Work Process Reengineering Workshop
The Work Process Reengineering Workshop is designed to help establish a project process. This workshop is most often held in conjunction with a benchmarking study which identifies the strengths, weaknesses and practices being used by the given project process.
Many organizations have an established work process to execute their projects. When an established, disciplined work process is coupled with good project practices, lower costs can result. IPA has unique knowledge of the practices that have resulted in successful and unsuccessful implementation of work processes and has a history of implementing successful metric programs. IPA pioneered the development of the five-stage capital work process that is now employed by the most capital-effective companies in the process industries.
IPA has developed an idealized project development process that identifies the key stages of the asset development, as well as the major interfaces among the different functions. This process aligns each functional project to provide project deliverables and critical information at the appropriate stages of the asset development life cycle. The process provides a means to do the following:
- Track task and activity progress.
- Coordinate and synchronize multifunctional activities.
- Obtain buy-in across all levels and from all functions.
Benefits
A project system is much more than the manifestation of the engineering function, which consists of the business enterprise, technical functions, and manufacturing. The approach IPA takes to reengineering emphasizes a holistic approach to project systems. The approach begins with understanding the project system’s strengths and weaknesses or the “As Is” state of the project system. This “As Is” is compared with the idealized system, and an analysis of the gaps between the organization’s system and that optimal system is produced. A project process is then developed that integrates IPA’s knowledge of Best Practices for capital effectiveness with the specific needs of the organization.
The major product from the workshop is a roadmap of the project process customized for the organization. The workshop will also provide the tools and guidelines as they apply to the developed process. Participants in IPA’s workshop will receive a workshop notebook with all presentation slides and reference materials.
IPA has assisted more than 20 companies in redesigning how they approach capital projects. IPA’s project system work process has been used as the starting point for the redesign of capital project systems around the world.
Institute Workshops are facilitated by experienced IPA staff. Facilitators have analyzed many projects and have worked with project professionals to improve the results of their projects. IPA has conducted more than 120 workshops for major oil and chemical companies.
Workshop Content
Workshops must be customized to a specific project system. The first step to understanding the project process is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the organization’s capital project process and how competitive that process may be relative to that of other project systems. This then forms the basis from which an improved project process can be structured.
The workshop includes classic process mapping activities supplemented by IPA’s specific expertise in capital project areas and knowledge and of the organization’s project practices and performance. Although each workshop’s activities will be customized to the specific company needs, most workshops typically include mapping the current process, identifying deliverables for meeting new project system requirements, defining a map for the new project process, and developing an implementation plan.
“As Is” Process Evaluation: The workshop begins with a detailed discussion of the current project process or the “As Is” process. It then highlights the major activities, decision points, and interfaces in the current work process. This process uncovers gaps, redundancies, and other issues with the current process.
Identify Gaps Between “As Is” and Best Practice: Using the “As Is” map developed in the workshop and knowledge of the organization’s project practices and performance, gaps in the process between actual practices and Best Practices can be identified. This sets the stage for developing an improved project process.
Development of “Should” Roadmap: This module will build the roadmap for the project process. It will include the presentation of important activities needed for effective capital project systems as identified in IPA research. Then, using the deliverables identified for each key decision gate, a precedence map will be generated to identify the activities necessary to prepare for completing these deliverables. This activity will produce a generic roadmap that reflects activities needed at each stage.
Identify Deliverables at Each Decision Gate: This module discusses the key deliverables at each stage of the process and will list the required deliverables for each project phase. This module will identify tools that can be used to complete the deliverables where appropriate.
Implementation: The workshop concludes with a discussion of how to successfully implement work process changes.
Target Audience
The workshop should include representatives from all functions involved in the capital project process. This includes representation from business, planning, process development, and operations, along with project management functions, such as engineering, procurement, and construction. Each function must be represented by people who have an in-depth knowledge of the process as it actually is working and by leaders who are empowered to implement change.
To ensure interaction among participants, the optimal workshop size is between 15 to 20 participants. We recommend that a subset of participants be identified in advance to consolidate the results of the workshop with the FEL Roadmap and checklists produced in the workshop.
Workshop Location
The Work Process Reengineering Workshop can be conducted either at a company’s facility or at a nearby conference center. We strongly recommend an off-site location to allow participants to focus on the workshop activities.
Holding a Workshop
For more information about Work Process Reengineering Workshops or to hold a workshop, contact our offices at 703-729-8300 or via e-mail IPAInstitute@IPAGlobal.com.