Welcome – PPI Update

[00:00:00] Roberto J. Arbulu: And let’s start with Gary Fisher and a PPI update by welcoming Gary to please turn on your camera and your audio. Gary, can you hear me?

[00:00:05] Gary Fischer, PE: Yes, I can.

[00:00:08] Roberto J. Arbulu: Excellent. The first thing, Gary, I would like to say is welcome to PPI. You joined PPI as an executive director this year. So it is really great to have you on the PPI team.

[00:00:29] Roberto J. Arbulu: And also thank you for your leadership as we go into 2022 and beyond and take the institute to the next level. Really appreciate that. But before Gary goes, let me tell you more about Gary’s trajectory and allow me to share a few things about him. Gary, as I mentioned, is executive director of the Product Production Institute.

[00:00:56] Roberto J. Arbulu: He’s also the chair of the PPI Energy Working Group. Prior to that, Gary spent 40 years in Chevron’s capital press organization and has held a variety of executive positions. Most recently as a special projects manager at Chevron Project Resources Company. In that role, Gary was responsible for Chevron’s implementation of product production management, and these are transformations on major capital projects.

[00:01:24] Roberto J. Arbulu: Gary was also responsible for Chevron’s credit management system and led the group that provided functional expertise across the corporations worldwide. Major capital portfolio. Gary holds a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from Colorado State University. Gary, I’m going to stop sharing my screen, so this is going to be over to you.

[00:01:45] Gary Fischer, PE: All right, let me pull up my screen.

[00:01:57] Gary Fischer, PE: Thank you, Roberto, and welcome, everyone, to what’s going to be a really good day. Let’s start by trying to get the screen to move. Okay. Let’s start by kind of setting the table. You know, what we do in the construction industry is really big, and it’s really important. Anywhere you go, you know, picking up the newspaper, watching TV, you’re going to see the news about how dependent our economy is on infrastructure.

[00:02:31] Gary Fischer, PE: It seems like there’s always something about infrastructure or something about construction in the news, and the world needs infrastructure. We need bridges, roads, water treatment, hospitals, schools. The world needs affordable and abundant energy. The world needs housing, factories, buildings in which to conduct all kinds of business.

[00:02:50] Gary Fischer, PE: As you can see here, 13% of the world’s GDP in my last check, which was $85 trillion, is associated with what we do. Man, that’s a big and important number.

[00:03:04] Gary Fischer, PE: But look at what we’ve done for— how effectively we’ve invested that money over the past 20 years. It’s not very good. So we have a huge opportunity as a construction industry to improve our production efficiency. And things need to change, and things need to change quickly. And that’s what PPI is all about.

[00:03:28] Gary Fischer, PE: You know, we’re our goal. It’s our purpose to set out to help the industry. That efficiency of those investments, and we really want, you know, our vision is real. We want PPM (project production management) to be the dominant paradigm for the delivery of capital projects. The new way we think about how to develop and execute projects, we want project professionals to be thinking about these, using these principles from everyday work.

[00:03:55] Gary Fischer, PE: We want a thriving market for services and tools. And then of course we want to continue to advance the knowledge through research and development. Who’s PPI for? It’s us. It’s all of us involved in the construction industry, and let’s take a little bit, a little tour on how we’ve been doing over this last year since the last symposium. We’re 2,500 members strong now.

[00:04:21] Gary Fischer, PE: We added 300 folks over this last year, which I’m very excited about. Hopefully we’ll continue that trend over the next. We’ve made a lot of progress over the last year in the area of education and developing academic partnerships. We’ve got a really nice program set up with Stanford, Cal Poly, and then Texas A&M Construction Sciences, and I’m going to cover each one of these in a little bit more detail.

[00:04:50] Gary Fischer, PE: Let’s start with Cal Poly. This is the one that’s probably the furthest down, the furthest down the road on. And the, you know, the wave overtaking the building industry right now is to reduce cost and, more effectively, The control schedule is to productize and move work offsite and adopt really manufacturing style techniques.

[00:05:13] Gary Fischer, PE: And these methods are known as industrialized construction. You’re going to hear a bunch more about that today, and they can deliver significant benefits that you know these things. But they really can’t be done with accepted project management practice. And I’ll be very blunt, if you think you’re going to take and manage assembly offsite using the methods you’re currently using for onsite construction management, you’ve picked a recipe for disaster.

[00:05:42] Gary Fischer, PE: That’s what I found when I worked for Chevron. And many companies in the building sector are discovering that themselves the hard way today. Well, this program is targeted at those folks to enable participants to understand the benefits of adopting a modern construction framework and how to effectively deal with these new challenges of moving work offsite using production management.

[00:06:05] Gary Fischer, PE: Know-how? This is a really specific focus on hands-on education. It includes offsite fabrication done right, then supply chain done right, and the design for offsite fabrication done right. And design is quite different in this situation. Moving on to Texas A&M, we’re excited about this one as well, and it’s really targeted at folks in the industrial sector.

[00:06:29] Gary Fischer, PE: Here again, you know, industrial owners are looking to improve capital projects by moving work offsite as well, by employing factory models, harnessing automation, digital productization, and standardizing, enabling works or digital technologies. And as you’re going to hear a lot about today, these strategies are really part of modern modernizing construction.

[00:06:53] Gary Fischer, PE: You know, they can also deliver significant benefits. But again, not with the current outdated project management framework that focuses more on administration and yet is really just blind, not even seeing the elements of production. You know, and the production is a very [important] element [of] that.

[00:07:14] Gary Fischer, PE: So in order to modernize construction, we need to really reimagine how we do project management. As you can see, this program starts with that very topic: reimagine project management. And then depending on your specific area of interest, you can take one of three additional courses on re-imagining engineering, re-imagining procurement.

[00:07:35] Gary Fischer, PE: Reimagining construction. Hopefully you’ll see a pattern there. The EPC pattern, we want to reimagine the whole picture. I promise you that if you attend one or all of these courses or some part of these courses, you will never look at a capital project the same way. You’re going to see it from a completely different point of view with different eyes.

[00:07:58] Gary Fischer, PE: And then finally, we have a program we’re just now launching with the Stanford Center for Professional Development. And this is something this program’s targeted, not so much at the individual, but at companies that want to rapidly really make progress in modernizing the project work using a framework of industrialized construction coupled with autonomous and digital, all on that foundation of operation science that you’re going to hear about from Todd shortly.

[00:08:29] Gary Fischer, PE: It’ll be customized for each company. To deal with their specific needs, their specific situation, it will be dealing with their real problems. This is hands-on work within the company dealing with their work. It’s not theory, it’s going to be dealing with their challenges. It builds on Stanford’s virtual design and construction program and it’s been delivered to thousands of professionals around the world and provides a really unique opportunity to learn and practice the principles to modernize construction via the application production.

[00:09:00] Gary Fischer, PE: Think methods and digital tools, and, given the intense nature of this, we’re limiting enrollment to one or two companies a year, and we’re taking applications now. We’ve worked on developing partnerships. There are more to come. We were really excited to announce this partnership we formed with the ECC.

[00:09:21] Gary Fischer, PE: This really was going to provide even more reach for operation science and project production management within the EPC community. This gives us opportunities for speaking engagements, working on things together. In particular, I’m excited about working with the Future Leader Group that’s associated with the ECC, through education and other hands-on kind of things.

[00:09:41] Gary Fischer, PE: These are the folks that are going to be running the EPC business in the future. And if we can change the way they think about the way they see projects, the way they approach projects, then that’s going to be a good thing in the long run. We’ve got a robust industry council, as you can see here by kind of looking across the slide.

[00:10:02] Gary Fischer, PE: It’s very diverse. These folks have stepped up for a little more deeper involvement in what we’re doing with PPI. Many of them are on working groups or will be on working groups shortly. We’re also involved, actively involved in research with both Berkeley and Stanford, in sponsoring things and supporting things to help bring theory to real life and projects on how to do things better and differently.

[00:10:30] Gary Fischer, PE: Given COVID, we’ve been very active in the area of virtual events and publications. As you probably noticed. We’ve had a number of webinars, and again, all these webinars have been recorded and are on the website. If you want to go catch up, you can find them under the events and publications tabs.

[00:10:52] Gary Fischer, PE: We started something new called PPI Thinking, and these are intended to be shorter, more provocative articles just to stimulate the thinking and just get an idea out there and generate some conversation. And of course we always have the journal with our deeper articles. We wish we had more of these.

[00:11:12] Gary Fischer, PE: COVID kind of has really restricted our ability for in-person seminars. Hopefully this next year that will change and we’ll be able to really get back on the road with these things. Working groups are really important and this is a chance for industry folks to sit with a group of peers on a topic that they’re all interested in and share really what they’re doing along their journey.

[00:11:37] Gary Fischer, PE: We’re also bringing in, if you will, outside speakers to these working groups to be provocative and looking at how to bring next practices into these segments. We’ve got an energy working group that’s our most advanced and active group so far. Really excited about some of the things we’ve seen there and the conversations we’ve had.

[00:11:56] Gary Fischer, PE: We’ve got a ship building and ship repair working group that’s getting off the ground, and we’re going to expect really good things from these folks. They have some really unique challenges within this space, particularly with repair. We’re also launching an industrialized construction working group. And I’m going to say if any of these topics are of particular interest to you, you know, drop me a note because we’re always looking to add participants to each one of these working groups.

[00:12:25] Gary Fischer, PE: And now I’m at a really special point in the presentation here and we get to give out the 2021 PPI Technical Achievement Award. This award is given out to an individual that we believe has had a significant contribution of thought leadership and production management presented, taught at symposium and SIM seminars.

[00:12:47] Gary Fischer, PE: It’s open to academics and practitioners alike. Some of the past recipients are here on the slide. Today’s award recipient is in some pretty interesting and good company, and without further ado, it gives me great pleasure to announce this year’s award to James Choo. James, can you turn on your camera?

[00:13:16] Gary Fischer, PE: There he is. Congratulations James. James is a chief technical officer of Strategic Project Solutions and has been leading research and development of SPS knowledge process systems support, implementation of SPS offerings since 2001. Since joining SPS, James has worked with various organizations in oil and gas, heavy industrial, civil, aerospace, defense, just any industry involved in construction around the world.

[00:13:47] Gary Fischer, PE: I mean, it’s been a global activity of adopting and using project production management solutions. James has kind of a unique history here with PPM as he personally developed the world’s first last planner. Along with one of the first work packaging applications, he created a parade of trades computer simulations in the mid to late 1990s.

[00:14:15] Gary Fischer, PE: Prior to joining SPS, his roles included construction site engineer, research associate, teaching assistant at universities and software developer. He’s also been developing computer systems for implementation of lean construction since 1997. During his PhD studies at UC Berkeley, James earned a master’s degree in civil engineering from Y University Korea, and a PhD in construction, engineering and management from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at UC Berkeley.

[00:14:48] Gary Fischer, PE: James, I really can’t think of a more deserving person for this recognition, for your deep contributions to all things PPM, your ever patient mentoring, particularly with me and your technical brilliance. So James, over to you.

[00:15:08] Gary Fischer, PE: Thank you. Thank you,

[00:15:09] H.J. James Choo, PhD: Gary. It’s a great honor to be the recipient of this year’s PPI Technical Achievement Award. I’m not sure whether I’ve yet reached a point in my career to deserve such a prestigious award, but I take it as a recognition for all the great work that everyone at SPS and PPI have done and are doing. Personally I’ll endeavor to fulfill the high expectation that my colleagues and friends have set for me.

[00:15:38] H.J. James Choo, PhD: I always consider myself a very fortunate person. I always had the best of luck inviting teachers who pose important, their hard questions and collaborators who share a common vision. In that regard, I’d like to thank everyone at SPS and PPI, past and current, as well as all of our customers, partners, and members for making our pursuit possible.

[00:16:02] H.J. James Choo, PhD: And I would like to give special thanks to Todd R. Zabelle for your 20 plus years of leadership and Robert Darlow for 28 plus years of collaboration. I would also like to thank Professor Iris Tommelein for pointing me in this direction early in my career. Again, thank you again for the award and I look forward to working with you all in improving the performance of the industry.

[00:16:29] H.J. James Choo, PhD: Welcome to your symposium.

[00:16:32] Gary Fischer, PE: All right, thank you, James. Well deserved. Thank you. So let’s talk a little bit about 2022 and beyond. We’ve got another big year planned. Just in a quick summary, we’re going to expand certification globally. We’re looking for two universities outside of the U.S., probably one in the Middle East and one in the Far East to expand our certification program.

[00:16:59] Gary Fischer, PE: Targeted at people and the activities that are going on in those areas. We began working on the undergraduate curriculum. I mean, it’s science and we need to be teaching this science along with all the other sciences that folks in college or university get along the way. So when they come out of it

[00:17:20] Gary Fischer, PE: with a bachelor degree in something. They are also armed with it, with the science that governs project performance. We’re going to be looking at additional work around partnerships. We’ve got some very active work going on there, and we’re going to look at adding probably two more working groups. Our current thoughts are to add one around intelligent production

[00:17:41] Gary Fischer, PE: and, and one on energy transition. We think that the whole energy transition one is really ripe for the robust application of project production, management thinking and methods. We’ve reached out to trade associations. These are the folks that represent what our subcontractors work on, on many projects like electrical and HVAC and those kinds of things.

[00:18:10] Gary Fischer, PE: They have really robust training efforts that go with that, and we’d like to see a PPM get embedded into those training efforts. And of course, expanding PPM services and looking for endorsing providers of services, endorsing providers of the tools that are used for application of PPM. So if you’ve got an interest in any of these, again, please drop me a note and we’ll get you involved more deeply.

[00:18:38] Gary Fischer, PE: So that’s a snapshot forward, we’ve got another big year ahead and I’ll turn it back over to you, Roberto.

[00:18:44] Roberto J. Arbulu: Thank you, Gary. I have actually a, well, a couple of things. First of all, congratulations on the Technical Achievement Award. Very, very well deserved and pleasure also to have had the chance to work with you over the years.

[00:19:05] Roberto J. Arbulu: Gary, just a couple of comments. So pretty impressive what I think PPI has been doing and is planning to do. You’re talking about certifications, you’re talking about obviously professional certifications, right? You’re talking about efforts with the industry council that has been expanded quite significantly.

[00:19:27] Roberto J. Arbulu: People from different sectors of the industry, ship building, oil and gas technology, companies that are investing in data centers and a variety of organizations coming from different parts of the world. Right? This is important to highlight. This is not only for U.S.-based but is for anyone that is truly interested, as, Gary, you highlighted, to really optimize the delivery of capital projects, right.

[00:20:00] Roberto J. Arbulu: The research and the publications. For those of you who are joining us today and might not be aware, it’s important to highlight that PPI is, you know, going back to what you said, Gary, through a lot of publications online, putting this on LinkedIn, and so there are different ways of accessing the content that PPI creates and disseminates with the objective of creating a body of knowledge of PPM and the use of alien technologies.

[00:20:35] Roberto J. Arbulu: Right? (Yep.) This idea of PPI Thinking, I found this to be a great idea on, you know, as you said, doing short write-ups on a specific topic or a specific group of ideas. (Right.) And incentivize thinking people in the industry to really look at how they manage the project differently. (Right.) What might be potentially the gaps that they might be missing when it comes to optimizing the delivery of capital projects?

[00:21:09] Roberto J. Arbulu: I’m sure that in 2022, given the conditions globally, we should find an opportunity to restart the in-person seminars. But I’m sure that people will also have the opportunity to look at multiple webinars, not only by PPI, but also probably in partnership with other organizations in other parts of the world.

[00:21:37] Roberto J. Arbulu: And the last comment about the working groups. You mentioned the working groups. There are two new working groups that you mentioned that are going to be created. This is very important, just sort of reflecting what I heard, Gary, here. So if there’s something I missed that you think is important in the message.

[00:21:58] Roberto J. Arbulu: You know, the working groups will become a very important sort of engine that also we incentivize organizations to explore and do proof of concept and look at really making modern construction a reality, right? (Yep.) Not only about PPM, it’s also about using— enabling technologies, digital technologies, as you mentioned.

[00:22:23] Roberto J. Arbulu: (Right.) One question for you, Gary, very quickly, since we have a little bit of time: can you say more about the certification in terms of timing? You mentioned programs with Cal Poly, you mentioned programs With Texas A&M. Different formats, different structures, potentially different target audiences. (Yeah.)

[00:22:45] Roberto J. Arbulu: Can you elaborate a bit more? I think this is something that the industry has been waiting for for quite a long time, and when can they access the certification programs in 2022?

[00:22:58] Gary Fischer, PE: Okay. Very, just really quickly, the first in the queue is the Cal Poly program, and again, this is more targeted towards the general building sector or anyone looking to take work offsite and do that effectively.

[00:23:12] Gary Fischer, PE: The first class is going to be December 2 and 3, and am I closing? I’ll give a little announcement on where you can find that information, but you can go to the Cal Poly website or to the PPI website and get access and get enrolled, so we’d encourage you to do that. The first class with Texas A&M will be in March of next year.

[00:23:31] Gary Fischer, PE: And then with Stanford we’re taking applications. So as soon as we select a couple of companies, we’ll be working with those companies to design those programs and get them launched. So all three are live, all three are moving forward and well into the design and ready to implement phase.

[00:23:48] Roberto J. Arbulu: Excellent. Thank you, Gary, so much and given the time and our agenda, we will transition to our next session. So thank you very much for the PPI update.