Amélioration de la gestion de la charge de travail de John Cockerill Industry Liège via une étude de cas

Abstract

Workload and schedule management is a major concern for companies that have based their income system on project development, namely Project-Based Organizations (PBO). A better control of project schedules and (human) resources leads to a better control of costs and margin: every delay in a project incurs additional costs in penalties and/or overspendings. The Belgian entity of John Cockerill Industry Metals (JCM) is one of these PBO whose core business is based on the design and the erection of cold rolling mills and strip processing lines. This activity takes the form of multiple projects for different clients. The objective of this study is to improve the management of the workload required to carry-out ongoing and potential new projects, by proposing a solution that gives a better vision of the resources needed over the duration of each project. An initial analysis of the procedures and operations within John Cockerill Industry Metals was performed. This analysis was based on the study of a specific project involving a technology of strategic interest for the entity in the field of galvanizing lines; it revealed possible improvements in time evaluation and project monitoring procedures. The proposed solution is based on the theory of the Work Breakdow System (WBS), combined with a tool to assess the duration of each WBS activity and the overall project duration using improved PERT formulas and Monte-Carlo simulation. This solution should allow a better evaluation of project duration and thus a more accurate assessment of the total project workload and resources. Planning a project is however not sufficient: any project involves risks which materialise in the occurrence of events that disrupt its progress. It is therefore important to early identify deviations and to evaluate their potential consequences in order to react properly. To address this issue, the Earned Value Management, a highly effective monitoring method has been introduced.