LESSONS LEARNED:

JR COMPANY’S TOP TEN THINGS THAT CAN GO WRONG ON A CONSTRUCTION PROJECT
By: Michael DiMercurio

ORIGIN OF THE TOP TEN LIST

Ron Barsema, the vice president of engineering and construction for a large chemical process industry manufacturer, shook his head in anger as he took in the alarming statistics presented to him by the company’s project managers. With the myriad of construction problems within the company’s capital project program, Ron’s goal was obvious: somehow he had to get the company’s construction projects back on track... More

NUMBER 10: EQUIPMENT FAILURE AND FORCE MAJEURE

On a complex chemical process plant construction project, the project team had been heavily incentivized to contain costs, to the point that at the 98% complete point, project management team members were mentally counting their $50,000 bonuses to come from the division of the underrun from the project budget... More

NUMBER 9: FAILURE TO CONTROL THE FIELD - PART 1

The project manager risks the project if he doesn’t control the field. And little things give his philosophy away. A recent project was going poorly, and a duplicate project was to be constructed. The project manager position on the second job was given to a tougher, meaner, more visionary PM than the first. The new guy immediately took action to let the craft, the contractors and vendors know that this time, the field was going to be controlled. That there was a new sheriff in town. How? More

NUMBER 9: FAILURE TO CONTROL THE FIELD - PART 2

Just let the subcontractors put in whatever change requests and claims they feel like, and be friendly and respectful and pay them all. Wrong. Subcontractors are famous for claiming extras for things that were in the as-purchased scope. But if the PM or his team doesn’t know the contract scope, he won’t be able to fight off the changes... More

NUMBER 8: IMPROPER SAFETY PLAN AND MANAGEMENT

At the risk of sounding like a safety cheerleader, this point needs to be made. Safety should be implemented for its own sake. No project is worth an eyeball, a finger, a hand, a foot, or a life. A few years ago, a project manager witnessed a crane lattice collapse crush a craftsman. Watch something like that happen and you’re never the same. We go to work expecting to come home, and if one of us doesn’t, it will cast a black cloud over the rest of the project. End of sermon... More

NUMBER 7: PROBLEMS WITH SENIOR MANAGEMENT

Senior management and the project manager are in partnership if things are set up and running correctly. The main thing that senior management brings to the equation is the confidence in the project manager. It takes courage to allow a lower level project manager to run the job for the company. Too often, senior management clamps down on project managers out of fear that the project manager will make the wrong decision because he is insufficiently qualified or inexperienced. This lack of confidence is one reason why project managers are awash in reporting requirements, forecasts, cost-and-status reports, weekly conference calls and other forms of invasive accountability, when the entire reason that the project management position was created was to allow senior management to focus on bigger picture issues and leave the details to lower level project managers... More

NUMBER 6: PROBLEMS WITH THE PROJECT MANAGER

Although this one would seem to be obvious, disaster can strike a project even with the perfect project manager. Let’s review some basics to see where the trouble could come from: The project manager’s job is to provide leadership and decision-making to build a project in line with the project’s goals (which are usually to be on-schedule, under budget, safely built with acceptable quality to facilitate startup and as-advertised performance)... More

NUMBER 5: GOING INTO THE FIELD TOO EARLY WITH INCOMPLETE DESIGN

“Incomplete design” of number 5 sounds like number 1’s “late design,” and “too early” sounds like number 2’s “improper schedule.” But number 5, “going into the field too early with incomplete design,” while admittedly borrowing from the defective design and defective schedule issues, is itself its own JR Company's Thing That Can Go Wrong on a Construction Project, because it is so often done. This mistake was once described as the mistake that happens on EVERY project ever built since Og built the cave for Oog as designed by Ug... More

NUMBER 4: IMPROPER BUDGET, ESTIMATE, BID OR FORECASTING

Recently a project went significantly over budget and the company’s owner’s wanted answers. What went wrong? The answer was a healthy combination of the other 9 things that can go wrong on a construction project, but in this case, the company was installing things that were slightly unusual in a project that was a “one-off” installation. The geometry was complex, the areas were congested, there were retrofit scope items to complete under uncertain conditions, and worst of all, it was a crash program on a job in which the owner’s revenue depended upon on-time startup of the systems with no hiccups. The first thing that got investigated was the quality of the estimate. How did the estimators do their job, and did they capture everything in the issued-for-bid drawings?... More

MORE! On VERTICAL DIVE

VERTICAL DIVE: By: Michael DiMercurio As hurricane Helen barrels in toward the Virginia coastline, the U.S. Navy’s Commander-in-Chief Atlantic Fleet orders all vessels to scramble to sea, including Burke Dillinger’s Hampton and Peter Vornado’s Texas. But this is no mere storm evacuation. There is something sinister going on in the eastern Atlantic. The Navy’s eyes are on the ballistic missile submarine force, the “boomer” submarines loaded to the gills with intercontinental nuclear warheads. And the French boomer submarine Le Vigilant has “gone bad,” hijacked by an Algerian terrorist with dreams of completing the circle of revenge and using French nuclear weapons on the French who killed his father. As terrorist Issam Zauabri’s forces learn how to employ the nuclear missiles, Vornado’s Texas and Dillinger’s Hampton close in on the threat, but Issam knows how to use torpedoes as well as he does the missiles, and Le Vigilant is one of the quietest submarines ever built. Once the American subs are on the bottom, his attack can proceed on Paris, but since it was Americans who interfered, Issam will save one missile for New York… “Compelling and visionary. DiMercurio’s characters run as deep as his submarines themselves!” --Joe Buff, author of Straits Of Power, Tidal Rip, Crush Depth, Thunder in the Deep, And Deep Sound Channel.

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