No Shortage of Creative Solutions for PMI’s 2015 Project of the Year Award Winner

 

Leaders of Chevron's El Segundo Refinery Coke Drum Reliability Project accept the Project of the Year award on 10 October 2015.

By Cyndee Miller

No team is going to get very far without a mission — and it better be good enough (and clear enough) to convince people it’s worth the effort. There are way too many times when I feel like I’ve nailed it. And then all I get is blank stares. So I’ve got to give credit to Chevron, this year’s Project of the Year winner.

The company knew it had to safely replace six huge coke drums at its refinery in El Segundo, California, USA. And it knew that would take a lot of hard work from everyone on the team. So it made sure that message got through  — loud and clear.

“Early in our project scoping phase, we set a very powerful vision for our project,” said Chevron’s Greg Roos, PMP, while accepting the honor at PMI’s Professional Awards Gala in Orlando, Florida, USA. “The key line was at the very end, and we met with every project team member personally on this: ‘Be a difference maker.’ This really resonated with the team … from leaders to craft workers.”

The solutions rolled in right from the start as the team plotted how to get the six new 96-foot (29-meter) tall coke drums to the refinery. Instead of transporting them from the Port of Los Angeles through one of the world’s most congested cities, the team got creative.

By partnering with a local marina, the team cut the travel route. And then, by working with community stakeholders, it managed to turn the road closures necessary to transport the drums into parade-like events. Once they arrived at the refinery, the team used massive cranes to install the drums — with Chevron again making it abundantly clear that safety came first. The team rallied and completed the project four months ahead of schedule and US$7 million under budget. (Get a look inside the project with this video and the cover story of next month’s PM Network^®.)

The truly amazing thing is that Chevron wasn’t alone in executing on a bold project vision. The other two finalists had some pretty fantastic results, too:

Oregon Transportation Investment Act III State Bridge Delivery Program, Salem, Oregon, USA: The Oregon Department of Transportation worked with a joint venture of Fluor Corp. and HDR Engineering Inc.  to deliver the U.S. state’s largest infrastructure investment in 50 years: a 10-year, US$1.3 billion initiative to repair and replace 365 bridges.

In the first public-private partnership of its kind in the state, the team bundled certain bridge projects into sub-programs and then secured buy-in through customized communications to targeted stakeholder groups. The end result? The program closed US$45 million under budget — and Oregon state officials look to it as a new blueprint for infrastructure project delivery. Check out a video on the project.

River Corridor Base Scope Project, Richland, Washington, USA: Washington Closure Hanford LLC — a joint venture of AECOM, Bechtel and CH2M — tackled a major cleanup of 220 square miles (570 square kilometers) of a former nuclear production site. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the 9-year US$2 billion project included disarming two nuclear reactors and remediating 9 million tons of toxic waste.

With regulators, local residents and Native American tribes watching closely, the team delivered the project two years ahead of schedule and US$227 million under budget. And it did it while maintaining the best safety record of any DOE deactivation and decommissioning closure project. (Watch a video about the project here.)

For more on these projects, look for in-depth feature stories in upcoming issues of PM Network^® .