10 tips when focusing on project results

02 December 2021

We would like to share 10 tips for an optimal project result. In a logical structure, according to the Deming quality circle with the four activities: Plan, Do, Check, Act. Use it to your advantage!

Projects come in all shapes and degrees. For projects within Industrial Automation, electrical diagrams, PLC and SCADA software and all kinds of reports and documents must be delivered. The following tips will help you:

Tip 1: Orientate and gain insight

Always start with a good analysis. Which information is already known and which information is missing? What is the percentage of repetition in the work that needs to be done? Is there a standard – and more important, is the standard known and clear to everyone? Repetition in projects is sometimes not immediately visible. By classifying the different objects in a project, the repetition turns out to be many times greater than in the first instances. Also, make sure to have a good estimate of hours. What are the costs and results of activities?
.

Tip 2: Emphasize repetition

Emphasize repetition at all levels of the project and across disciplines. Which systems are the same? Which subsystems are the same? Which components are the same? Adjust the design to this repetition, because here is a lot of time and quality to win later in de design process. At Yellax, we often see aberrant behaviour created by a way of improper budgeting. The increase in quality and time savings through standardized work is many times greater than a small saving resulting from grouping things. For example, we often see this in main distributors, pneumatic islands, terminal boxes, remote I/O stations. In short: serial work is always preferable to single specials.
.

Tip 3: A mechatronic project phasing

Phase the project in a logically mechatronic way. That sounds logical but still happens way too little. Ensure that all involved disciplines support the project phasing. For example, by allowing dephasing to be processed with system boundaries or by adjusting it with:

• An extra cabinet;
• An extra machine structuring;
• An additional PLC or Controller.

In this way, you can entirely test and finish a project phase and you often have more options to work in parallel. The extra material costs often do not outweigh the flexibility provided during the implementation phase. This is even useful, during the life cycle of a control system. Especially, when no clear agreements have been made about it. Generally, this means that these kinds of issues still have to be solved during the detailed engineering phase.
.

Tip 4: Focus on risks and project information

Make sure that information is bundled and that it ends up with detailed engineering. This is essential to prevent rework, costs and a lot of frustration.  With a good analysis in advance, there is an insight into the project specials and the gaps in the information. Unfortunately, information is often incomplete and/or inconsistent. For example:

• Double tag codes;
• Incorrect function texts (mixing languages, capitalization, and so on..);
• Copy/paste errors due to manual creation of these types of documents;
• Missing information (motor powers, sensor types, interfaces with third parties, safety zoning);
  .

Tip 5: Working iteratively

If a project lends itself to generating a part of the work, then the project planning and approach change. A more iterative process can be chosen. This way of working influences the order of work and sometimes it is desirable to choose a different approach. Such as manual specials that are worked out separately and supplemented with automatically generated documents. What does iterative work look like? You can read more about it in our blog about SCRUM.
.

Tip 6: Standardize

Within the scope of a project, it is good to standardize. Think for instance of establishing the architecture for software, determining the set-up of electrical drawings, but also attribute names, making example output, etc. In this phase, we create typicals and/or macros of each implementation.  We proceed with this according to the order determined in the analysis in the beginning. An advice is to not do this company-wide but to only be dependent on the stakeholders within the project team. This makes it more efficient.
.

Tip 7: Automate

A lot of detailed engineering work consists of copy/paste, which is a shame. The engineer’s expertise can be used way better for looking into the specials or the development of the software architecture. Not the standard work. Based on his/her inventory, one can choose to generate parts of the project, so that repetitive tasks can be phased out (also called administrative work). Hence, a “keep it simple” method in combination with common sense is the best choice.
.

Tip 8: Evaluate

With each iteration during the generating process, it can be checked whether the output matches the wishes, which is a very wise thing to do! Stakeholders involved within the project can already check the output before a final generation takes place. You can then choose to implement improvements or to generate the next object. This iteration loop can be performed multiple times. At each project phase, additional things can be added based on what yields the most. And when the output is complete enough, or when the project schedule enforces it, the final details are processed by hand.
.

Tip 9: Automatic screening of incoming information

Compare new information against the previous state of the information. As such, automatic summaries can be made of the changes. Yet, information still changes regularly during the project. Checking this external information takes a lot of time and can be automated. What’s new? What has expired? Did only the identification code change? What information has changed? It often turns out that much more has been changed than has initially been indicated in the manually entered/coloured lines. Project quality is thus directly dependent on the project information and ‘Shit in = Shit out’ is often quoted.
.

Tip 10: The team determines the success

Last but not least, perhaps the most important tip: success is a product that is only made by people. The team determines success. Having a motivated team is therefore essential. In doing so, support for the chosen method is crucial. Provide a team with self-reflection, the right competencies and focus on efficiency. Together you can achieve anything, alone you can do nothing!

• Share