درک مدیریت دو پروژه ای: مهندسی پروژه های ساخت و ساز صنعتی پیچیده

Engineering large industrial construction projects is usually a complex task involving several co-operating actors. This paper investigates a specific type of such projects, labelled bi-project management. Bi-project management is characterised by two main actors, each of whom manage a part of the project: the owner of the installation (the client organisation) responsible for the engineering of the production process part, and an engineering office responsible for the construction related part. This paper describes and analyses what an engineering office can do to improve control of its part of the project, knowing that its part must be completed in advance; in addition, it is dependent on the client's part and must adapt to any changes the client may make. A framework for analysis and control has been developed, which distinguishes four areas. Two areas (key documents and basic interaction structure) are based on normal project control practices. The two remaining areas have been added to deal with the technological uncertainty and planning structure of the client organisation. The framework helps elucidate the specific nature of bi-project management. Effective bi-project management should not only apply normal project management practices, but also anticipate risks and postpone work to the last possible moment. A main topic for future research is to identify the underlying causes for uncertainty in these types of projects.

Imagine that you, as an engineering office, are involved in building a food processing plant. Your responsibility is to design the construction of the building. Actual building of the plant will start in a few weeks' time and, thus, detailed design is almost completed. Then, the marketing department of the food processing plant signs a few large contracts in the Middle East. The products have to be produced on separate lines for religious purposes. The food processing plant supposes that you, as a well-known engineering office, will be able do handle this disturbance without extra charge and within the tight completion schedule of the whole factory. How should you deal with this situation? How can your knowledge of project management and control help you? In the process of engineering a petrochemical plant, a similar problem emerges after the definition stage. While the detailed engineering of the construction—performed by the engineering office—is half completed, the people engineering the production process come up with the idea of having two chimneys instead of one, to make their process more efficient. What is the best thing to do, as an engineering office? What kind of planning and replanning is needed, or could you have predicted this kind of disturbance for your part of the project? These are just two examples engineers reported to us while we studied project management in building or modifying plants for the petrochemical and nutrition industries. We found that the actors involved are faced with enormous challenges concerning the control of projects. Depending on the extent of the industrial construction project (modifying or building), the investments involved range from 2.5 million up to 60 million Euros. Even minor improvements in controlling these projects can have significant effects on the final investment. Industrial construction projects consist of two separate, strongly dependent sub-projects. One sub-project is concerned with the parts related to the production process, while the other sub-project is concerned with the construction. This construction sub-project is contracted out by the industrial client organisation to an engineering office. Usually, the process-related part is more complex and uncertain; the construction-related part starts later and has to be finished earlier. This combination of two distinct, but related complex projects of different durations, performed by two parties with a customer-supplier relationship, is specific to what we have labelled bi-project management. Relevant and specific questions are: how to co-ordinate the two parts of the project and how to deal with disturbances in one part of the project which influence the other part. So far, this type of project has not been dealt with explicitly in the literature.

This article investigated a kind of project and project management not yet addressed in the literature, labelled as bi-project management. Bi-project management, as described here, deals with complex projects, in which two parties each manage a part of the project in a customer–supplier relationship, with one part of the project depending on the other part. Moreover, the dependent part must be finished in advance of the leading part, and the latter is less predictable and controllable. We conclude that normal project management techniques and methods are necessary, but not sufficient, to control bi-projects. The framework based on Thompson's work, and developed in this article, helps to describe and better understand the relationship and interaction of the two parts of such projects. In addition, a number of guidelines for engineering offices are given to improve project control. What lessons can project managers in these kinds of projects learn from this article? Each of the four areas of the framework should be noted. Most importantly, project managers should put effort into structuring interaction between the two parts of the project. The framework presented in this paper aids in recognising the various aspects of the interaction and the fundamental technological uncertainty upon which attention should be focused. In addition, we will list some recommendations for managing bi-projects. Bi-project management needs, as does any project, a clear and well-documented basic structure and key documents outlining responsibilities, communication and milestones. The normal project management literature is an adequate guideline for establishing that base. Any engineering office in these kinds of projects should be able and willing—as professional supplier—to help its clients in compiling such documentation, while keeping in mind the fundamental difference in nature of the two parts of the project. At the same time, the engineering office should organise its own core activities well, to deliver the key documents in time. Uncertainty and change are normal features in bi-project management. An engineering office can help its clients by developing an understanding of the production-process-related part and the uncertainties and risks involved. It is beneficial to develop knowledge about specific characteristics and associated risks in engineering installations in various industries. Explicit attention to risks through identifying, analysing, planning, monitoring, controlling and communicating uncertainties and risks [23], should become an integral and dominant part of project management in industrial construction projects. Knowing the risks and realising that information on details is vulnerable to change should lead to an attitude in construction engineering of postponing work to the latest possible moment. Moreover, the engineering office's project managers should be open-minded with respect to alternatives to the step-by-step approach, which is usually employed in ‘pure’ construction engineering. An approach like Set Based Concurrent Engineering offers an alternative. The engineering office should guide and influence its client with a pro-active approach regarding what information is absolutely necessary at what moment, in order to be able to complete the project as scheduled. Part of this guidance might be to show the client the consequences of not receiving right and timely information.