Advanced Project Techniques

experience + innovation
Home of APT Projects Profile of APT Projects Services - overview and detail News about APT Projects How to contact us


Services - Introduction

 

Related
Pages

Project Services

Consultancy Services

Probability Management Services

Range of Services

Our main areas of activity are outlined below.

Project Services

Our project services are related to the winning and execution of actual projects.

We provide services covering the full life of the project, or any part of the project life cycle. Ideally we become involved at the business development stage, following though the bidding to assist in maximising the chances of success and ensuring that the project is soundly based. We can provide project management services, either as part of an integrated team or providing a full service. We pride ourselves on the ability to manage geographically widespread projects without a collocated team.

For existing projects where we have no prior involvement we can perform a full audit on behalf the owner or other stakeholder, giving a full status report with recommended corrective actions as appropriate.

Further details appear on the Project Services page.

Consultancy Services

Our consultancy services are related to the project management process rather than the management of any specific projects. We can help our clients establish their Project Management System (PMS), or evaluate an existing PMS and provide advice on how to improve it. We use formal models exhibiting best practice, and our work is fully auditable. We also offer a structured improvement programme aimed at improving our Clients' PMS over a defined period of time.

Further details appear on the Consultancy Services page.

Probability Management Services

Probability management is the name given to the management of any activities which have an uncertain outcome. Risk management is one aspect of this although this focuses only on the downside ignoring the upside potential. We prefer the use of probability management which is more embracing and better reflects the real world of projects.

We offer a range of probability management services covering areas where it may not be cost effective for our clients to retain their own staff. These are particularly related to the areas of risk management, decision support and project economics. We can either perform these services on our Clients' behalf, working standalone or in conjunction with their personnel, or we can provide necessary training enabling them to do the work in-house.

More details may be found on our Probability Management Services page.

 

Case Study

FPSO sailaway

Fast Tracking

Fast tracking" is a much over-used expression, but one which really applies to many oil industry projects. What it means is starting activities before previous activities have been completed, which all real projects do to some extent. Taken to the limit it means working out of sequence with inevitable rework and loss of efficiency - one is buying progress at the expense of productivity (known as "crashing" the schedule)..

The first tanker-based floating production system (or FPSO, to be precise) to be converted entirely in the UK was such a case. In view of a very short contract timescale every possible measure was taken to accelerate the project. The outcome was creditable for the era - from contract award to first oil in less than 24 months - against a background of a very steep learning curve.

Footnote: The decision to adopt a fast track approach on any project should not be taken lightly. However these decisions are often made as a reaction to the current circumstances e.g. Client pressure or because of schedule slippage. A structured process needs to be conducted before the decision is reached; this could, for example, be an economic model in which the additional construction costs of the fast track approach are balanced against the penalties and other attendant costs if completion is delayed.

The worst possible example of fast tracking is when decisions are taken for illogical reasons, maybe to be seen to be doing something to accelerate progress. In the early days of the offshore oil industry platforms were sometimes sent offshore incomplete, in order to maintain the sailaway date, but this always resulted in increased costs and delayed production.

©2014 Advanced Project Techniques Ltd    Reg No 05039700

Contact: phone (44) 01502 575 536• email: enq@apt-projects.co.uk

Home• Contact •News • Profile •Services • Site Map