Analysis Supporting Front End Planning for Renovation and Revamp Projects, Part 2

Increasingly, manufacturing, commercial, and institutional owners are retrofitting or renovating their existing facilities. Whether it is an issue of making the facility more efficient with new production technology, meeting standards and safety requirements based on new environmental regulations, or maintaining historically significant buildings, these projects present unique risks. Front End Planning (FEP) is a critical process for uncovering unknowns in existing facilities, while developing adequate scope definition and a structured approach for the project execution process. Shutdown/Turnaround /Outage (STO) projects are a specific subset of renovation and revamp (R&R) projects in the industrial sector. Previous research using benchmarking and metric data analysis has supported FEP as a valuable practice for project success. The purpose of the research presented in this document is to supplement previous research efforts while focusing explicitly on R&R and STO projects. This research report was performed in conjunction with Construction Industry Institute (CII) Research Team 242 (RT 242), “Front End Planning for Renovation/Revamp Projects.”

The Benchmarking and Metrics (BM&M) database program at CII was used to stratify the data and then to analyze the differences between indices and metrics supporting front end planning when comparing R&R and greenfield projects. CII BM&M management staff provided a sample dataset of projects for the comparison used in this research effort. The database used for this analysis included 679 projects with a total installed cost of greater than $23.5 billion. The document analyzed six indices supporting FEP and five project execution performance metrics using various statistical methods including standard deviations and ANOVA analysis. This analysis included the PPP Index, Alignment, Change Management Index, Constructability Index, Zero Accident Techniques Index, and Quality Management Index. Also included is an examination of the critical performance metrics; project cost growth, project schedule growth, and change order costs. In contrast to the hypothesized results, the front end planning indices, practice usages, and performance metrics did not show results for R&R projects being worse than greenfield projects. In fact, no difference between the R&R projects and the greenfield projects were found in the reported results. All of the comparisons were checked for statistical appropriateness which showed that there was no statistical significance in the difference between any of the factors. The lone exception was the Zero Accident Technique Index which showed that greenfield projects had greater practice use. The authors speculate that the reason for this statistically significant increased value is based on the nature of R&R projects and project teams.

As part of the research effort, the authors and the RT 242 research team developed the STAR Tool to provide a means of assessing key planning attributes unique to STOs, resulting in an opportunity for earlier risk identification and mitigation. This research report details the development of the tool, prioritization and refinement using four research charrettes, and after the fact testing of the tool on completed and in-planning STOs. The charrettes included a total of 67 participants representing 39 separate organizations with combined project management experience of over 1,300 years and STOs representing nearly $5.5 Billion in total installed construction cost.