managing productivity with unifier

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Managing Productivity With Unifier

Prepared by:

Dan Moller and Vlad Tamondong

Project Controls, Construction

Capital Power

Reliable forecasts require an understanding of how productive your contractors are relative to the plan

Session ID#: 200060

[email protected]

About Dan and Vlad: Our Home, Edmonton

Edmonton Capital Region – 1.2 million people

Travel Distances (miles):

• 1,500 to Las Vegas

• 2,400 to New York

• 1,300 to Denver

• 2,200 to Toronto

Average Temp. (°F)

• Winter 20°day/ 5°night

• Summer 72°day/ 52°night

In July, 16 hours of daylight

Replica of the Santa María

Largest shopping mall in North America

Our Company: Capital Power - an independent power producer

Head Office Edmonton

■ 700 employees

■ 15 operating facilities totaling 2,700 MW

■ The weighted average age of the fleet is 13.2 years

In operation In construction or development

Stainless Steel Grizzly (10 ft. high)

Project Productivity

What is the Productivity on Your Project?

■ Productivity is measured by the units of work completed per hour of labour (output/input)

▪ units/hour

■ Your plan assumes a level of productivity in order to estimate labour costs

▪ e.g. 5.28 feet of road built in one hour is a productivity of

5.28ft./hour

▪ 1 mile (5280 ft.) would require 1000 labour hours @ $50/hour or

$50k in labour

■ A lower productivity would mean a longer project, assuming no people added, and increased costs

When a contractor has unplanned productivity costs, they?

a) Absorb the costs

b) Ask for reimbursement

c) Make a claim based on Owner delays

d) Request changes to recover the costs

e) b, c, and d above depending on the contract

If you have planned to incur $20k of the total budget to now and you have incurred $30k, do you know if you have a productivity issue?

■ Typically, your accounting system is unable to tell you why there is an issue, only that you are not following the plan

▪ You could be ahead of schedule (more units completed)

▪ The work may be more expensive than planned

▪ Other work may have been completed

■ You need more information in order to understand productivity and … to forecast the final cost of the project

The Content Required for Managing Productivity and Forecasting a Project

Content Reimbursable Unit Rate

Fixed Price Items

Labour hours to date

Units Completed (e.g. kms of roads)

Total Units

Known Potential Changes ($ x probability)

Actual Costs To Date (from Oracle EBS)

Unknown Risks

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The Sources for the Content

Content Source

Labour hours to date

Contractor’s Progress Entry Units Completed (e.g. kms of roads)

Total Units

Known Potential Changes ($ x probability)

Change Order Requests Contemplated Change Notices

Extra Work Orders

Actual Costs To Date Oracle Enterprise Business Suite

Unknown Risks Risk Assessment Process

The Unifier Solution: Measure Productivity and Develop Reliable Forecasts

Unifier, P6, & Oracle Enterprise Business Suite

The Power of Oracle Integration

Contractors

Oracle EBS

Oracle integration is expected to result in more time in value added project analysis and less time in re-keying and correcting data errors

Unifier

P6

Project Controls Managers Project Managers Project Engineers Engineering Specialists Cost Control Assistants

Progress Cert., RFIs, CORs

Budgets, CCNs, Reports

Desired Solutions Cost Management • Accruals, Forecasts Progress Approval Productivity Analysis Change Management Response Time Tracking

Cost Dates

Approved Estimate, Dates

Hard Dollar

Manual Excel Upload

EBS Task Structure Unifier CBS Structure Hard Dollar CBS Structure

Cost Breakdown Structure Codes

Integration requires identical coding of information across systems

Unifier System Architecture - we recommend a drawing like this

Contractor Progress Entry Process - a form plus a workflow is a process

During construction, the contractor enters progress, by the 23rd of each month, in a

Unifier form that is reviewed and approved .

Change Order Request Process

The Contractor can request changes that may create schedule and cost impacts that

need to be considered in forecasts

Integration Supports Great Reporting through Unifier

Our First Project Using Unifier,

Genesee 4 & 5

Genesee 4 & 5, a $1.4 Billion Project

Scope and Schedule

■ 1,050 million watts, average power required for 300,000 homes

■ Two natural gas Mitsubishi - Hitachi turbines

■ Genesee 4 is planned for commercial operation in Q4, 2019

■ Construction starts in the summer of 2015

You probably have seen a gas turbine

■ Power gas turbines are very reliable

■ High availability, 91%, including maintenance shutdowns

Power Available - Determined by temperature drop

■ A gas turbine by itself is 35-40% efficient

Starts at near the melting point of titanium (which is 16700 C)

• Carbon Steel melts at 14250 to 15400C

• Stainless Steel melts at 15100 C

Compressor Turbine

Inlet

15000 C 6000 C

How Can We Make a Gas Turbine More Efficient?

▪ HRSG – Heat Recovery Steam Generator

Use the heat exiting the turbine to also produce power

HRSG Combined cycle

system increases

thermal efficiency

to 60%

How Can We Make the Project More Efficient? - Implement Unifier

■ Measure Productivity… to manage you need to measure

▪ Unifier is the tool for collecting information for measurement

■ Manage Productivity At Site – do something to improve

▪ Engineering drawings available when needed

▪ Increased pre-fabrication

▪ Reduced delays from late delivery of materials or equipment

▪ Organized lay down or staging areas

▪ Fewer design changes during construction (less re-work)

■ Measure the Productivity Improvement – with Unifier

■ For Project Controls, Unifier reduces re-keying of information

▪ More time in analysis and in providing valuable recommendations

Tips for a Successful Unifier Implementation

Unifier Plan - A recipe for success

1. First, identify and design the reports you need

2. Determine the source of the content for the reports

▪ Accounting system (POs, actuals), contractors, forms, etc.

3. Understand how Unifier works

▪ Each UBP only provides one data element to the cost sheet

— Plan for the UBPs you will need (will need more than you first thought)

▪ Content needs to be in the Cost Sheet for reporting purposes

4. Document the content flow in a system architecture map

▪ This was our breakthrough moment

5. Design interfaces and the form work flows (UBPs)

▪ Hire a consultant if you have difficulty process mapping

▪ Designs need to be very clear, no misinterpretations

6. Build, test, test and test with real project data

Implementation Credits

The key external people that helped us reach the goal line:

■ Felicia Ortiz - President & CEO, PM Solutions Consulting

▪ Unifier and process expert, solved many process issues based

on experience from previous projects

■ Ray McEntee – Senior Principal Product Manager, Oracle

▪ Solved our top three design issues…including conditional

statements using Binary Logic… wow

■ Brandon Jew – Staff Consultant, Impac Services

▪ Did everything he could to help us be successful… solved

many implementation issues

Questions?

Please complete the session evaluation We appreciate your feedback and insight

You may complete the session evaluation either

on paper or online via the mobile app

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