Power plants are titans in an ever-shifting landscape. An evolution in consumer consumption and a focus on exploring emerging energy sources have put plant operators in a tough spot when it comes to executing the forward-looking projects that keep these vital infrastructure assets current, efficient, and economically positive. The PMAlliance team of PMP®-certified consultants have the experience to help your organization achieve success on difficult projects, whether you’re planning an outage to support the replacement of outdated equipment or impacting operations to expand your facilities’ long-term capabilities.
Industry: Energy
Challenges
Learn how PMAlliance's Duration-Driven Methodology helped deliver this project on time and within budget. Download the case study below.
High-profile hurdles add to power plant project complexities
Managing production and efficiency in a power plant isn’t easy. Disrupting normal activities to execute projects that will improve long-term performance or reduce costs is an incredible challenge for plant operators. Between regulatory requirements, the move toward sustainable practices, expectations around downtime, weather interference, and frugal budgets, a power plant is an unforgiving environment for project teams. Add the complexities that manifest when multiple facilities and business partners are involved in executing critical activities, and operators often feel they’re up against a wall.
The technologies used to oversee many power plant operations create their own difficulties for project teams. As new systems offer opportunities to increase productivity and decrease waste, older infrastructure must often be upgraded in tandem, presenting the organization with complex problems to solve before they can hope to achieve project success.
Lean funding and high consumer expectations may also be at odds when pursuing more efficient practices or leveraging the value of emerging technologies and power sources. Developing a project plan that successfully melds these competing components can be extremely difficult, placing additional barriers between the organization and its ultimate goals.
Risks of failure are expensive and highly visible
Failures during any power project can result in significant negative impacts. Planned outage timeframes could be extended or unplanned service interruptions may occur, resulting in customer backlash and potentially drawing the ire of regulatory overseers. Equipment incompatibilities or failures are also a possibility when existing processes are modified. Juggling the demands of multiple stakeholder groups might lead to claims of favoritism or reputational harm, particularly when planning a high-impact outage. Diminished performance or productivity are also concerns, along with ongoing inefficiencies that could lower revenue expectations or require additional investments to resolve.
What PMAlliance can do for you
We know the challenges facing power plant operators. Our PMP®-certified experts bring broad industry expertise and the knowledge necessary to develop solutions to the complex problems that plague planned outages, as well as plant upgrade and expansion projects. Through our proven methodology, we can develop detailed work breakdown structures that encompass the activities of employees, vendors, partner utilities, and other external collaborators. Task dependencies and critical milestones can be clearly identified, enabling the project to stay on track and achieve success.
PMAlliance’s team has the facilitation skills to bring project sponsors together around common goals and work with stakeholders to implement resolutions to sticking points and potential problem areas. By leveraging our expertise in managing cross-functional teams and maintaining transparent communication flows, power plant operators can save a troubled project or move a complex effort to a successful completion.
