DaratechPlant: Chevron Refinery Chooses Primavera Enterprise Software

Chevron Corp. (San Francisco, CA) has chosen standardized on Primavera Enterprise (from Primavera Systems, Inc., Bala Cynwyd, and PA) as the enterprise project management software suite for its Pascagoula, MS, refinery. The facility is Chevron's largest refinery and one of the top 10 refineries in the United States.

Multiuser Primavera Enterprise combines in-depth project management capabilities while supporting an unlimited number of projects, project groups or programs, activities, baselines, resources, and user-defined WBS and activity codes.

Primavera Enterprise is a project and resource management software suite that evolved from the original Primavera Project Planner. By providing an enterprise-wide platform for project planning and collaboration, it raises the visibility of corporate objects and improves accountability. By providing both a ground and financial view of projects, it enables companies to make more informed decisions about which projects to fund, how to allocate scarce resources, and when to terminate projects and reallocate people and funds.

Chevron uses it to manage both maintenance projects and capital projects while leveraging shared personnel and equipment. Primavera Enterprise enables the Pascagoula refinery to manage multiple projects at a central, enterprise level.

Scheduling the Heart
"Scheduling is at the heart of project-oriented organizations, such as chemical companies," Primavera product manager David Pinski explains. "Primavera Enterprise brings the same type of accountability and control to project planning that SAP brings to financial management.

"Typically, project management teams generate their schedules and requirement for workers, but much of the detail is lost when it comes time to set budgets or assess how a corporation should allocate its resources among multiple projects" says Pinski.

Centralized, enterprise-wide resource management ensures projections are based on real-time project requirements.

Primavera Enterprise, he says, makes project management part of a company's business practices. It allows users to spec out a project from the top down, starting with useful work breakdown (WBS), resource hierarchy, and cost account structures. This hierarchical framework makes it easier to define project scope, measure performance, and ensure accountability.

"The system lets professionals work on multiple projects at the same time, so they can compare cost, time, budget and ROI to one another," he says. "They can see the ones they can complete quickly, and those that are more involved. From a corporate viewpoint, it's valuable to look at a portfolio of projects all at once."

Primavera Portfolio Analyst provides project summary and tracking information through graphics, spreadsheets, and reports. It groups together projects based on attributes or hierarchy for comparison and analysis.

Capabilities
Primavera released the first version of Primavera Enterprise in the spring of 1999, and its first upgrade in early December. New features in Primavera Enterprise 1.5 include:

• Java-based progress reporter. A Web-based system that delivers personalized assignments to project team members and allows them to report back actual hours worked.
  
• Role-based resource management. Allows organizations to assign workers by their roles (journeyman plumber, master welder), forecast potential resource issues , and manage personnel tradeoffs when problems occur.
  
• Rich text notes. Users can annotate text with pictures, photographs, installation manuals, Web links, email addresses, and other useful information.
  
• Advanced project templates. Simplifies the use of past projects to create templates for new projects.

The system is also integrated with many key software programs used by the chemical industry. These include SAP AG's SAP R/3, J.D. Edwards & Co.'s World Software and OneWorld, Bentley Systems, Inc.'s PlantSpace Schedule Simulator, and Integraph Corp.'s DesignReview.

Primavera Enterprise lets field personnel continually modify schedules as things change. As a result, executive management receives up-to-the-minute data and are able to analyze the effect of performing multiple plant turn-arounds simultaneously. Having timely data available helps management complete plant turn-arounds ahead of schedule, which is very cost effective, says Primavera.

Chevron's Pascagoula Refinery is a major operation with processing capacity for 295,000 bbl (12.4 million gal) crude oil per day. Sited on more than 3000 acres adjacent to the Mississippi Sound, it consists of 20 major refining process units, 200 tanks (600 million gal total capacity) and four marine terminals.

The Primavera Enterprise product suite features Primavera Project Planner for the Enterprise (P3e); Primavera Progress Reporter, a Web-based system to distribute and update project assignments; and Primavera Portfolio Analyst, an executive-level project portfolio analysis package.

For more information: David Pinski, Product Manager, Primavera Systems, Inc., 3 Bala Plaza West, Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004. Phone: 610-667-8600. Fax: 610-949-6957.

By Alan S. Brown