SMOOTH COMMUNICATION ACROSS CONTINENTS WITH SAFRAN

From the picturesque town of Bergen on the west coast of Norway, Knut Stigen is managing a project for ABB that involves project members from 10 different time zones. With project management software from Safran, handling a large geographically spread and complex project such as this one is no object.

ABB is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering the environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 113,000 people. From their coastal location in Bergen, one of ABB’s Norwegian offices is in charge of designing, engineering and implementing all telecommunication systems for the Sakhalin II Development Project on the island of Sakhalin in the Russian Far East.

The Sakhalin II project is spearheaded by Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd., a joint venture between Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi. (Sakhalin I is a similar project operated by ExxonMobil). It will result in the construction of Russia’s first Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) plant, a plant which is also one of the largest of its kind in the world. Phase 1 of the Sakhalin II project began in 1998, and this involved the placement of a large oil drilling platform off the northwest coast of Sakhalin, in addition to tanker export. In 2002, the operation expanded to Phase II. This included the construction of two new oil and gas platforms in the north of the Sakhalin Island, the construction of 800 km of oil and gas pipelines running through the whole island, and the establishment of an LNG production plant and an oil and LNG terminal in the south end of the Island.

ABB’s involvement in this process began with Phase II in 2002. According to Knut Stigen, project manager for ABB, his company won this contract in sharp competition with other world leading telecom contractors because of its international competitiveness and ability to display an extensive experience in project management, HSE activities (Health, Safety and Environment) and quality assurance.

The contract, worth approximately US $50 million, leaves ABB in charge of the design, procurement and installation of telecom equipment to support the daily operations of the platforms, plants and pipeline. This involves every aspect of telecom; from satellite and radio communication to switch boards and control systems, even the stationing of two emergency response vehicles on the island wherefrom all telecom operations can be directed in the event of an accident or breakdown. The project includes the installation of 18 telecom subsystems, as well as an extensive fiber network which will carry all data and voice communication throughout the project.

The going rate. “At the beginning of this project we were using Artemis project management software for all our projects, but we soon realized that this tool simply was not powerful or sophisticated enough to handle the major challenges associated with the Sakhalin contract,” says Knut Stigen. “As well as being an old fashioned and somewhat cumbersome application for this purpose, we also found that our project members simply did not possess the necessary skills to use Artemis in a fully functional way”, he continues. “In addition, finding customer support and user training for Artemis was no easy task.”

ABB concluded that this particular project called for project management software that could coordinate and automate the various project management component processes more efficiently. They needed a fl exible fit-for-purpose tool that could be customized, scaled and tailored to their growing needs, and that had a built-in capacity to handle any project size, complexity and level of detail.

As a result, Stigen’s ABB department decided to search the market for a tool that provided all the key functionalities that ABB required. As a part of this process, they made enquiries to see what software other companies involved in large capital investment projects were using. The response left them with little doubt that Safran’s project management software was becoming the standard for leading companies in Norway. For Knut Stigen, Safran also proved to be the only real software option for this project. “Put simply, Safran offers the same basic functionality as Artemis, but on a modern platform”, he explains. “A great advantage is its fl exibility and the capability to adopt to changing project environments and growing needs.”

Web integration. All large scale projects have their critical points and bottlenecks, and depending on the nature of the contract, these points can be anywhere along the line from designing to installation. For ABB however, these steps in the process are not expected to pose any major challenges. ABB’s long experience in supplying the operators on the Norwegian shelf with similar and other equipment as required for the Sakhalin II project ensures complete control over these parts of the contract.

The main challenges facing ABB is handling a project that involves project members working from 10 different time zones, as well as the multi-national and multi-cultural aspect. For the Sakhalin II project, more than 60 people are involved, working from and in England, the Netherlands, Russia, Korea, Norway and Japan. For this particular project, Knut Stigen emphasizes the communication among the project members as one of the potential bottlenecks.

In order to overcome this potential obstacle, ABB makes use of the ability to customize their application. Safran has been set up to interface with the collaboration web tool QuickPlace and the document control system ProArc. Web integration that enables employees to access features of the software relevant to their needs from any site and location in the world is truly beneficial in a project that spans 10 different time zones and half the northern hemisphere. This integration enables project members to record their hours for any operation or milestone in Safran via the Internet.

Time criticality. One of the most important advantages of the integration with ProArc is that the engineering progress can be calculated as a direct function of actual status for each and every document to be produced in the project.

This information is then automatically updated in Safran, thus providing the project manager with the necessary input for various reports, forecasts and schedules, such as master schedules, detailed schedules, site schedules, progress schedules and productivity schedules.

“Projects of this kind are generally characterized by a high degree of time criticality”, says Stigen, “and keeping track of manhours is one of the most critical tasks of project management”. It is absolutely necessary to have up to date information about the use of time in order to monitor progress and productivity, and minimize the risk of budget overruns and costly delays. The Gantt style bar chart editor provides Knut Stigen with an excellent tool to plan, coordinate and track the specific tasks in the project, and to ensure on-time delivery for each project milestone.

The ability to predict and forecast, and always have up to date information at hand, gives the project manager valuable insight that ensures very early warnings and fast response. It is crucial to deliver both within the set time frame, budget and specification. This again implies that managing scope changes, minimizing such changes and the early analyses of their causes and effects is highly important.

Information at your fingertips. With Safran’s project management software, Stigen can also reap the benefits of having information about the project status very early, in time to enjoy positive effects from corrective actions. This removes guess-work, and provides a good basis for trustworthy forecasts. Safran’s unparalleled reporting features equip Stigen with a tool that allows him to generate reports to display project information from anyone’s perspective: the project manager, the functional manager, the business manager and more. ”This project is governed by Russian laws, regulations and practices, and that means that the reporting requirements for this project are particularly demanding,” Stigen explains. In addition to reports directly related to productivity and progress, Safran includes reporting features that allow project traceability and detailed reporting from past periods. The Historical Performance Data Repository stores information about completed activities and resources spent. This information can be used to generate reports that are instrumental for the project manager’s assessment of status and profitability.

Simple and flexible. The transition from Artemis to Safran was less complicated than what they had anticipated. Knut Stigen puts this fact down to the simplicity and flexibility of Safran, as well as the outstanding support from the people at Safran. “The process of converting all our data from the old system to Safran was actually completed a month ahead of schedule,” says Stigen. The conversion process was performed by ABB personnel in close cooperation with Safran’s own project consultants. The actual transfer of data was completed within a week. Once the application was installed, it was ready to be put to use almost immediately. “Provided you are familiar with the basics of project management and have an intuitive understanding of software in general, Safran is really easy to learn and master”. Stigen adds that although they received some formal training, the best training method is learning by doing. “Some elementary training is always helpful, but it is really only through practical use of the software in our daily work-related routines that you get fully accustomed to the application.”

More licenses. The story about Safran Software Solutions and ABB’s offices in Bergen started out with 3 licenses. Since then they have acquired a number of additional licenses for the Sakhalin II project team. Word about their newfound enthusiasm for Safran’s project management software has traveled throughout the organization, and as a result a number of other departments have decided to purchase Safran and make it the standard software for their projects. Knut Stigen points out that “My team and I are very happy with the relationship with Safran and are prepared to extend and expand this relationship into the foreseeable future.”

Now that the engineering part of the project is close to being finished, the main project management operations will be transferred from Bergen to the island of Sakhalin in Russia for the installation phase, which leaves Knut Stigen ready to embark on a new project with Safran’s project management software.