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Oil&Gas - Planning&Scheduling

8 replies [Last post]
Wed, 2006-07-12 08:23
G. Cytow
User offline. Last seen 14 years 15 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 10 Jun 2006
Posts: 7
Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
How does a Planner & Scheduler , plan for "Safety" in regards to activities getting completed on time . Especially working in Alberta Oil&Gas , with there "Safety Standards" .

Coming from the other side of the fence , " Tradesman " it would seem the project is behind schedule from the start , of construction.

Does a planner ad 20%-40% at the end of a original his/her schedule for "Safety" , just curious what some planners do to arrive at their schedule , or if their schedule is behind , do they put the blame on labour , with out taking " safety " as a task .

I do know how long it takes to do a "Piping" activity (task), but with safety , no one can be sure how long that task is going to take .

Coming from the other side " Hands On " I always asked my self that ? "how do they plan these jobs" :) .

It seems everyjob I go on , first thing i hear "its behind schedule " and most of the time its "new construction" or on a turnaround " shutdown .

New comer to the planning world.

I do know why , most of the jobs are behind schedule , and safety and labour didn’t play a role in it imo . :)

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Replies

Mon, 2006-07-24 08:11
#1
Izam Zakaria
User offline. Last seen 8 years 10 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 28 May 2006
Posts: 221
Groups: GPC Malaysia, Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
for piping manhours, depend on the material of piping.... total dianch, nos of equipment, the beginning stage just roughly put based on the current project.....ex. hydrotest...for the preparation we need 20 kpi but once ready to test just using 5 kpi......I can giv u some sample reporting , my previous talisman project If u want....
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Sun, 2006-07-23 22:58
#2
Jerry Alivio
User offline. Last seen 16 years 39 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 5 Aug 2005
Posts: 56
Groups: GPC Malaysia, Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
Hello! "G",

How are you doin now a days, are you in retirement status now? or something. Well, if you have an idea on how you develope the manhour calculation on piping can you share to us? the latest standard not the 20 years one if can still remember.

Try to recall.

Jerry
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Sun, 2006-07-23 22:37
#3
G. Cytow
User offline. Last seen 14 years 15 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 10 Jun 2006
Posts: 7
Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
"I imposed daily qouta per welder using the standard Manhour per Dia-inch then, you are safe."

Engineer once told me on a Hydro Expansion job, quite a few years ago , about welds .

If every welder on the Job produced only 2" of weld a day x say 100 welders = 200 inch a day of welding / by the # of total inches of weld =’s days for the job . Seems kind of far fetch . But that is how he calculated it on this paticular "Hydro Job" 20 years ago, now 20 years later I’am seeing it applied to the Oil&Gas :)

Small Bore
Large Bore
Supports
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Mon, 2006-07-17 04:36
#4
Jerry Alivio
User offline. Last seen 16 years 39 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 5 Aug 2005
Posts: 56
Groups: GPC Malaysia, Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
Guy’s,

For me it’s just a matter of consideration when it comes to Safety. I am always supporting the Safety activites even do I am a Planner/ Scheduler. Because without safety then i am sure terrible events will happen at site.

To avoid work stopage due to safety, well.. before the work start of we need to submit the Method Statement, Procedures and the JSA, then the front liner should implement this by educating the construction people on how to do the right way, the good way of dealing safety.

Regarding piping, for me fabrication and erection of piping is always been a chalenging activity. I imposed daily qouta per welder using the standard Manhour per Dia-inch then, you are safe. Big or small bore pipes is not a problem when it comes to production or progress. Monitoring them in progress reporting can be a bit of easy by creating a spread sheet, itemizing those quantity by dia-inch or by meter length or by tonnage right?

Thats all for me, well correct me if i am wrong.

Thanks.

Jerry Alivio
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Fri, 2006-07-14 02:14
#5
James Griffiths
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Joined: 19 May 2006
Posts: 435
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Yes, you’re absolutely right. Tis a problem that we all encounter and it really is infuriating. The problem is Human Nature, wanting to "look-good" and claim that work etc. has been done when it hasn’t really been done properly. These people don’t seem to realise that the meaning of 100% is that you are NOT going to do any more work on it and that it has been done to the required procedure and standards; Finito, End.

At the moment, we’re going through an experimental stage, using Project Central, which is a time-sheet booking system that inputs the engineers’ Actual Hours directly onto the activities in the programme. You can then compare the original programme to that of the Actual booking profile. The difference is absolutely amazing and you would never believe it. If you were to use the Actual profile as a template for future projects, virtually all of your activities would be running in parallel (but I suppose that’s the nature of Design Projects).

Returning to the original thread: Ultimately, all you can do is attempt to educate the people and get them to make the connection between the programme and what they do; informing them of the implications of "lies". I often use the analogy of paying them their wages: "How would you feel if the company said that they’d paid you 100%, but in reality has only paid you 95%?" Another analogy I use with them is: "If you were having a house built, and your builder said that he’d installed the bathroom, but you found-out that he hadn’t actually connected the pipes, how would you feel?". Eventually they might learn but, until then, it seems that it’s up to the Planner to ask the right questions.....and that includes having performed all the safety checks.

Cheers.

James.
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Thu, 2006-07-13 18:38
#6
G. Cytow
User offline. Last seen 14 years 15 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 10 Jun 2006
Posts: 7
Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
Thankyou for the response ... just seems alot of time is spent on safety nowadays on new construction , compare to years ago.

Everyday have safety bulletine readouts , stretching , forms to get filled out for zip cuts , safety , supervision and ect.

Think it would be impossible to make a schedule stick , that one had gone through all the effort to create.

Every field weld above 4" and larger pipe has to be fit checked , before welding can go ahead , there have been times I have waited 1/2 a shift for them to check.

In supervisor role drove me nuts the waiting time never mind a planner/scheduler .

I guess the plan/schedule looks great , before the job actually starts , but its up to the people in the field to follow it .

? what power do most planners have on a construction site

Say your updating your schedule by progress sheets , and then u go out in the field and find out nothing has been done 100% complete , u have been lied too , what power of authority do most planners want.

Field Welds that have been claimed completed , and aren’t done at all , piping spools that have claimed staged , and haven’t left the lay down area :)

I could go on forever think i’ll stop here :)


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Thu, 2006-07-13 02:26
#7
James Griffiths
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Joined: 19 May 2006
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Nigel’s covered the aspect of general safety, and is perfectly correct in that "safety" is normally an inherent part of the process of operations. Your own industry sector will have usual practices that incorporate the safety element, thus deriving any "standard-times" for specific activities.

Within the Nuclear sector though, we have special Safety Case engineers who compile a complete Safety Case for submission to the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII). This specifies, as far as can be seen, all the areas of potential hazards, classifies them and mitigates the associated risk by defining the relevant design-standard to be used for the equipment. The NII has the ultimate say, and everything stops until they have been satisfied, and this usually entails undergoing HAZOPs and ALARP assessments, thus concluding in a document that specifies the schedule of safety categories that each bit of kit will fall under. Such assessments and Safety-Case submissions do have a specific activity in the programme, but are often running in parallel with the design activities. The trick is to ensure that you don’t go too far down the road without having been given the all-clear. This "clearance" can take months, ’cos the NII are meticulous in their examination, and if they think that a bolt is too small, you have to mathematically justify that the bolt is of the appropriate size. The NII can barge-in at any time and demand to see every calculation, and if you can’t provide it, you’re stuffed.

I know of one example where the NII thought that the rib-elements of a building (glorified garden-shed) were insufficient (just as Inactive Commissioning was about to occur) and asked the company for the calculations. They couldn’t provide a full set of them. The NII weren’t happy and pulled-the-plug on the whole lot and made the company insert additional beams, in-situ. Subsequent structural analysis then showed that the building was too-stiff for the specified boundaries for the seismic analysis - resulting in some beams having to be extracted. Needless to say, the additional time & cost was huge.

In essence, the Safety Case is like an insurance policy: a complete waste of money unless something goes wrong. If it does go cock-eyed, and you cannot prove that you did everything that you were supposed to, then May-The-Lord-Have-Mercy-Upon-Your-Soul. I’ve no doubt that the petro-chem industries are the same.

Cheers.

James.
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Wed, 2006-07-12 08:34
#8
Nigel Winkley
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Joined: 11 May 2006
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When I last planned an oil & gas project - gas lift plant in Nigeria - the estimate for the works included a productivity reduction due to the inherent safety. There was no ’separate’ safety section. All works must be done safely and an allowance made for the additional time due to the nature of the task. But this should be allowed for in the BOQ/Estimate.

All projects - certainly in the UK - have to adhere to strict HSE safety regulations and the production rate is amended accordingly - i.e. it includes any particular elements that HSE demand. The only exception to this is to additionally make resource allowances - for a banksman, etc., as well as a crane operator.

Any clearer?

Nige
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