PTAG’s Hydro Experience

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Did you know PTAG has worked on hydroelectric and industrial projects ranging in value from $1M to over $12B and covers:

 Hydroelectric development, Rehabilitation, Transmission & Distribution Projects? 

PTAG’s Hydroelectric and Industrial Project subject matter experts have direct experience with dam rehabilitations and new generation developments. 

PTAG offers an in-depth understanding of project and asset lifecycle, including project feasibility, development, contracting (traditional and collaborative models), engineering, construction, and operations.

Our experienced team’s focus is to help customers deliver project certainty through our experience, best practices, tools, and the team of subject matter experts.

Projects include Coffer Dam installations, Main Dam Concrete, Penstock and underground duct banks projects, Sluiceway and Headgate installations, Bridge construction, Turbine and Generator overhauls and new installations, Transformer, Switchgear, Breaker, Excitation, Protection and Controls installs, 230 & 500 Kv Line, Telecommunication, Control Room and SCADA installations. Service, Domestic Water, Powerhouse and Gantry Crane projects.

“I have been working with PTAG for several years now on collaborative contracting methods.  I see them as a leader in project management services and in the new Integrated Industrial Project Delivery model.  They provide key services for all types of projects and contract models but it’s their professionalism, creativity, innovative mind set and ability to stay current in this field that sets them apart”.

Alison Bradley, Director, Strategy & Supplier Relationship Management | OPG Supply Chain

Webinar Recap –Digital Transformation: Automating Field Reporting & Progressing– September 20 at CIM MEMO 2022

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Digital Transformation: Automating Field Reporting & Progressing

Listen in to this video recap as PTAG industry thought leaders, Feroz Ashraf, and Bob Brown, discuss Digital Transformation, Automating, Field Reporting & Progressing.

This is the recap video of the session presented in Sudbury at the CIM | Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (MEMO 2022) on September 20, 2022.

The global pandemic has created a challenge to measure and record progress at mining construction sites. In particular, remote mining sites have been hard hit. This is due to physical restrictions and constraints at the site to limit the number of workers or staff compounded by testing and vaccination requirements and administration, “social distancing” and PPE requirements, and minimization of physical interactions and face-to-face meetings. The mining industry is challenged by travel restrictions, fluctuating commodity prices, and supply/demand and delivery issues accentuated by the pandemic.

It is evident from global responses to date that companies with high digital maturity and utilization have done significantly better than others who have relied on manual or semi-manual systems. There is a serious need within the industry to rethink and re-invent to improve productivity and resulting performance. An easy solution is to set up an “integrated” digital system that will capture the project data and provide reliable and real-time data on the project’s performance. Typically, contractors provide weekly updates, and it takes another week to consolidate and integrate the data.

This presentation discusses how leveraging current technology and industry best practices will lead to faster, better-informed decision-making and project performance improvement. Results of case studies presented and show how to address data collection at multiple levels at the work site using hand-held portable devices to provide meaningful insights, productivity measurements, and multiple shift data, mitigating COVID-19 impacts and reducing rework and change orders.

 In summary, the presentation presents simple steps to implement such solutions and how owners can leverage easy-to-implement technology and best practices to provide faster decision-making and project performance improvement.

Lessons Learned Program (LLP)

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Lessons Learned (LL) is knowledge gained from experience, successful or otherwise, to improve future performance. Each company should develop a Lessons Learned Program (LLP) to promote success and achievement. The Lessons Learned Program involves the people, processes, and tools that support an organization’s collection, analysis, and implementation of validated lessons learned. People possess organizational knowledge. The procedures must be structured to allow people to collect, analyze, and share knowledge easily.

Overall, Lessons Learned Programs are essential to the construction industry. The key to achieving an effective and sustainable Lessons Learned Program is the degree of continuing commitment and leadership from the organization’s top management. Lessons Learned will become even more critical as employees age and retire and turnover increases. Additionally, globalization also increases the need for LLPs to ensure that an organization is able to address critical issues such as culture, language, distance, and diversity.

  • Every organization should move forward in developing or improving a lessons learned program.
  • Leadership, top-level and tactical, is the essential prerequisite for the success of these programs.
  • Organizations should become “teaching” organizations rather than organizations that only collect or learn from the past in an ad hoc or passive manner.
  • Organizations should adopt an active implementation strategy to ensure that lessons are used.
  • Although technology is vital in developing and using the Lessons Learned Program, the importance of organizational culture should not be underestimated.
  • The quality of lessons learned is more important than the quantity of lessons in the database.
  • Both owners and contractors can benefit from lessons learned programs. Necessarily, the captured lessons learned will be focused on different areas based on the organization’s business needs.

There are three main components to the Lessons Learned Program (LLP):

  1. The collection involves gathering data and information on the experiences of individuals and teams in the organization. Collection can occur at multiple stages of project execution.
  2. Analysis can be performed by a team or a subject matter expert (SME). This step is necessary to ensure the information gathered is relevant, correct, and easily understood.
  3. Implementation can involve changes in practices and procedures or changes in the project execution. Lessons learned should be implemented quickly to ensure they are helpful for the organization.

PTAG has industry-specific teams ready to manage and organize this knowledge to benefit your organization in the form of a reduction of total project cost and/or reduction of project schedule.

Implementation Planning Model

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Once a new opportunity is identified, and an implementation path is laid out, the implementation process will result in the need for change. The implementation of new or improved practices is the driver for change management. Organizations face many challenges in overcoming barriers that come up during the implementation of new practices. An Implementation Champion will drive the implementation process with support and resources from upper management. Organizations face many challenges in overcoming barriers when implementing new procedures.

PTAG helps you to have a clear perspective on the overall stages required for the entire implementation process. A well-designed implementation plan will guide an organization to a successful outcome.

Follow steps that begin with needs analysis and end with implementation and benchmarking.

  • Stage 1: Needs Analysis – The Needs Analysis lays out the case for implementing a new practice. This case will need to be presented to both management and critical staff, so a compelling argument is required as an output of this stage.
  • Stage 2: Management Buy-In – The management buy-in will be based on the Needs Analysis developed in Stage 1.
  • Stage 3: Establish Steps – The Implementation Planning Model establishes four critical steps that will be followed during the implementation process. The third stage in the overall process requires one to understand these steps and develop an approximate schedule for the implementation process.
  • Stage 4: Adapt Matrix – In this stage, the implementation team must take the specifics within the Implementation Matrix and adapt the generic elements with organization specifics that address the unique requirements of the current implementation task.
  • Stage 5: Develop Plan – In this stage, the team will translate the details from Stage 4 into a plan that meets the specific organization’s requirements.
  • Stage 6: Communicate Plan – This stage requires the team to communicate the proposed implementation plan to both management and the proposed test group.
  • Stage 7: Perform Change Audit – The implementation team will perform a Change Audit that evaluates the readiness of the organization to undertake the implementation process.
  • Stage 8: Implement Tasks/Plan – The implementation team will now follow the tasks laid out in the implementation plan for each step of the implementation process. Each step in the process has a set of three to five tasks that are critical for success in that step.
  • Stage 9: Perform Step Evaluations – In conjunction with Stage 8, the implementation team will perform evaluations during each step of the implementation process to determine if the process is achieving the required goals.
  • Stage 10: Benchmark – The final stage in the implementation process is to benchmark the new practice internally and externally.