn’t really know how to use computers or Scheduling Softwares but who simply knows what comes first (chicken or egg?!)..



from there, you may realize that imagination is really powerful!

Christine, until you have seen how at least one project is actually organised and executed, it’s certainly not cowardice to be apprehensive about planning one!



If you have already spent time administering drawing issue etc, then you may well have a good handle on how building design is executed and so you will have a better idea how to plan it. For the rest, don’t be afraid to ask, especially the people you work with / for and the executors themselves (contractors etc). They will likely give you the run around a bit because you’re just starting out and construction is like that but don’t be discouraged. They will appreciate it in the end when your plans demonstrate that you understand the way that they work.



In my opinion, the best plans are written by the executors themselves, with the planner in large part working as a co-ordinator bringing the data together and presenting it in a way that clarifies the relationships between trades and disciplines in a framework that the management can strategise with, the cost guys can control variations with the execution teams can see what’s coming next with and the materials controllers can plan their deliveries with.



If you’re studying planning atm, then you are probably covering the higher level subjects (WBS, Earned value etc) but incase you’re not, get a copy of teh Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) aswell as the specific Practice standards for WBS and Earned Value Management. They are all available from Amazon. These are, I guess, what elevate a scheduler into a planner / project controller. There are various threads on this forum with book lists specific to industry but PMBOK pretty much throws an umbrella over all of them and is a great starting point.



And spend some time on site getting a feel for how your particular corner of the construction industry operates.

Welcome, Christine!

Welcome Christine! this is a nice place to cool off, sure the forums are useful (good or bad), good luck!