PM 571
July 27, 2015
Project Management Concepts and Applications The scope of this project is to develop a compressor station as a green field installation in Nueces County, TX. This new compressor station will gather natural gas from various producers in the Eagle Ford Area, compress and deliver it via a 42-inch pipeline to customers in Mexico. Two separate pipeline systems will deliver natural gas from the various producers to the station. One system designated as the Low Pressure Header (LP) will operate between 600-750 PSIG. The second system will operate between 700-900 PSIG and will be designated as the High Pressure Header. The gas from each pipeline system will go through separate inlet gas scrubbers, compressed via two parallel electric-driven centrifugal compressors, cooled and discharged to a common header operating at a maximum pressure of 1480 PSIG. This discharge header will connect to the 42” Export Pipeline and the 36” Green Mile Pipeline The station design is for safe, continuous and reliable service, ease of maintenance and operation, mechanical protection of equipment, minimum pressure and power losses. The station will also be capable of remote starting, remote set point operation, alarm status monitoring, and remote stopping. The initial flow capacity should be of one billion standard cubic feet per day (BCF/d) to be in service by December 1st, 2014. An additional flow capacity of 1.1 BCF/d for a total 2.1 BCF/d will be in service by December 1st, 2015. Project Definition A project is a temporary endeavor, sometimes complex, governed by time, cost, resource, and performance specifications to meet or create a unique product, result or service (Larson, 2011, p. 5). Larson (2011) lists five characteristics to identify a project. According to the reading, the description above is a project because of the following characteristics: 1. The objective is clear - to develop a compressor station. 2. The end date is December 2015.
3. The scope requires cooperation from multiple engineering disciplines, procurement, survey, and field installation departments 4. The scope clearly states that this is a new compressor station 5. The expected performance parameters are clear and concise regarding flow capacity. Organizational Structure Organizational structure is the hierarchy by which a corporation, organization or business collaborates to achieve a set of common goals and objectives. The way these hierarchical structures intermingle with each other affects the effectiveness of that organization. The functional organization is a where each employee has one clear superior. Staff members contribute by specialty, such as accounting, production, engineering, and marketing at the top level. Specialties may be further subdivided into focused functional units, such as electrical and mechanical engineering. Each department in a functional organization will do its project work independently of other departments as shown by the project organization chart below.
Functional organizations have the advantage of simplicity, but minimize encouragement of interdepartmental cooperation (Clark, 2013). Functional organizations allow the employee to focus on the specific function and in a way only reflect their specialization and focuses on his or her own goals and may lead to short-term thinking. The agendas of a department's