CM-PE-902 Procedure for Progress and Performance Measurement

1. Purpose

It is company policy that baseline plans are established for each project, which define the targets against which project progress and performance is measured and judged. Changes to the baseline must be well controlled. Project progress and performance against the baselines must be monitored in a consistent manner throughout the life of the project.

The purpose of this procedure is to define the principles to be used in progress and performance measurement. Specific details are covered elsewhere (see references).

2. General

The procedure applies to engineering progress and performance as well as to construction. Note that for procurement the manhours are tracked in the engineering system, while procurement progress (e.g. items purchased and delivered) is tracked in RMMS and is not covered here.

The application of this standard is mandatory for all projects with more than 20,000 H.O. manhours or 50,000 construction manhours, unless company management waives this requirement.

2.1 Definitions

3. Responsibilities

3.1 Individual Responsibilities

A. Project Manager

B. Project Engineering Manager (Home Office System)

C. Project Control Manager (Home Office System)

D. Construction Manager (Field System)

It is the responsibility of these managers (B, C and D) to:

3.2 General Implementation Responsibilities

Responsibility for detail implementation will be specified in other procedures and work instructions. In general following applies:

home office progress input: discipline leads and project clerk

home office reports (and co-ordination of set-up): H.O. project control staff

field system input: subcontractors, verified by construction personnel

field system reports (and set-up): field office project control staff.

4. Procedure

4.1 Requirements

Progress and performance must be monitored on a uniform basis using the earned value method with manhours as a basis. This monitoring takes the form of the following specific methods:

The following text describes the specific requirements associated with each of the above mentioned methods.

4.1.1 Establishment of a WBS

The WBS shall be in accordance with company and project guidelines and must cover the full scope. Very large WBS elements should be avoided, because they limit the clarity of the reporting. See ref.6.3.

4.1.2 Establishment of Budgets and Scenarios

The total manhour budget must be distributed over the WBS elements to the lowest level required by the systems (PEC or CPMS).

Scenarios for the steps that a deliverable goes through should be based on the latest company standard or guide or on specific client requirements. If custom scenarios are created for a project they should generally be as simple as possible.

4.1.3 Establishment of a Baseline Plan

The project can report against one or more of the following:

Reports should clearly show which of the above is used.

As early as possible, the baseline plan (in the form of S-curves) must be developed on the basis of the WBS, the budgets and approved schedules. Integrated baseline (original) plans must be made for manhours (or staffing) and for progress; the only difference between the two is the (assumed) efficiency variance over time.

If a new baseline plan for the project is required it shall be called “XXX forecast” where XXX represents the month / year (e.g. April 2000) that the new forecast was implemented. Such a revision may for instance be necessary near the end of the design period, to produce a realistic construction plan based on the real scope. Another instance could be if major change orders have significantly impacted the manhours and/or schedule.

4.1.4 Assessment of the Value of Work Done

Work done is to be entered in the progress system at the detail level. This can be as items or quantity completed or as a progress step in a scenario.

For smaller tasks (low number of manhours) no credit should be taken until a scenario step is fully completed and the full percentage for the scenario can be applied. This method generally applies to all subcontracted construction.

Intermediate credit between scenario steps should be applied in case not doing so would result in significant inaccuracy.

4.1.5 Assessment of Manhours Expended

Only manhours directly associated with the production of the deliverable should be included. General, indirect and (H.O.) follow-up manhours should be booked to separate WBS codes and should not be used in progress calculations.

4.1.6 Production of Reports

A proper system (preferably computerized) must be used to collect all data and perform all calculations. Currently the PEC system is the standard system used for engineering and CPMS for construction. Reports from these systems should be made available to all parties involved and to all that need to know.

The reporting should cover the full range from “report by deliverable” to a “one page summary”. Especially the high level summaries must be easy to understand by people who do not regularly work with the system, such as clients. It is not required that summaries and graphs are part of the underlying automated system.

Frequency of reporting will be as defined in other procedures or in the PPEM. Generally the H.O. will be on a monthly and construction on a weekly update cycle. Full status reporting for both will be monthly in accordance with the project calendar.

Progress, efficiency and manhours expended must be plotted on graphs against the baseline plan and/or forecast. The number and format of graphs should follow project or company guidelines.

If an overall project progress percentage is to be reported, the following weighting will be used, unless the client requires different weighting:

4.1.7 Analysis and Corrective Action

Using (preliminary) reports, the data will be analyzed for:

A. Inaccuracies in progress or manhour input;

If inaccuracies are found this may result in corrections to the input and rerunning the reports or this may result in a manual correction to the summary reports only. Such manual corrections shall be recorded in an auditable way (including reason), signed off by the project (control) manager and filed with the record copy of the reports.

B. Performance trends and problems;

All significant or undesirable trends shall be brought immediately to the attention of the project manager, who will decide if action needs to be taken. Negative trends in efficiency at the discipline level should always be subject to a thorough review because they are often the result of structural problems.

4.1.8 Incorporation of Baseline Changes

All changes to the project manhours that have been fully agreed (e.g. change orders approved by the client) must be immediately (monthly) incorporated in the overall (summary) reports. The decision when to incorporate these changes at the lower levels of the system may be based on practical considerations by the project (control) manager.

4.2 Procedure for Set-up

During system set-up the following elements must be defined and included in the monitoring system by the people responsible (mostly project controls):

Refer also to section 5 flowchart.

4.3 Procedure for Running the System

Running the system consists of:

The trial reports will be reviewed by all responsible parties and corrections will be made as necessary (see also 4.1.7.A)

The reports will be carefully analyzed for possible trends and problems (by all) and where appropriate, corrective action will be initiated (project manager’s responsibility).

Refer also to section 5 flowchart.

5. Flowchart

6. References