Westney Consulting Group
2200 West Loop South
Suite 500
Houston, TX 77027
Phone: 713-861-0800
Toll Free: 800-648-3475
Email: info@westney.com

IMPLEMENTATION

Even as the importance of strategic decision-making and planning continues to increase, so too, do the challenges of engineering, procurement, construction and startup. Westney’s implementation services are focused on three scenarios: the owner organization responsible for a growing portfolio of large, complex projects; a joint venture (JV) organization created for a major project; and a developer undertaking a major project in spite of the lack of an internal engineering and project management organization.

Performance Transformation

Perhaps the most critical project success factor is an owner organization with the competencies required to address the specific challenges and risks of a given project.  This presents a challenge when there is an asymmetry between the size and complexity of the projects in the CapEx portfolio and the capabilities of the owner’s project organization.  This asymmetry may be the result of a large organization with an even larger project portfolio, or an organization that finds itself undertaking larger and more difficult projects than they have done before. 

Even though engineering and construction contractors bring many critical skills to a project, there are certain owner functions that simply cannot be delegated; these include scope definition, strategic planning, risk management, partner alignment and management, community relations, etc. 

The Westney process is based on the concept of the organization as a Project Delivery System, comprised of:

• The PEOPLE with the requisite skill-sets needed to do the work
• The WORK PROCESSES they use to deliver the required competencies
• The GOVERNANCE MODEL that provides the necessary consistency and controls

The Project Delivery System is illustrated by this graphic. The greater the risk in the project portfolio, the greater the organization's capabilities needs to be.

An important first step in performance transformation is benchmarking current capabilities.  Westney does this with a Project Delivery System Health Check, the result of which is a gap analysis, illustrated here.

 

Once gaps in each competency are identified, the transformation process begins.  Always a challenge, the process of organizational change can succeed with the support of top management and the facilitation Westney’s consulting teams provide.

 

Joint Venture (JV) Alignment

JVs are a virtual necessity for large projects where the level of the investment, management effort, and risk are higher than any one organization is willing or able to take.  As economies of scale continue to create larger and larger mega-projects, the ability to employ JVs has become a critical success factor.

In the traditional model, one partner acts as “operator” and designs and executes the project with limited input from the non-operating partners.  There have always been a lot of difficulties with this model, including the limited ability of non-operating partners to influence the outcome.  Now, with many projects so large that one company cannot do it all, the trend is toward a true JV model in which all partners contribute resources and take certain responsibilities.

Acting in the role of an independent “honest broker,” Westney’s consulting teams use Risk Resolution® to align all partners around the sources of risk and the risk exposure they all share.  Facilitated workshops with all partners participating are used to stress-test current execution strategies and develop risk-informed plans on which all can align.  The Westney team can also provide more focused team alignment programs that ensure issues are identified and resolved promptly.

 

Development Engineering

Major projects such as LNG, alternative or renewable energy, are often sponsored by developers.  Unlike larger organizations, developers often lack internal organizations to provide engineering and project management functions and must turn to the engineering and construction contracting community for this expertise.  And, without a large portfolio of projects to dilute the impact of cost overrun on any given project, these owner/operators face the double-barreled risk of betting the company on a project without having the required internal capabilities to plan and manage the engineering and construction contractors who will execute it. 

Development Engineering provides this capability.  Projects must have a creative tension between the developer’s requirement to make the project work economically, and the engineer’s requirement to make it work technically.  Reconciling these forces in an optimum way is the essential role of the development engineer.

Development Engineering services can begin at the earliest stage when commercial agreements are struck and continue through execution and startup. A key role is often managing the interface with the engineering, supplier, project management, and construction management communities, implementing appropriate contracting and procurement strategies, and ensuring all the developer’s objectives are met.