| I stumbled upon a great article that goes into detail on Front End Loading (FEL). According to: http://www.halliburton.com/public/landmark/contents/Papers_and_Articles/web/OGFJ_July2008.pdf, “Front End Loading (FEL) is a methodology that takes a deliberate approach to capital project planning.” The FEL methodology is currently being applied by many operators to optimize asset production operations and well construction design and maintenance.” So we see a lot of planning or even brainstorming that takes place before the actual implementation process. The benefits to having FEL is that a lot of kinks can be worked out from a design phase standpoint. For example, when we see a website being built out unsuccessfully it usually leads clients to be unsatisfied. Many web companies in my time have no idea what customers want on their website. The designer goes ahead and builds a site without having any interaction with the customer. What is lacking here is a person or a team (specifically an implementation team) to discuss the scope of the project. With this, we find out exactly what our customers want and expect. The way things should be handled is that we find out absolutely everything we need to know from the customer the first time around, so that an easy and smooth transition can be made with building the websites out. And this can apply to many projects in general, not just in IT. The PDF mentions about identifying risks and opportunities that can lead to a successful project implementation. The cons about having FEL are that it does take some time and money before the project is actually being implemented. Also getting too involved may delay the project’s overall turnaround time for delivery. If a project has been routinely done and the persons involved knows what they’re doing, then the FEL process can be simplified or even eliminated. Many professionals do know or have some familiarty with FEL, but have not really implemented it. With new product development in Japan, their process goes so fast that there may not be any time to come up with a FEL plan as indicated from the article by CAPS research, http://www.capsresearch.org/publications/pdfs-public/capsjapan2009es.pdf (pg 7). This probably occurs in a lot of other companies as well. The document also points out what Japan focuses on FEL: 1. Customer focus centering on doing the right things 2. Cycle-time reduction focusing on doing them correctly So we can see that FEL can have its benefits but it also takes a lot of time and research (at least during it’s ititiating process) to get it going. With FEL, much of the heavy work is done in the beginning so that errors and issues can be minimized or even eliminated during the climax or towards the end of the project. Company exepectations is so high at times because new products and services are being released at a rapid rate; it's hard to imagine that FEL is being applied. But because industries move so quickly, so must project managers and how they initiate plans and execute them making projects succesful. |
Comments