Nima Nikmehr was appointed as a project controls engineer during the inspection and repair of the Cutter Suction Dredger Ambiorix. A vessel that, by means of a rotation cutterhead, loosens high cohesive sand layers and bedrock from the seabed and hydraulicly pumps it to shore via a floating line, for land reclamation. Those dredging vessels are subject to wear and tear on the sand conveying dredge lines and pumps, as well as the engines that provide the pumping and sailing power. These vessels also fall under the periodic Class survey. This can be offered annually, intermediary or during major repairs to an independent organisation (e.g. DNV, Bureau Veritas or Germanischer Lloyd). All inspections, repairs, modifications and mobilisations for the subsequent project are always scheduled to be implemented within the shortest possible time frame. Every day that a vessel is not in operation, DEME loses income; in other words, an intensive project.
Work method
Prior to the project, all the activities were inventoried by the technical team. On the basis thereof, Nima draws up the overview planning, together with the work planner of the project, in MS Project, also known as the high-level planning. After this, a multidimensional analysis was performed in Primavera P6 and, in consultation with the technical team, a detailed planning was developed.
Multidimensional analysis
Nima: “A multidimensional analysis is about the efficient use of the available resources (labour, equipment & material) of the shipyard, as well as the own subcontractors & suppliers, under management of DEME. This all takes place without a loss of focus & optimisation of the safety. There will, for instance, be a focus on the min/max required number of persons and the work activities to be performed at a certain location. In other words: how many persons can be at work at the same time and is it safe, at that specific moment, to perform certain technical tasks, such as welding work?”
After completion of the multidimensional analysis, the high-level planning was further developed. Nima: “The entire project was defined in detail. As a project controls engineer, it is essential to ask the right questions in order to fully comprehend the matter and be able to apply it. You must have strong communication skills and must actively think about solutions.”
Challenges
Actively thinking about solutions and being able to respond rapidly turned out to be particularly valuable during this project. There were three major challenges that Nima and the team were confronted with.
1. Premature deadline
First, the deadline was shortened by about two weeks, because the shipyard was fully booked. As a result, the work activities followed one another much more quickly. Nima: “In the new planning, we also had to consider safety. Certain work activities could not be implemented simultaneously. Think of lifting activities by use of a crane: no people can be working underneath the crane at that moment. Mainly during this challenge, the multidimensional analysis proved its added value.”
With Nima’s dynamic planning, we were better able to detect bottlenecks and respond to them. Nima's work has certainly shown the added value of working with a planning and thus eventually opened many people’s eyes.
Johan Barbaix, Department Manager DEME
2. Multiple docking
Several instances of (dry)docking lead to a second challenge. It is easier to perform work activities on a vessel in a dry dock. While all these tasks are usually carried out in one single ‘docking slot’, they now had to be implemented over three different slots. Nima: “Also, eight working days were lost because the vessel was intermediately launched. That forced us to resort to even more severe prioritisation; which activities come first, which can be postponed?”
3. Employees who were less planning-oriented
Project planners are frequently faced with employees who are less planning oriented, but mainly focus on the technical implementation of the works. Also Nima experienced that many employees at the site had their own working methods and thus didn’t strictly follow the planning. Challenge number three.
Nima: “As a project planner, I study how the work can be done as efficiently as possible. A good example of this is a welder who does not perform his activities during a period of one week, but spreads it over a three-week timeframe. This creates flexibility in the planning to perform other priority activities intermediately. But, in that instance, it should be clear how the lead time of the activity is defined and shown logically in the planning. Any ambiguity in this regard may affect the availability of the resources.
A planning ensures transparency between the different activities, allowing for more efficient planning, in accordance with the work method chosen, but during this project it was a challenge to convince everyone of this. I resolved this mainly by sketching potential problems and by showing how planning will eventually prevent this type of problems and will ultimately prevent delay. That worked well.”
In the past, the focus at other dockings was predominantly on the scope and the budget, but not so much on the aspect of time. If a ship returns from docking, it must be 100% technically in order, regardless of the time required for repair. However, this makes it difficult, if not impossible, to be able to communicate a more accurate completion date to our clients. Hiring Nima as a project engineer therefore turned out to be highly valuable, to safeguard the time aspect and detect bottlenecks, so that the team could make adjustments where necessary.
Johan Barbaix, Department Manager DEME
Personal experience
The project saw many changes, as a result of which the planning often needed adjusting. Nima: “This led to stress and some discouragement in the team. I am a very calm person and I emphasised time after time that the planning ensured structure. Because working via the planning creates structure, ensuring that you will ultimately succeed.”
