Project Description

Circa £250m 5 year programme of Anglain Water's most large and complex capital investment projects, including new & upgraded WTW, Upgraded WWTW, New potable mains, and shore repair of existing reservoirs. Projects were managed from concept design through to financial close and benefits realisation, managed under a modified NEC2 contract form.

Role & Responsibilities

As Scheduling Manager for the programme, I was responsible for: Setting standards and practises, creating & implementing schedule management plan, developing and mentoring the planning team, designing & implementing standardised reports, managing resources, earned value management, schedule risk management, and assessing project schedules for programme-wide synergies & efficiencies. I also lead a number of project-specific lean scheduling workshops designed to improve robustness of the schedules and identify/harness opportunities for compression.

I also acted as lead planner on two circa £20m projects within the programme, doing the detailed planning of the projects from detailed design to commissioning phases, moving to site once construction began. These projects involved upgrading existing WWTW, so in addition to the normal planning duties (EVM, progress updates, subcontractor management, developing baseline, design planning, resource leveling, etc), there was a heavy onus on managing the many interfaces with the existing plant and processes, to ensure minimal disruption to ongoing operation of the works throughout construction and commissioning phases.

Lessons Learnt

Analysis of schedule impact needs to be key part of the change control process; Lead-times and alignment with existing design assumptions to be considered alongside cost when appointing key subcontractors (particularly on process jobs); a strong design presence on site can nip a lot of potential problems in the bud during construction.