2nd EyeOn round table for shipbuilding suppliers

The 2nd round table ‘project planning and control’ for shipbuilding suppliers took place at Croy castle in the Netherlands at November 2018. The round table was all about networking with colleagues in the business and to share planning knowledge.

During the round table open discussions were held on the following topics:

Planning integration with shipbuilders

Shipbuilders and suppliers are heavily dependent on each others performance for the success of their projects as their processes are highly interwoven. An integral planning with aligned activity dependencies, interfaces, and deliverables is crucial to have effective planning and control.

We identified several ‘building blocks’ as being essential for an effective cooperation, some highlights:

  • Planning, and planning integration as part of the mission and vision of both the shipbuilder and the co-makers
  • Planning processes available and fully understood on both sides
  • Aligned planning processes (e.g. matching levels of planning)
  • Early project involvement
  • Dedicated planning functions on both sides
  • Executive sponsorship and involvement for planning process implementation and integration
  • Full information sharing / transparency supported by easy to use tooling
  • Structured progress cycles and progress meetings, focus on interfaces
  • Technical and relational competent planning employees, training programs available
  • Step by step implementation focused on results not on methodology

Resource and capacity planning

Proper capacity planning may not only avoid project delay and save cost, but also improve resource morale and innovation. Many companies are struggling with effectively managing their resources and capacity. Challenges are amongst others the organizational structure (project vs matrix organization), unclear processes and responsibilities, and poor tooling.

We discussed resource and capacity planning on the operational, tactical, and strategic planning level, including the required steps for setting up an effective resource and capacity planning process:

Step 1: Map decisions
Step 2: Identify planning levels and decision horizons
Step 3: Define required information for decision making
Step 4: Describe process including meeting and reporting structure

The lively discussion showed that there is much to be learned from each other. Companies showed both their knowledge and expertise as well as their vulnerability and challenges. Enough reason to look forward to the next round table that will be organized beginning of 2019, see you then!

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