Productivity improvement in downstream EPC projects using value streams based organization

Productivity improvements in manufacturing facilities have been studied in detail and there are many standardized tools and frameworks readily available to the industry for implementation. However the concept of productivity improvement in large engineering projects that involve high white-collar job content is less clearly understood. While lean concepts like value streams or continuous improvement apply to this environment there are no ready tools available for implementing a lean improvement initiative. This thesis applies lean and concurrent engineering concepts to large scale engineering design and development projects. ABB Lummus, the sponsor company for the internship behind this thesis, is in the business of executing such large-scale projects. Lummus is an EPC contractor providing engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for building manufacturing plants. EPC projects run for few years and involve coordination of efforts by hundreds of engineering staff. There are inherently many productivity and information flow issues in such projects. EPC industry in general has been facing significant operational efficiency difficulties leading to cost and schedule overruns in recent years.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Raghunathan, Krishnan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Steven D. Eppinger and Fred Moavenzadeh.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Civil and Environmental Engineering.
• Leaders for Manufacturing Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37239

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37239