Hepworth Building Products keeps £15 million development on schedule

What is expected to be Europe's largest concrete pipe-making plant, occupying a site the size of three football pitches, is taking shape on a green-field site at Ellistown in Leicestershire. This £15 million investment by Hepworth Building Products, will come on stream in mid 1991 and will supply large diameter concrete drainage pipes for use in road building and water separation schemes.

The £15 million concrete plant project is large and impressive. Its output will include many different products ranging from small 300mm-diameter pipes to those of 1.8m diameter and up to 2.5m long and weighing 7.tons.

Special 5m-deep foundations had to be constructed to accommodate vibrating machinery, and a large 32m-high silo, capable of holding 1000 tonnes of aggregate, was lifted into position using a 500-ton mobile crane - one of only three in the country. The project was given the go-ahead in January of last year, construction commenced in May, and commissioning of the plant began in January of this year.

To help them manage this and other projects, the Engineering Research and Development department of Hepworth Building Products, located at Hazlehead in the Pennines above Sheffield, is using a computer-based project management system called Plantrac. According to Hepworth's project team, this software package has made a valuable contribution in successfully achieving the present time scale, that was predicted some 2 years ago.

Hepworth Building Products is one of the six divisions of the important £700 million turnover Hepworth Group, comprising Building Products, Home Products (including Glow-worm and Parkray), Saunier Duval, Refractories, Minerals & Chemicals and Industrial Products.

One of the 13m-long vibrating pipe machine frames being lowered into its pit

Lifting the 900-tonnes capacity main aggregate silo into position

In addition to making plastic drainage and rain-water systems, the Building Products Division is the largest clay-drainage manufacturer in Europe. With the concrete product range from the new Eeicestershire plant, Hepworth's stated objective is to become "the supplier of choice able to supply anybody with any drainage system - and a complete one-stop shopping service."

According to Peter Ellam, the Planning Engineer at Hepworth Building Products, the company first started using computer-based project management packages in the early 1980s, using an ICL system. This had "limited functionality" so in the mid 1980s Hep-worth's began to look around for a PC-based system.

Mr Ellam recalls, "We examined some ten to fifteen systems and shortlisted those down to two. We finally chose Plantrac - by Computerline - because it provided all the information we needed. It allowed us to use time-scales we required and its presentation was also superior. It was straightforward to use and inputting data was easy. We were also impressed with the support service. We have since become keen participants in Computerline's user group meetings and have found that the company really does make the effort to keep its software updated in line with clients' needs."

Plantrac is being used by Peter Ellam and his team to prepare and control the Division's investment programme. A long-term plan for management reporting shows when new projects are scheduled to commence, when capital investment will be required, the length of time needed for that investment, and when new products will ultimately be launched. On average it is likely that one major project (up to £30 million in value) and six or seven minor projects will be progressed at any one time. This plan also includes a summary of the progress on the Leicestershire concrete plant.

A general view of the"green-field" site as it was in early June 1990.

the appearance of the plant as it began to take final shape

The Division's project management team includes two project managers and several project engineers, whom the planning department services, besides being responsible for controlling both capital and revenue budgets.

The 800 activity network diagram for the project is produced in the activity-on-arrow format, although Hepworth plan to convert to "precedence" in the future as they feel that this will be more practical in showing inter-dependencies, and will be easier for engineers to understand.

A supporting bar-chart summary, for management presentation, is produced on one A3 sheet. This chart includes summaries of sub- contractors' programmes incorporating deliveries, site erection, and so on. One line, for instance, accommodates the progress of several sub-contractors working on one machine.

Each individuals upplier has been monitoring his own progress, which has included several A4 pages of detailed information.

Commenting on this. Peter Ellam explained, "The fact that we can condense so much information accurately onto one A3 sheet is of great assistance to management. It makes it easier to understand the current situation, and the system's multiple bars on one line helps enormously to achieve this condensation. I personally know of no other system which provides this facility."

For internal departmental use, the summary bar charts are expanded onto several Al sheets, but the principle of trying to condense information for easier understanding and control remains. These summary charts are supplemented by a detailed programme of activities after the commencement of commissioning, including the running-in of machinery, and production start-up procedures, as well as scheduled visits by the British Standards Inspectorate for separate checks on different parts of the plant and systems, and expectations of preliminary volumes of output.

"The system's analysis and reporting features are very powerful and flexible. We use them to plot tracking and trending graphs where progress can be measured by comparing current schedule lines against a pre-set base-line schedule producing two "S" curves. It is an ideal method of comparing actual and planned progress for engineers and management, who can see progress clearly in terms of activity days. This is immediately meaningful and prompts a more spontaneous reaction.

"If there is slippage on a particular foundation, for instance, and analysis shows this to be critical, we can go on to use the "what-if" facility to determine the consequences of various actions. The whole system is invaluable in demonstrating to management the consequences of their decisions and of delays in making those decisions."

The successful implementation and use of Plantrac in project management has led the Division's R&D department to consider the use of a planning system for research and development work. To avoid overloading the Planning Department, a simple easy-to-use system was required, and a new bar chart entry level based package called Baronet was adopted. Also by Computerline, this package interfaces with Plantrac if required. Engineers who are not skilled or experienced planners can construct their own logical network of activities in a straightforward, easy to understand bar chart format.

This latter system has been used by Peter Ellam since July last year and, following a training course held in December, he says that the package was readily accepted by other engineering staff. The engineers create their own bar charts and standard plotted reports, and these are then collated by Mr Ellam to monitor resource requirements and control progress against the department's annual budgets and development targets.

Looking to the future, Peter Ellam is hoping to use the Plantrac system on lap-top computers, so that he can enter data and make calculations on site. "As the division grows and its activities widen, there is the possibility that both systems may be employed in a multiuser/multi-location network."

Peter Ellam looks well pleased with the wealth of planning information, condensed onto single sheets, that enabled Hepworth's Engineering Research and Development Department to keep the entire £15 million development to the originally-perceived schedule. A typical detail from a Summary Programme Sheet produced by the Plantrac PC program

Acknowledgements:The kind co-operation and assistance of Hepworth personnel throughout the preparation of this article are gratefully acknowledged.

The management control systems described were supplied by Computerline Ltd, Tavistock House, 319 Woodham Lane, Woodham, Weybridge, Surrey KT15 3PB. Phone: 0932 351022. Fax: 0932 353943.

Concrete Plant and Production, March 1991