Interview with a Project Manager (part 2)

KH (Interviewer) investigates Key Project Management Techniques at ConAgra Grocery Products Company (CAGPC) – Aseptic Operations (Perrysburg, Ohio)

My place of employment is at CAGPC. I interviewed Mark Ondrus, the project engineer/manager (project manager) at our plant. He has worked at the facility since 1986, starting his career as technician. He has a degree in electrical engineering and has attended several seminars in project management.

First a little background about the plant. The CAGPC-Aseptic plant, formerly known as Hunt-Wesson, is a food-products manufacturing facility specializing in shelf-stable, cupped-snack dessert products. The popular Hunt’s Snack Pack pudding and gel cups are an example. The facility opened in 1982 after receiving FDA approval to manufacture/package shelf-stable products. During its history, many projects have been implemented due to several reasons. Some of these include:

• increased/changing customer demand
  
  



• change in Federal regulation such as food safety or environmental-impact
  
  



• need for improvements in line efficiency
  
  



• corporate financial restructuring

The most recent projects – within fiscal years 2000 and 2001 – have included:

(1) HVAC (Heating/Ventilation Air-Conditioning) system for packaging machine areas;

(2) New packaging-machine equipment for production line 4 (there are five production lines in the facility);

(3) Batch and Sterilization (process) upgrades. This included replacing aging P386 terminals with Dell workstations running Windows NT. All original process-control programming was replaced.

Upon asking Mark to identify milestones used in these projects, he responded:

“Key milestones typically used:

(1) Project Definition: what are you going to do?

(2) Appropriation: business analysis / approval of funds

(3) Engineering: design time

(4) Procurement: purchasing parts and lead time

(5) Installation: installation schedule

(6) Property Closing: assigning asset tags and turning in cost of asset to property accounting (impacts property tax)

(7) Complete: project closed and is open for potential audit”

Let’s look at some of the milestones Mark mentioned in more detail with respect to the HVAC project:

Project Definition: What are you going to do / define objective:

The main reason (objective) for installing the HVAC system was due to the annual impact of the “summer slump”. That is, the poor performance of machinery during the hot summer months. The company tried “mini” projects in the past, such as installing cooling units on specific equipment, but this made little impact. The objective was clarified only after an extensive time-based requirements analysis (based on statistical data). Appropriation:

After the plant manager and Mark came to the conclusion that “central” air conditioning was need for parts of the facility, the proposal was sent to CAGPC headquarters in Irvine, CA for approval. This process took a considerable amount of time (7 mos.). The reason being ConAgra’s major restructuring effort in 1998/1999. Because ConAgra decided to close a number of plants during this restructuring, many were uncertain about the future of this facility. Hence, many projects were put “on-hold”. In the fall of 1999, funds were finally approved and the project commenced immediately. Indeed, a Gantt chart appeared within days of the approval on the plant projects bulletin board*. The system was scheduled to be ready for operation by summer 2000 when it would be needed.

* CAGPC Aseptic uses Microsoft Project to design all their projects.

Engineering: design time

The project was contracted to an HVAC specialist from Minnesota. They came up with a design plan within a few weeks and work began immediately. Additional (local) electrical and mechanical contractors were also utilized.

Procurement: purchasing parts and lead time

This activity was given more slack time than others due to the sometimes “unpredictable nature of shipping and receiving.” Lead time (waiting for parts to be manufactured/delivered) is perhaps one aspect of the project that is not in as strict control of the project manager as are other activities.

Installation (scheduling)

As mentioned earlier, a Gantt chart of the project schedule was posted. One tremendous difficulty in implementing a project in a manufacturing facility is trying to work on a project when the production lines are running. For example, one cannot just shut off an electrical substation to run new wiring to your project components – this would cost the company too much in downtime due to the impact on non-project components. Due to high product demand, our plant operates 24/7 and many holidays. The bottom line is “the number of cases of product out the door.” This poses a unique challenge to the project manager – whose responsibility is very much different.

Another difficulty the project manager has to take into account in an industrial environment is human safety. Therefore, planning between the project manager and his project-mates as well as all affected is critical. For example, the two main HVAC blower units (each about the size of a semi truck) were “dropped”/installed on the roof of the plant via helicopter on Martin Luther King Day 2000, a plant holiday. This activity was a milestone and could tolerate absolutely no slack (because production lines had to stop for that day). The reasons for the single-day shutdown was:

(1) Safety: no one could be in or around the plant except the HVAC team;
(2) Company would not have to pay it’s hourly employees union-negotiated premium (holiday) pay.

Many projects in our facility are tightly scheduled around company holidays for these reasons.

Complete: Project closed

Upon completion of the HVAC installation an audit was done to ascertain that the project, indeed, fell within specified constraints (time, budget, manpower). Also, lessons learned were documented to improve the lifecycle of future projects.

Being an engineer first (and more technically minded than a “straight” manager), I asked Mark how he handles the “art” or socio-cultural dimension of project management. His response:

“Be aware of company politics, especially on the corporate side.”

“Teamwork and thorough intercommunication is critical – without these, the project is grounded from the start.”

“Respect everyone’s opinion no matter how much you or anyone else disagrees with it.”

“Lack of imagination will kill a project. In other words, if one cannot imagine all the potential problems that may be encountered during the lifecycle of a project, then one is not well prepared.”

The Project Management Institute (PMI) website lists six management practices that lead to better projects. I asked Mark to pick out the ones he deems applicable to his profession. His choices were:

• Good Project Management.
Planning is crucial to success. Failure to make proper plans early results in exponential difficulties later. Divide projects into modules that are deliverable within 12 months.
• Projects have a Business Case.
Each project should be business-driven and linked to corporate strategy and business unit objectives. Concentrate on the "why" and the "how".
• Strong Management Commitment.
Strong ongoing support by management includes visibility and personal involvement throughout the life cycle.
See the full article at http://www.pmi.org/publictn/inbox/it.htm.

Finally, I asked Mark to take the Standish Group success-potential- chart survey and rate criteria in terms of his views. Although this survey is geared more towards the software industry, I changed a few definitions (such as “operator” instead of “user”) to make it suit our industry:

Continue on to Part 3