Project Description
New build Mechanical & Biological Treatment (MBT) plant to process circa 500k tonnes of household waste in Essex, UK.
Role and Responsibilities
My main role was to monitor and co-ordinate the 5 specialist subcontractors installing and commissioning the key process plant for the facility. There were a large number of interface points and potential clashes between these subcontractors and also the outstanding civils work, so identifying, prioritising and controlling these was a major part of the work. In addition to this and monitoring site progress, I was also responsible for collating, reviewing and fleshing out subcontractor programmes of varying levels of maturity before converting them into Asta Powerpoint for inclusion into the master programme.
Additionally, I developed the initial site-wide commissioning plan covering cold, & hot commissioning, process ramp-up and acceptance trials and providing the required profile of waste tonnage for the commissioning phase.
Lessons Learned
When managing multiple subcontractors sharing a large number of complex space and sequence interdependencies, a single-page table of interface points can be a more effective tool for informing progress/co-ordination meetings than a detailed programme.
Specialist subcontractors are bought into a project because of their expertise in the process equipment they supply, not for their skills in project controls. Where poor PC practices are identified, a more effective and pragmatic approach is to provide practical support in alleviating the deficiencies, rather than merely beating them over the head with their 1-page excel 'programme' and saying "this isn't good enough"