As a Planning Engineer and part of the task force dedicated to Project X, I was responsible of several tasks, such as:

• Establishing a level 2 Overall Schedule
• Establishing level 3 Engineering and Procurement Schedules
• Setting up the progress measurement system after loading the schedule with resources, most importantly the manhours
• Organizing progress meetings and providing assistance to the project manager and the project control team

Assistance to the project control team consisted mainly of:

• Updating the schedule
• Generating the S-curve (planned vs actual and forecast)
• S-curve for each engineering discipline (planned vs actual and forecast)
• Progress figures
• Weekly or monthly spent hours

At OGC, I was handled several “traditional” projects but my main focus was on Project X, the new special project.

Project X would ultimately lead to the construction of Europe’s first dedicated plant for the production of Green Aviation Fuel. This production facility will be primarily using regional waste residue streams as feedstock.

Many disciplines were part of Project X task force such as Process, Piping, Rotating, Mechanical, Civil, Electrical and Instrumentation and most importantly Project Management.

My work on Project X started in December 2019 where I developed a level 2 schedule for the FEED (Front End Engineering Design) phase which will later on be followed by a level 3 schedule.

The challenge that faced me was trying to fit all the work that needed to be done in the FEED phase in a time frame of 6 months knowing that FEED phases usually need around 9 or 10 months.

Using the standard OGC method for developing schedules did not apply for this particular “special” project, which meant restarting the schedule from scratch using a different planning advised by the new project engineer.

After the approval of OGC’s Client on the level 2 schedule, I started developing the level 3 schedule as well as setting up the progress measurement system in which I needed input from all the lead engineers.

Unfortunately, during that time, Covid-19 became a pandemic and we were all bound to working from home which created a new obstacle. Luckily, with the technology at hand, we were able to adapt and get to speed to work almost as efficiently as a team as when we were at the office.

With everything going on in the world and the negative effect of Covid-19 on all the economies and businesses, 6 months for the FEED phase seemed more farfetched than ever, which led the OGC’s Client to give us an extension of time of 3 months after several rounds of negotiations.

Once the level 2 and level 3 schedules were established, as well as setting up the progress measurement system, my one-year contract with OGC was getting closer to an end and so I started handing over my work to one of my fellow planners on OGC’s payroll, who would eventually take over and work on the EPC (Engineering Procurement and Construction) phase.

Working on such a huge project was very exciting and enriching, but like everything else, came to an end.

For the time being, I’m looking for new opportunities and challenges on the horizon.

Elias Nammour