BATEMAN's experience in the management of projects
to convert natural resources into marketable products reaches back
to the early years of the last century, with more than 3 000 successful
projects in nearly 70 countries, often in difficult and remote terrains.
BATEMAN
is project management
At the core of BATEMAN's ability to undertake successful
projects for clients wishing to convert natural resources into marketable
products is its project management capability. This capability coordinates
the company's collective conceptual development, financing, design,
engineering, construction, commissioning and commercial operation
skills and focuses them to maximise the success and profitability
of a project.
BATEMAN makes use of leading-edge systems to control
all the stages of a project, from marketing to the hand-over of
a facility to the client and beyond. Drawing on global best practices
and its own hard-earned experience, the company has refined these
systems extensively and recently introduced several innovations
which it now considers to be leading-edge project-management tools.
The BATEMAN PMO (Project-Management
Overview) system governs the company's business process. In this
task-force environment, where every task force is led by a project
manager, in line with the international Project Management Institute's
PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge), a high level of discipline
is maintained during project proposals, pre-feasibility, feasibility
and bankable feasibility studies and the eventual execution of the
project. All resources are optimised by using the most cost-effective
organisation structures and tight project controls. Extensive use
is made of earned-value principles in which task scheduling and
costs are linked and integrated to provide a meaningful understanding
of the interrelationship of time and cost in a project, so they
can be closely controlled and optimised.
BATEMAN's IPROM (Integrated Project
Management) system covers all aspects of the project, ensuring that
the project personnel communicate effectively. IPROM is a major
step toward the productive utilisation of project manpower by integrating
the entire information process by providing for controlled entry
points for data, detailed change management and the integration
of the best-of-breed software packages for process design, engineering,
3D modelling, cost management, planning, materials control and document
tracking and control. Because of IPROM's plug-in and plug-out functionality,
client requirements and preferences can easily be accommodated.
Improvements are continuously being
introduced to enhance project delivery. The concept of forming close
alliances with preferred suppliers, which was pioneered in BATEMAN
by its modular-plant business line, is being extended to good effect
in other areas of the business. A considerable reduction in the
overall duration of projects and more efficient and cost-effective
designs are some of the positive outcomes of the concept.
An open-book approach with all
stakeholders has encouraged win-win-win solutions between client,
BATEMAN and suppliers / contractors. Profit sharing between the
participants and minimising waste is negotiated to the satisfaction
of all.
Stakeholder management has become
an important component of good project management at BATEMAN. A
good example is the new concept being explored with De Beers Consolidated
Mines in which effective teamwork between the client and contractor
is promoted strongly. The objective is to establish a long-term
platform for meaningful collaboration between the parties leading
to a co-operative rather than adversarial relationship. This approach
has been adopted for the Elizabeth Bay diamond project now underway
and all parties are very enthusiastic about the outcome.
The containment of the risks usually
associated with natural-resource projects has been another issue
with which BATEMAN has had to deal. New risk-assessment models are
regularly developed and implemented, whereby project risks can be
evaluated more accurately, particularly during the estimation phase
of projects. Cost and time overruns are minimised by timeous management
techniques such as these risk assessment models which are applied
from the outset of the project. This has enabled BATEMAN to move
away from reimbursable to lump-sum contracts.
BATEMAN's long experience in the project-management business goes
back to the early part of the last century as part of the growing
mining industry in South Africa. This ongoing involvement has enabled
the accumulated development and refinement of this capability to
enhance the effectiveness of project delivery and to meet new and
changing market requirements.
Many prominent and large projects
have been completed successfully around the world. For example,
major PGM (platinum-group metals) projects include Anglo's Rasimone,
Potgietersrust and Modikwa, Impala's EPMR and UG2 and Hartley, while
base-metals projects include Skorpion (zinc), Kasese (cobalt), Bulong
(nickel) and Sanyati (copper). Well known diamond-processing facilities
include Argyle, Consolidated, Jwaneng, Finsch, Venetia and Damtshaa.
In the oil and gas arena the Mossgas
Project (1992) was the world's first large-scale GTL project which
was followed more recently by large gas-compression projects in
Siberia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
