Emerson Exchange 365

In early 2012, project managers at Technip, S.A., were preparing to take on another immensely complex refinery construction contract. Pushing the organizational envelope was nothing new to the Paris-based engineering firm, but this particular project called for nothing less than perfection. Missing the delivery deadline would have had an enormous negative financial impact on all involved, and time was short from the outset.

The company faced a long list of logistical and technical challenges: Multiple manufacturing sites in Europe and North America. An end-user in the Middle East. Sub-assemblies and buyouts in the US. A patchwork of different customs rules that had to be navigated without causing shipping delays. Thousands of intermediate and final destination parts and materials that had to be transported halfway around the world with no floating time.

“There was absolutely no margin for error,” said Salvatore Sauza, E&IC manager at Technip, who today presented the project as a case study along with Emerson Process Management’s Sheriff Ahmed at the 2014 Emerson Global User's Exchange in Stuttgart, Germany. “It was critical for the factory manufacturing schedules to align with the timing of the sub-assemblies as they were completed and shipped,” said Sauza. “Materials had to arrive on time for the various construction contractors, each of whom had tight schedules of their own. The entire process had to run like clockwork.”

As Technip and Emerson, its primary supplier, began discussing these problems in risk analysis meetings, it quickly became clear that a unique approach would be necessary to keep the project on track. “The supplier-builder relationship is usually very rigid,” Sauza explained. “The roles are fixed. We saw that we needed to go beyond that. Working together as a team with a common goal enabled us to address the challenges forcefully.”

Technip worked shoulder to shoulder with Emerson to draw up a framework for addressing the various challenges. This involved the appointment of a core team that consisted of single points of contact at each company assigned to focus solely on identifying and removing barriers to project completion. “The core team had full authority to drive action within their respective organizations, with direct access to top leadership,” said Sauza. “All options were open for consideration, irrespective of cost—nothing was off the table.”

A functional team was also created to oversee day-to-day operations. This group consisted of the Project Management Office (PMO) manager who served as the overall manager for the entire project, a sales office project manager, and general managers from the two factories in Germany and the US. As the project progressed, the teams relied on a system of process gates to facilitate collaboration and ensure that all stakeholders were on the same page.

“We conducted expedited gate reviews after we completed each critical stage in the design, initiation, planning and execution phases,” Ahmed explained. “This helped us make sure that all of the customer's requirements were being met from top to bottom. We used daily progress tracking to measure performance and we reviewed the data at weekly team calls. This allowed us to develop a sense of shared responsibility and mutual trust between Technip and Emerson. It's a real testament to team work.”

Far from coming in just under the wire, Technip shipped the first lot 57 days ahead of the final delivery target date and completed the project with 13 days to spare. “The rewards of this experience go far beyond just meeting the deadline,” said Ahmed. “It has provided a common template for a wider partnership between Technip and Emerson, and both companies came away with a much better understanding of each other's procedures and expertise. This is a success story that we believe will lead to a mutually beneficial trusted partner relationship for many years to come.”