Shipyards and dockyards are the places where ships are repaired and built. Here we are talking about yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other types of cargo or passenger ships. And of course, in order to stay on time, on budget and on scope, a shipyard project manager oversees the project.
Fernando Remolina González ( ) has been working in ship repair and shipbuilding project management for about a decade. He is one of the few voices that write and speak about their experience in managing projects on ships.
Shipyard Project Management Fernando Remolina
Shipyards and dockyards are places where ships are repaired and built. And here we are talking about yards, multi-vessels, cruise liners and other types of cargo or passenger ships. And of course in order to stay on time, on budget and on scope, a shipyard project manager oversees the project.
Fernando Remolina has been working in ship building project management for about a decade. He is one of the few voices that write and speak about their experience in managing projects on ships. It's a fascinating and centuries old industry that requires the project manager to have lots of technical expertise.
Beyond that, shipyard project management however follows a pretty standard approach. You initiate plan, execute, monitor and control, and then you close the project. But as in any other industry, it is what you do that makes the difference.
Cornelius Fichtner: Well, let's sum it up here. You know thousands of ships, two-and-a-half thousand shipyards around the world. I just had a guess there but how many project managers do you think work in shipyards?
Fernando Remolina: That is a good question, Cornelius. You can multiply those 2,523 shipyards times four private managers each as a mean. Some of them have more. Some of them have less. But then if you multiply it times 4 then you will have a total of 10,092 project managers.
Cornelius Fichtner: Wow, okay! So I have a challenge for all our listeners out there. If you are a project manager who works in a shipyard, do us a favor. Go to the website www.pm-podcast.com. Go to this episode right here and tell us: "Yes, I am a project manager who works in a shipyard." Let's see how many listeners we have who actually work in shipyards.
Fernando Remolina: Actually, Cornelius, I have been working for 3 shipyards and all of them has their own project management process but none of them are recognized by project management standard. But I think probably there are adjusting actually project management for ship building is more advanced than in ship repair.
Fernando Remolina: Actually I am the only one who do all the project management aspects. But I have an estimator assigned to me. He helped me with cost calculations and invoicing. In some other shipyards depending on the complexity of the project, they can assign the project a planner, ship manager and also can be sometimes 2 project managers.
The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a powerful project management planning and controlling tool. It is the backbone to planning and managing scope on any project and - as you will hear in our interview - every ship repair project must have it.
Fernando Remolina González ( ) is a project management professional and works for the Curacao Drydock Company in ship repair, engineering and ship conversion. In his many years of working in shipyard project management he realized that managing the scope is both central and vital and that the WBS is the tool to use. And his successful projects are the proof.
So he set out to help others in his industry and wrote the article WBS for Ship Repair Projects. But here is the good news. First of all his article offers a fascinating look at shipbuilding project management and second, his review of how to apply and use a WBS can easily be applied to many other types of projects.
Fernando Remolina, a Senior Project Manager for Damen Shiprepair & Conversion, has published a book called Shipyard Project Management. The book is a practical guide which explains how to use standard project management tools in ship repair projects.
This book is divided in two main parts. The first provides a general overview of the status of project management awareness in the industry and explains the most important, useful and recognized project management tools. It explains how to use the tools using a real-world project on the MV Queen Andrea.
The SPPM Process Chart is a chart to understand the overall project management process in ship repair projects. It contains 5 columns related to the project process groups and its tasks that indicate what needs to be done per process group.
The SPPM Process Chart has been designed for ship repair projects executed in shipyards, but can be used for ship repairs projects afloat, keeping in mind that task on each column that belongs to drydock activities must be skipped. 2ff7e9595c
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