Guiding projects through from inception to completion can be a daunting task fraught with hurdles. And more often than not projects fail to deliver completely on the original intended business benefits.

There are many reasons for this but the three primary areas where projects typically run into problems are:

• The early project stages where a lack of definition of initial requirements and scope can derail a project from the start.
• A lack of requisite skills and knowledge, be it project or technical skills.
• A limited governance and process framework.

Scope Australia’s Project Services are designed to tackle all three problem areas, as well as introduce innovative and pro-active measures that ensure your projects get completed on time, within budget and without compromising on the overall business objectives desired.

The objective of Project Services is to apply a consistent work process for all commissions that proactively identifies trends, risks and scope & design changes. The early identification of change to a project’s course allows much needed and crucial time for the relevant Project Services work-stream to assess the potential impact of the change and where appropriate take corrective action to improve the final outcome. This coupled with ongoing evaluation of lessons learned ensures a continuous process of improvement.

Our Project Services consist of a blend of traditional and innovative consultancy services that are tailored to your specific project needs. The services are available right across a project’s life cycle, from inception to feasibility and execution, all the way to commissioning and closeout. You can either utilize our services for your complete project life cycle, or we can tailor a solution to a specific phase of your project.

No matter what your requirement, you’ll find our services offer significant value with our ability to baseline, track and manage performance of project delivery in each phase.

Our Project Services provide the following four core areas of service:

• Estimating
• Project Controls
• Contracts and Procurement
• Specialist Services

Estimating

Estimating the cost of a project plays a primary role in the decision-making process when considering project and development opportunities. It’s crucial to spend sufficient time and resource expertise on cost estimating, given that it is a cornerstone of analysis and management decision-making.

The Estimating service within Scope Australia provides you with:

• Estimates of progressively increasing accuracy at every stage of the project development.
• An accompanying ‘Basis of Estimate’ document to communicate the ‘class of estimate’, rates, prices, assumptions and all interpretations affecting cost.
• A comprehensive estimate framework for all estimates, built up using a range of data, comprising historic, first principle and, where appropriate 3rd party specialist pricing.
• Should it be required, the outputs of each estimate can also include risk, probability and contingency analysis.

A key aspect of our Estimating Service is that all estimate data is structured to provide a cost breakdown that aligns with the project work breakdown structure at the earliest opportunity. This goes a long way in facilitating good project and business financial control.

Project Controls

Cost Management & Quantity Surveying

Cost management and quantity surveying are key services that must be integrated in terms of function and output and our Project Controls provides these services as a co-ordinated suite. They are closely linked within the system we use and it’s fundamental for these areas of expertise to work closely together and align as early as possible so work and cost breakdown structures are synchronized for optimum interaction and integration.

The services provided under Cost Management & Quantity Surveying include:

• Progress, variation and final account agreement
• Project dashboard reporting
• Portfolio and program management services
• Asset capitalisation
• Preparation of bills of quantities and MTOs to various standards and formats
• Estimate and measurement review
• Tracking of progress and cost forecasting

Project Planning

Our project planning services are set up to integrate with the cost management and quantity surveying services so that function and output continue to be aligned. We provide a comprehensive project planning service to carry out the establishment, maintenance and subsequent revision of a project’s schedule.

We have experience in Primavera P6 - generally accepted as the mainstream industry standard - but can also provide services in Microsoft Project as required.

Key components of the service are:

• Ensuring that contract requirements are met and checks are made with respect to schedule preparation, management, control, resources, and reporting.
• Analyse engineering and procurement activities, durations and integration.
• Ensuring that schedule resource loading and levelling is appropriate and adjustments to forward resourcing is consistent with progress.
• Provide ‘rolled up’, executive summary and sub-project schedules for consistency and consolidation to the Client and project team.
• Create Project Milestone tables.
• Administer the Schedule Reserve.
• Provide interpretation and visibility to the project team relative to schedule as needed.

Contracts and Procurement

The development and implementation of a procurement and contracting strategy is one of the key success factors in the management and delivery of a project.

No matter what the contracts - be it with customers, vendors, partners, or employees - contract management is vital. Our contract and procurement services take the hassle out of negotiating the terms and conditions of contracts and ensuring compliance with those terms and conditions. They also ensure documentation and agreement on any changes that may arise during implementation or execution.

The key objective of this service is to structure an arrangement for the provision of engineering, procurement, construction and management services in a way that deals effectively with the entire scope of project issues, requirements, objectives and risks.

By providing integrated, reliable, and cost-efficient contract management services, we help ensure the success of your projects. We achieve this by:

• Utilizing a pool of experienced professionals with knowledge of local laws, markets, customs, and procurement practices.
• Careful assessment, selection and qualification of appropriate and capable suppliers and contractors.
• Establishing and maintaining relationships with key manufacturing and contractor organizations.
• Integration with engineering, technical and quality inspection disciplines to ensure the appropriate quality goods and services are provided at the right time and at the right price.
• Management of the tender process, including technical and commercial clarifications and evaluations.
• Sound contract and claims management / administration.

Specialist Services

Our specialist services are a range of additional ‘early project’ services that harness the core technical service and expertise within our Project Controls work-stream as well as specialist consultancy experience to offer you the following:

• Study and Feasibility Management.
• Preparation of Bankable Feasibility Studies.
• Facilitation of Risk Management Workshops and reporting thereon.
• Project Initiation service to set your project up to meet business objectives.
• Earned value performance measurement to the latest Australian Standards.

This range of ‘bolt-on’ services is an innovative offering that’s designed to give you a specific, tailored service to a single phase of your project, prior to authorisation and approval to proceed. The set-up and execution of these services are designed to offer integration and alignment to your way of doing business, so that when a project moves into a ‘live’ status the key drivers and attributes to set the project up for success are clearly in place.