Long lead time equipments-schedule

James - You are ranting. Remember, everything can filed under Miscellaneaous.

See your point about the bar progressing though. Not thought of that one.

Nige

Carmen,

you seem to be combining several offices by using only 3 activities - don’t they each need their own programme?

We all agree that the front end processes of order placement and delivery is easy to monitor and progress as there are numerous deliverables at these points which are visible to the whole team. The vendor manufacturing period is the black hole -

T & C’s rely on LD’s to meet delivery commitment - Anybody ever recovered these ?

Vendor programmes are usually non existent or useless

Expediting has variable success but generally nobody will pay for it so surprises are inevitable

Long term supply agreements give you more clout if needed

Try milestone payments for long lead bespoke items, design approved, main sub orders placed, delivery to workshop, FAT etc - nothing like an payment to encourage progress

The world seems to be very busy at the moment!!

A valid suggestion, Nigel.



Part of the reason I tend not to use that format, is because of the visual aspects of seeing a progress line get closer and closer to the end-date. It acts as a prompt to begin investigating the physical levels of progress. I agree that it is essential to ensure that your duration progress is updated, but that can be done via a filter. It’s just like any routine process, however: it doesn’t matter how good it is; if it isn’t implemented then it’s a waste of time. I keep telling that to the wife - with regard to our household filing (we have all the files with the various sections) but she just doesn’t bother actually filing anything for months-on-end(OK, I’m not perfect either). The children are the same with their books and toys. We must have more than 32 shelves in our house - but the biggest shelf is the floor!



Am I ranting?



James.

A suggestion for manufacturing and/or procurement.



I now always use a start and finish milestone, with lags, rather than a long duration bar. Reason being that it is less to update and all yoou have to do is confirm the end dates every time, rather than update a bar with progress - you may forget, your leave replacement may forget...



So you get Start Manufacturing, FS 120 days, End Manufacturing, etc.



Cheers



Nige

Kumar,



I would tend to agree with your breakdown of Place Order, Manufacture, Ship, Customs, Delivery-to-site. At summary-level, these are the major elements. Moreover, I would also tend to agree that attempting to break-down the process into further detail is really a complete waste of time unless the suppliers are prepared to report their progress at the same level of detail, on a regular basis – and that report is based on a verifiable and quantifiable programme/methodology that they themselves use to monitor their own progress and forecasts. Moreover, it is still a classic case that 99% of the stuff can be completed on time, but is of no use until you get that last nut & bolt. We have a proverb: “For The Want Of A Nail, A Kingdom Is Lost”.



All you can really do is trust them and hope that they are not feeding you a pile of cow-poo. If you don’t really trust them, you can spend extraordinary amounts of time bugging them for data or making physical checks on their progress. At the moment, I’m having a crap time attempting to get the relevant data from our Works. They just don’t have the resources to compile and maintain the required information. As a result, the only way that we can see anything having been done is by physically looking at it. They have no definitive plans or progress monitoring abilities to compare baselines against actuals. It really is a case of crossing-your-fingers and hoping (which really isn’t a very good idea)



James.

What is the best way to breakdown the activities of materials/equipments which have long lead time.

Place order

Procurement

or

Place order

Manufacuture

Ship

custums clearance and delivery to site



More the breakdown difficult to update as getting information on actual dates/percent completion of manufacturing may be difficult

Lead Times for fire(d) heaters - furnaces

Recent quote (Mar 06) was 9 to 15 months for medium to large + 6 months build time - Refinery Upgrade Project



ps wait till your quoted 48 months delivery and then fit that into your schedule !!

Hi,

May this website be useful to you.

http://www.planningengineers.org/knowledge/leadtimes.aspx



Regards,

Hi Carmen,



If you ask for "where to search?"



go to google or use google search engine.



This may surprise you, however, you can give a try.



Cheers,



charlie

Depends as always on industry & circumstances - 40% of TIC for major items in Oil & GAs / Petrochemicals is not unusual



Can you elaborate. If not



Take for major pkges

13 weeks minimum for Bid Pkge assembly/Vendor Response/Assessments/Neg/Pur Order



Major Project Specific Design Details (rather than catalogue details) should be 6 to 8 weeks after PO Placement (or as specified on VDR list)



Vendor Delivery periods are now whatever you negotiate within T&C’s - but add 10% to be sure. Recent market rates have generally been +25% to +50% on normal delivery durations from 5 years ago which gives you an idea of how busy it is out there in certain industry sectors



This all means we have to put much more thought into how the procurement plan supports (or not!!) the project objectives