MARK T BEECROFT-STRETTON IEng, MIET, MAPE, MAPM
Nationality English
Year of Birth 1974
Profession Project Manager/Senior Planner/Project Controls Eng.
Specialisation Power T&D, Overground and Underground Rail Infrastructure, Defence, Primavera P3e Configuration Integration Roll-out and training
KEY ATTRIBUTES
A Professional and resourceful Project Manager and Senior Planning Engineer with proven skills in the delivery of complex Power, Rail, Defence and Civil Infrastructure Projects, and the application of PRINCE2 and APM Project Management methodologies along with excellent commercial management, communication, meeting management and presentation skills. A multi-disciplined functional experienced - competent man-manager with a pragmatic view to problem solving combined with a natural enthusiasm and flexible approach to people, product and process.
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EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL STATUS
Incorporated Engineer
Member of the Associated for Project Management (APMP)
Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology
Member of the International Association of Planning Engineers
Member of the Project Management Institute
PRINCE2 Practitioner
BSc Business & Finance, Christ Church, Oxford
EXPERIENCE RECORD
Jun. 2012 – Present ATOMIC WEAPONS ESTABLISHMENT (AWE)
Head of Planning
Programme and Project Controls – Aldermaston, Reading
Initially I was engaged by the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) as Lead Planner to work within the central Project Controls team with a remit to focus on three key areas – Process and Procedure, the migration of Primavera v5 to Primavera P6 v8.2 and the policing of planning standards throughout the directorate and applying industry best practice, technical audit and leading the Project Scheduling interrogation during Integrated Baseline Reviews (IBR). However; I was invited to interview for the role of Acting Head of Planning for the directorate following the previous incumbent becoming the Head of project Controls. This saw the focus of my role fundamentally shift to becoming the substantive Functional Head, with budgetary control, of a department with responsibility and technical leadership and authority for 100+ Planning personnel as hierarchically direct reports embedded into Project Delivery Teams. During this time the business was about to implement a major reorganisation from a Directorate to a Functional lead model and my primary role was to support this business transformation initiative by designing and strategizing an organisational structure that is fit for purpose in both modes that details the interaction with the delivery teams and promotes best practice and adds value. This included the required Job Descriptions, capability assessment criteria and business cases. Furthermore I had ownership for the benchmarking of planning personnel so that they could be re-aligned to the new Job Descriptions according to peer-group assessed competence. The recruitment, retention and allocation to delivery teams of planning personnel according to business need and priority formed another strand of my day-to-day duties in addition to the duties I had as Lead Planner, not counting the forming of on-going policy with my fellow Heads of Function – which saw me having a pretty full working life – given the requisite stakeholder engagement and politics that come with such a high-profile role that is tier three to the Managing Director of a c10,000 employee business. The project footprint for which I had responsibility covered Research and Development, Engineering, Technology, Systems, Construction (under NEC3), Facility Refit, Decommissioning, Transition, Information Services, Site Maintenance and Transport and Logistics – in short all areas of this unique business.
Dec. 2010 – Jun. 2012 LONDON UNDERGROUND LIMITED
Lead Planner
Sub-Surface Railway (SSR) Upgrade Programme – London
The Sub-surface Lines of London Underground are the Metropolitan Line, Circle Line, Hammersmith & City Line and District Line – the oldest and busiest part of the network. The Upgrade Programme sees the introduction of a brand-new fleet of passenger rolling stock and signalling system – along with the refurbishment and upgrade of legacy infrastructure to allow a faster, more frequent timetabled service – these elements being brought together in a £4.4bn project. My primary role was two-fold. Firstly to create and manage the strategic programme that encompassed all elements of the work (inclusive of internal interdependencies and external interfaces) to drive the programme forwards through top-down management via Programme Accountability Milestones (PAM’s) and other crucial deliverable events feeding into the Department for Transports (TfL) key delivery success criteria. This required the interrogation, interpretation and analysis of 40+ schedules in P6 and the plotting of What-if summary schedules to plot the, potential, course(s) for the whole programme from a strategic standpoint and scrutinising the source data via quantitive and qualitative analysis. The systems used were Primavera P6 (v6.2 and v8.2), Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Project, and Microsoft Excel in addition to utilising the Master Projects Database (MPD) data output. Accountability and visibility of my work extended from Project Managers to Programme Directors; success being dependent upon dogged self-determination, attention to detail and key stakeholder management with concise and clear communication proving invaluable personal attributes. My secondary focus was to co-manage a team of 30+ personnel – both of a contract and permanent engagement and ensure that the delivery organisation received the best available service in implementing the different elements of the upgrade and undertake the role of a mini Programme Management Office (PMO). This required me to have a working understanding of Signalling and Immunisation, Power, Platform-train Interfacing, OPO, Civil Construction, Pway and Rolling Stock Design, Manufacture, Testing and Introduction. As a tertiary activity my role included the technical leadership of the use of P6, Risk – including QSRA, Programme Controls and being the key interface for the introduction of a new Project Management System (PMS). The PMS being a fully integrated software toolset using Primavera P6, v8.2, Primavera Contractor, Contract Manager, Pertmaster, ARM and SAP.
Oct. 2008 – Dec. 2010 UK POWER NETWORKS/EDF ENERGY POWERLINK
Planning Engineer/Manager
Underground Electrical Infrastructure – London
EDF Energy Powerlink have been engaged by London Underground Limited (LUL) under a 30 year PFI contract to manage, maintain, renew and upgrade the electrical infrastructure for London’s underground railway network – one of the busiest railways in the world. My role was to create and manage the Planning System for Renewal’s & Upgrades, Adoptions and Variations. Initially this was done using MS Project, with the data being migrated to Primavera P6 by me with the express purpose of creating an integrated planning system to cope with central resource planning, cost analysis and reporting. Part of this migratory process was to bench test the software in a stand alone environment, write, manage and perform User Acceptance Testing for the initial release and upgrades. My secondary role was that of advisor to the construction and commercial teams for the application of Project and Risk Management methodologies when applying them to programme and portfolio management environments. My secondary duties included the drafting of engineering estimates for resource and budgeted cost for large support projects to LUL – which included a full man-hour breakdown of resources, their duties, cost per use and the preparation of the Outline Proposal document which contained a L3 programme and resource histograms. In essence this means that I took full cradle-to-grave responsibility for the support element of large projects on the underground electrical network. Additionally I worked with the variations team in creating Cost Breakdown Structures (CBS) for use in SAP to actively manage multiple new Work Packages of new build and upgrade works for AC and DC substations – for switchgear, DC rectifiers, protection, cables, SCADA and LVAC boards from 22kV to 415v. My tertiary duty was that of stand-in Project Manager to cover staff absence within the Construction Division – with projects ranging from the replacement of a Substation Earthing System to Environmental and Main/Back-up/Overcurrent and Earth Fault Protection Replacement.
N.B. As of 01 November 2010 EDF Energy Powerlink was known as UK Power Networks Services Powerlink following the Networks business being sold off by EDF Energy.
May 2008 – Oct. 2008 FREEDOM GROUP
Project Manager/Programme Manager
Freedom Power Projects – London
Freedom Group, working with our alliance partner EDF Energy Networks, were engaged under a Professional Services Agreement to provide Engineering, Site Supervision (Principal Contractor) and Project Management. My role was to provide a total project solution for the delivery of all facets of a c£34m Primary Substation Re-build and Reinforcement project. The Work Packages being managed under NEC3 (TCO and ECC contract types under option A, C and E) and delivered under CDM2007 rules and responsibilities. My team included Civil, Structural and Electrical Designers, Commercial Manager, Document Controller, CDM Manager and Site Manager to deliver a technically and logistically complex construction project in London’s East End. In addition to the day-to-day management of the project, my deliverables included: The Project Execution Plan, Project Construction Plan, Site Waste Management Plan, Environmental Management Plan, Risk Register, Issues Log, Deliverables Register and Management of the Designers Risk Assessment in addition to the weekly Project Managers Report to the client. My secondary role was that of Programme Manager in which I had the task of creating a fully cost and resource loaded L3 programme to incorporate all workstreams and Work Packages of the project – Civil and Structural Design, Electrical Design – incorporating Primary Plant, HV/LV and Multicore Cable Routing and Racking, Protection & Control, M&E and Battery Banks, Demolition of the existing site, Construction of a new substation and Electrical Installation and Commissioning. The new build taking place while the existing 33/11kV Substation remains operational.
Sept. 2007 – Apr. 2008 EDF ENERGY NETWORKS
Lead Planning Engineer & Assistant Project Manager
St. Johns Wood 132kV Substation, London
Based on the Substation site my principle responsibility for this project was to produce, update and manage the complex interfaces for a Level 3-4 Project Programme from scratch for a multi-million pound High Voltage (HV) Substation replant (Switchgear and HV Cable replacement) scheme – this Substation providing supplies to key Central London distribution sites. My first deliverable was to design a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to give order and reporting rigour to the activities and allow flexible reporting and analysis capability for both Resource and Cost (BC, COWD & AFC) and to populate the Resource and Calendar libraries. This done I then populated the Master Schedule with activities from the Principal Contractors Programme and that of their Sub-Contractors AND EDFE’s own contractor’s activities to produce a 2,500 activity network containing the following, cost and resource loaded, elements of work: Civils design and construction, Air Insulated Switchgear (AIS) disinvestment, Gas Insulated Switchgear (GIS) manufacture and installation, Underground HV Cable Installation and Jointing and Protection & Control (Light Current) design and installation – along with the co-ordination of outages on the EHV, HV and Distribution Networks. My further duties included the chairing of delivery planning meetings and to assist with the facilitating of Health & Safety and CDM co-ordination meetings, in addition to producing detailed analysis and reports of the Sub-Contractor companies project schedules (in Primavera P3, Asta Power Project and Microsoft Project Format), before updating the Master Schedule with the update information and further analysing the net effect on the project critical path. Once updated and analysed it was my duty to suggest mitigation and recovery strategies to the Project Manager for reducing the total impact on the project to achieve the outage window dates and restoring parts of the network to service to maintain/enhance the electrical system integrity – thus ensuring that EDF Energy customers are guaranteed continuity of supply.
Feb. 2007 – Aug. 2007 MOTT MACDONALD LIMITED
Senior Planner – Management Division, Industry & Technology
National Grid Electricity Alliance West
I was brought on-board to take the lead on behalf of the Alliance to set up the Programme Planning function. My duties included: The delivery of Programme Planning, using Primavera P5/P6, of a portfolio of Power Transmission Projects across various – often environmentally sensitive – sites around the West of England & Wales totalling £135million, Programme Planning consultancy including: Primavera P5/P6 implementation, configuration and roll-out – in addition to planning and implementing service packs and new software versions, Programme Planning process and procedure composition and integration into the quality system, Establishing best practice and change control disciplines for clients Project Management Office and Training and mentoring of client Programme Planning resource. Additionally I had Project Management responsibility for managing the business change that comes with implementing an Enterprise Planning software solution.
Feb. 2005 – Feb. 2007 Network Rail Infrastructure LIMITED
Programme Controls Planner
Major Projects & Investment Civils
Following a major reorganisation and reformation of the engineering territories I was brought in to manage the Programme Controls for a major portfolio of projects over the southern section of the Civil Engineering LNW (London North Western) territory. Day to day duties included: Overseeing of contractors planning resource, managing my own portfolio of 140 Projects in P3e – including elements of E&P, S&T and Track Renewals works - and chairing of planning review meetings to ensure schedules conform to corporate mandate under the Guide to Railway Investment Projects (GRIP); preparation and management of the territories Civil Engineering Business Plan governing the three-year work bank and spend profile for structures, station platforms, bridgeguard 3, cuttings and embankments.
Additionally I assisted in preparing existing Primavera P3 data for migration to the P3e/Oracle Projects database and had responsibility for local P3e System Administration and user account creation & governance.
Day-to-Day duties included: Programme & commercial controls for Civils Projects using P3/P3e and Oracle Projects for a portfolio of 140 Projects with an annual outturn value of £30million (OP) and GRIP, Earned Value & Critical Path Analysis (EVA and CPA), Supervision of contractor and in-house planning resources, Management of project budgets, COWD, ETC, AFC, and Commercial KPI’s and Tracking and escalation of project issues, risks and project efficiencies through ARM/Pertmaster
2004 – 2005 GRANTRAIL LIMITED
2004 – 2005 Business Systems Analyst
Group Headquarters Business Systems
As part of developing a growing business GrantRail have been investing heavily in the Business Systems team to develop and implement key software systems. I was brought on board to develop the business case and the test environment/plan and implement/configure Primavera Enterprise, starting with Primavera Project Planner Professional (P4) as a replacement for Primavera Project Planner (P3). My principle duties included:
Ensuring the business derives the maximum benefit from its software solutions
Developing and implementing business software solutions
Performing system upgrades and testing in accordance with the release schedule of business solutions
Writing core and release driven system packs
Identifying system improvements and the compilation of enhancement specifications according to the requirements of the business
Specifying and performing integration testing between different software solutions
Developing training schedules and delivering training to business users
The compilation and maintenance of procedure guides for all key business/system processes
The provision of telephone and on-site support for the customer base
Responsibility for working within the practice and procedures of the quality system
Alerting management to any non-conformances or deficiencies in quality, services or workmanship
2002 – 2004 GANTT PROJECT SERVICES LIMITED
2002 – 2004 Project Management & Planning Consultant
Clients:
Network Rail, Bombardier Transportation, Areva T&D, National Grid Transco Plc, GE Energy. Network Reliability Services, Europe & KONE Escalators & Lifts
Using my acquired skills in Project Planning and Management I established my own consultancy practice to deliver to clients’ expertise in the following subject areas: Business Systems Analysis and Testing, Planning, Commercial Support and PM expertise for Engineering Projects, Planning, Commercial Support and PM expertise for IT Projects, Registered PRINCE2 Practitioner, Earned Value Analysis (EVA), Critical Path Analysis (CPA) and custom report writing, Drafting and roll-out of effective, streamlined, business processes and procedures, Bespoke Project Planning training, along with custom-made training coursework materials and Training, Mentoring and Managing of Planning Resource and Project Portfolio Cost Control.
Primavera Enterprise suite evaluation, implementation with operation expertise for Server & Client application which included the configuration of:
EPS (Enterprise Project Structure) and OBS (Organisational Project Structure)
A standard WBS to be used across the entire NRS business at the top level
Global Activity code structures and Project Activity code structures
The standardisation of Roles across the business
Population of the Resource pool, including resource coding and cost rates over time
Creation and administration of user accounts
Security settings and privileges and Activity and scheduling defaults
Customised layouts and schedule performance calculation fields for Earned Value Management (EVM)
Creation of graphical and tabular reporting strings for schedule and cost data – specifically Schedule Variance, Cost Variance, Cost Performance Index (CPI) and Schedule Performance Index (SPI)
Configuration and automation of the Project Website and then PrimaVision
Roll-out of the client application and upgrades both as stand-alone and networked instances.
Configuration of the server database, back-up jobs and software upgrades
1998 – 2002 NATIONAL GRID PLC
2000 – 2002 Project Planning Engineer
Engineering Planning, Construction Division
As a Project Planning Engineer within the Construction Projects Division my duties included: Production and continual management of project plans with Primavera P3/P3e software for National Asset Replacement and Civil Schemes upwards of £60M in value.
Strategising the best use of outages on the HV Transmission System for the successful delivery of multiple site based projects.
Updating and maintaining supporting databases and web based reporting tools through Primavera Project Management software.
Providing lead expertise and support for the production of detailed data and report writing.
Interface management for outage and system availability related matters.
Acting as focal point for Engineering Planning issues within Project Scheme Teams.
Additionally I was the lead role in the evaluation and eventual implementation of Primavera Project Planner for the Enterprise (P3e), from initial testing, creation of Project Plan structure and content to the role out onto the corporate Local Area Network (LAN) - The first UK utility to do so. For which I:
Created a mini network – configuring an MS NT Server and SQL7 instance to house the test server application for each of the products bench tested
Loaded and configured the server and client applications for operation in a networked environment
Configured the EPS and OBS
Set up user profiles and security privileges according to seniority
Drafted a user manual for both P3e use and basic Critical Path Analysis
Delivered a bespoke training programme to site based personnel around the UK
1999 – 2000 Business Services Planning Officer
Network Services Installation Group
I was Deputy Head of a specialised commercial section who had sole responsibility for up-front and continual project costing/monitoring, financial profiling and project co-ordination & planning via MS Project and supporting Microsoft applications AND commercial management of HV, LV, Protection and telecommunication projects and creating, updating and administering of business systems for NGC’s Installation Group. Additionally I had responsibility for the Analysis and reporting of project forecasting & critical path data and Interface management at all levels with internal/external clients and Creating and annually updating local quality procedures and works instructions and also chairing Planning and External Business meetings.
1998 – 1999 Business Management Production Analyst
Energy Settlement and Information Services
My primary role while in this post was to settle post-trading disputes in the energy trading pool using the “Pool Rules” – these being highly complex mathematical algorithms and equations – between electricity generator companies and the Distribution Network Operators across England and Wales. My secondary role was to plan out audits with our partner Price Waterhouse Cooper (PWC) which required detailed resource plans and carefully thought out activity networks to ensure business continuity, with minimal disruption, and making the best use of our high-cost resources. Initially this process was managed using Microsoft Excel; however I took the decision to migrate the process to a dedicated planning tool – Microsoft Project 98. I created a project template and detailed resource pool that enabled the senior managers to have a high-level view of the required audits and resources by the reports I generated from the system. The templates and standard reports I developed and produced became the industry standard.
LANGUAGE CAPABILITY
English : Mother tongue
German : Spoken – basic; written – basic; reading – basic
French : Spoken – basic; written – basic; reading – basic