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Speciale Ipma Italy

to conceive not only a proper project organi-
zation but also develop, with the other con-
sortium partners, an effcient and operating
“superstructure” able to address the common
targets, establish the coordination principles
and defne the execution strategies with regard
to the peculiarities of each company and the
project objectives. This superstructure called
the Directorate Team (DT), is managed by a
group of project directors and consists of a
limited team of experts (discipline leaders) co-
ming from the three companies. Moreover its
functions had to be consistent with the rules
defned within the contract, which were also
complex. The DT panel of project directors re-
ports to a steering committee composed of the
senior management of the three companies.
Different ways to do the For sake of clarity, the organization set up by
Fig. 1 – A unit of the new refnery each consortium member (ECs) has been de-
same thing nominated Execution Team (ET).

When a company establishes the methodology
for managing and executing a large and com- Guidance through DT,
plex project, various organizational models are execution by ETs
possible. They are generally based on recent ex-
periences, company governance, management With the constitution of the DT all the basic ac-
skills and know-how, weak and strong points tivities related to the set-up of project strategies
of its working teams and other considerations were passed on to this team. In a more spe-
related to the culture and the habits of people cifc way, it defned the goals that ETs had to
and clients for the project. The most frequent pursue and the principles of the methods to
choice is a matrix organization where single ma- achieve them. Defnition of project goals and
nagers, accountable for their specifc discipline, best execution methodologies was an interacti-
(engineering, procurement, construction, pro- ve process starting from the identifcation of the
gress-schedule-cost control etc.), objectives of a single EC, followed by the selec-
report to the project manager (re- tion of common objectives and identifcation of
The most frequent sponsible for proft and loss of the those ones that potentially could have penalized
choice is a matrix job) and manage operating groups one consortium partner, and fnally completed
organization where composed of personnel temporarily with the discussion about a consolidated list of
deployed from their respective de-
potential objectives and the means to achieve
single managers, partments. them.
accountable for their In this way each individual has a Once the frst list of objectives was defned, the
specifc discipline, functional reporting line within the process restarted with a more detailed analysis
(engineering, project organization and a hierar- of the list, and then the fnal selection of the
procurement, chical reporting line within the com- objectives which could be considered accepta-
ble for everyone and delivering benefts for the
pany organization, assuring the
construction, continuity of normal business and project. Full understanding of each single goal
progress-schedule- the effectiveness of project task and a complete agreement on the entire set are
cost control etc.) accomplishment. Nevertheless this essential to obtain the best contribution of the
report to the project model can be developed in different three companies to the success of the project.
manager ways. For example the engineering The idea was that no EC was allowed to “dicta-
te” its own goals and approaches and impose
manager can coordinate the pro-
cess design team in addition to the them to the others (even if a certain unbalance
technical staff or leave this duty to in the technical and economic capacity exists
the process manager, subcontracting matters among the partners) but that they should have
can be managed either by the procurement ma- been fxed through a negotiating path in which
nager or by the construction manager, admini- what was feasible and what was necessary
strative activities can be executed by the project were discussed and agreed by all three mem-
team or by the central accounting service, and bers of the consortium.
so on. At the completion of the process, the shared list
In this specifc case Foster Wheeler needed contained the following guidelines.

52 52 Impiantistica Italiana - Luglio-Agosto 2014