Project Management the Right Way 1

[BAnderson]

I have recently taken over as the manager of the Manufacturing Engineering department of the company I work for. Our current project management does not seam effective. I have not had the opportunity to work for any other Manufacturing Engineering departments and was hoping some one may give me in sites or ideas on a process that may work better.

Background:
I work for a medium sized manufacturing company that makes a wide range of very different products. Seven devisions spread across five sites (16 plants in total). Are company as a whole has been around sine the mid 60's but in the last few years we have double in size with plans to have large expansions over the next two years. Some of our original lines are still in production. Most of our lines that date back earlier then 1990 have little to no documentation.

Projects:
Our projects can very from new plant, adding a line to an existing plant, refurbishing a line, updating a line, or automation of a line. With the growth of our company we can be in the middle of a project and have to make large changes to accommodate for added lines, new products, etc. This can mean changes in our control design, electrical design, and mechanical design.
We currently use a water fall methodology with Microsoft Project to track hours. When there is a change to the project every involved needs to sign off and the project needs to have all the documentation updated in order to continue.

If any one knows of any knows of any web sites that talk about how other people deal with this or books that deal with manufacturing engineering projects please let me know. Or if any one has tips on how they acomplis this please let me know.

 

[PSE]

While there are numerous books available on project management, I have not come across anything that targets manufacturing engineering projects. The closest may be "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt. There is also general information available by the Project Management Institute.
A generic search on project management tools also brought up a large number of potential hits.

http://www.goldratt.com/

http://www.pmi.org/info/default.asp

http://www.startwright.com/project1.htm

Good luck with your new position.

 

[jjf1]

pse - "The Goal" boy I haven't heard about that book in 10 years, glad to hear people are still talking about it..............

brand5880 - I do not believe you will find a book or training program that will give you a roadmap through what you are involved in. An MBA might help (think outside the engineering box & many of the regulatory requirements) and/or PMI training (organize you scope of work and plan work work going forward)

I suggest you track the following:
1. Revisions to scope - these can kill your project
1a - Is it a scope change?
1b - Who is requesting it - do all the people that sign-off need to? (This secondary approval process is cumbersome and costly)
1c - Have you captured the complete impact of the revision? (initial cost, productivity impact, come-up curve etc.)

2. Regulatory Issues - these can stop your project/$$ your project/ put you in jail!
2a - Will you need to repermit?
2b - Tax remifications of changing scope

3. Keep a good job database - nothing backs up your choice/decisions better then written documentation! Get you team in the habit of maintaining the database.

and remember, it's just a job...........

Good Luck

jjf1

 

[csd72]

It sounds like these projects have more in common with an industrial construction project than with manufacturing. You may wish to try looking at books based on that type of project.

Have you thought about bringing in a consultant?

 

[1sds]

Based on the original post, I'm not entirely sure these will help. however, it does appear that flexibility to change without great impact to production is a key component to your company success at the mfg level. Consider reading;
"the toyota way" isbn 0-07-139231-9 by Jeff Liker and
"the toyota product development system" isbn 1-56327-282-2 also by Liker

I have also found that the people at the line level have some pretty darn good ideas for solving these types of problems. of course, it depends on the managers / engineers working smarter / harder to implement many of them too.

sds

 

[GregLamberson]

I'll ask an obvious question, the company has been around that long, are there any project management systems in place now?

You stated that current PM does not seem effecitive. Not trying to be a smart alec, but can you be more specific, examples? What are the main pinch points or problem areas?

There may be a good management system in place and no one follows it? I don't know, but there must be something that has guided them these past years.

Managing growth transition, especially with an exponent of 2, is a scary one if there is not an effective plan not only for integrating the growth into the organization, but simply managing the day to day issues you have at present.

As was pointed out by jjf1, a good, effective management of change process will: 1) eliminate all but the value added changes, 2) document them, 3) communicate them, and 4) accelerate the needed changes so as not to interupt work flow.

Greg Lamberson, BS, MBA
Consultant - Upstream Energy
Website:

http://www.oil-gas-consulting.com