Whether the flight is successful all depends on how well one controls the landing. Turnarounds often seem to be going nicely until you near the end and discover they are quickly spiraling out of control. That last 5 percent of progress can be all too elusive, often consuming far more man-hours, project duration and budget than forecasted. A poor finish can be negatively consequential to team confidence and to a team leader’s reputation. Fortunately, a consistently strong finish is not out of reach. Hard landings happen for a reason and can be greatly softened with an understanding of 10 common pitfalls and a few well-disciplined adjustments:
• Pitfall 1 — Over progressing field work. This can be done for many reasons, typically because of either the lack of experience of the person updating the progress, over enthusiasm of the updater or the updater not wanting to report poor productivity. Progress updates should be captured and verified by the owner’s execution coordinators. Progress should be based on objective rules of credit established in advance, not on subjective estimates.
• Pitfall 2 — Impact of unidentified risk. Because of missed opportunities during front-end loading, potential problems are all too often ignored. Were the lessons learned from the previous turnaround fully addressed? Were all disciplines properly represented during the risk assessment process? Identifying risk must be an all-hands robust effort to keep extra work from being added to the turnaround.
• Pitfall 3 — Lost parts. Laydown yards, warehouse inventory and site deliveries can be daunting to manage, resulting in confusing delays of turnaround activities and expedited shipping wastes. Turnaround managers should consider carefully whether their procurement and logistics staffing plans are adequate.
• Pitfall 4 — Discovery work impacting critical path. Discovery work is a given for every turnaround, but take caution to ensure schedule logic ties, calendar settings and resource limits do not unnecessarily impact the critical path. Discovery work should be assigned to discovery crews when possible to minimize interruption of critical path resources.
• Pitfall 5 — End of project fatigue. Turnaround work schedules are far from normal and can challenge even the most seasoned workers. While a certain amount of overtime is needed to attract an adequate supply of workers, turnaround managers still must manage the balancing act of overtime versus productivity, safety and quality. An effective fatigue policy can greatly help with maintaining higher productivity near the end of the project.
• Pitfall 6 — Impact of rework. Rework is often a function of inadequate labor skill, lack of clarity in scope or mistakes in specifications. Labor skillsets must be agreed upon in advance, and the cause of rework must be quickly identified and eliminated.
• Pitfall 7 — Punch list mismanagement. Punch list items should go through a formal approval process and be maintained only in the schedule as resource-loaded items to avoid becoming a quagmire wish list. Items that could be done post-turnaround should not be on the execution punch list.
• Pitfall 8 — Overall de-staffing plan too aggressive. Staffing plans provided at the beginning of the project are based on things happening according to schedule. These plans are generally tied to budgets as well, causing huge pressure on de-staffing. Turnaround managers have to do the math: “Do we have enough people to burn the hours we must achieve by the scheduled end date?” If not, the end date is compromised.
• Pitfall 9 — Intentional work slowdown. Workers seeking to increase their incomes through increasing their overtime hours may slow the pace to make more overtime necessary. Managers should consider whether a completion bonus is appropriate to ensure a timely finish.
• Pitfall 10 — Workers moving to the next assignments. Workers will often see the end coming and prematurely de-staff themselves to secure their next assignments. This too may be addressed by a completion bonus. Don’t celebrate success too soon and drop your guards.
For more information, contact Mike Bischoff or Ray Smith at (281) 461-9340, email sales@tamanagement. com or visit www.tamanagement.com. •
