---

Building on the success of its project manager approach for complex multi-national offshore projects, ABS has created a new Project Development Group to expand the concept to a broader range of contracts.

“The ABS project manager is the on-site coordinator,” says Bob Major, Senior Principal Engineer and a member of the new group. “We provide a centralized control that stretches across engineering and surveyor disciplines, across nations and considers every classification related aspect of the project including all the vendor suppliers.”

John Burson, Manager of the Project Development Group, explains that a typical complex new construction project for an offshore facility, that may carry a total price tag of over a billion dollars, can be extraordinarily complex.

“The client may be based in the US, the principal construction could be taking place in Korea with sub-block assemblies contracted to a yard in China. The equipment may be coming from countries throughout Europe, South America, the US and Asia, and the facility is destined for installation off West Africa. ABS engineering offices in three, four or five countries could all have some involvement in the plan review process. Survey staff is involved at the principal yard, at the yards handling the sub-assemblies and at the plants across the world that are supplying the vast quantities of equipment,” Burson explains.

“The project manager’s task is to orchestrate all these different activities so that everything is handled properly and on time. We have found that by assigning a project manager the coordination is vastly improved and the possibility for mistakes and, just as critically, delays is substantially reduced.”

Bob Major adds that the benefits are twofold. Not only does the client receive superior service but ABS itself also gains organizational efficiencies.