IBC 2017 Showcases Capital Projects Best Practices and New Research

The annual meeting of the Industry Benchmarking Consortium (IBC) is being held March 20-23, 2017, at the Lansdowne Resort in Leesburg, Virginia. A voluntary association of owner firms in the capital intensive industries, the IBC fosters improved effectiveness of its members’ project systems, resulting in more competitive capital project outcomes. Pharmaceuticals, commodity chemicals, refining, pipeline, mining, power, and infrastructure industries will all be in attendance at this year’s meeting. During the annual meeting, attendees representing business and project professionals of IBC member companies will review their overall performance in project cost, schedule, and other project metrics, as well as industry-contractor safety performance.

In addition, one entire day is dedicated to examining site-based project performance and practices. Sessions focusing on issues of interest to business professionals will be held. Networking breakouts will also take place. “Owner companies recognize the value of belonging to a professional association committed to improving the effectiveness and competitiveness of their capital project systems,” IBC Director Andrew Griffith said. “Owner companies not belonging to the IBC are less likely to deliver projects effectively, which is especially important for tight margin industries.”

The following new research is set to be delivered at IBC 2017:

Competency Series: The Construction Manager

In the wake of the demographic cliff, Industry can no longer use experience as a viable way to select and staff personnel to projects. Other attributes must be considered. The purpose of this study is to identify the characteristics that drive better performance in the owner construction manager role. The study identifies specific qualities associated with better performing construction managers and provides context for how companies can use the findings to better staff their projects.

Making Project System Change Efforts Successful

Companies periodically initiate change efforts to drive better results from their capital projects. The goal of this study is to identify the drivers of successful and unsuccessful change efforts to improve capital project performance.

Controlling the Overestimation of Project Cost

IPA has observed that project cost overestimating is endemic. This study guides project system managers in how to eliminate overestimates and reviews the types of projects and circumstances that make overestimating more likely.

Customer Focus

One of the basic tenets of any project improvement program is focusing on the customer, whether internal or external to the project organization. Having a customer focus involves identifying who the customer is, determining customer needs, building a customer focused culture, measuring customer engagement and satisfaction, and finally, incorporating what you learn back into the product or service. The objective of the study is to learn how owners apply the basic practices related to developing and maintaining an internal and external customer focus and share examples, tools, processes, and procedures of companies that do it well.

Site Organizations

This study identifies the primary types of site-based project organizations, in what locations and markets they are present, and what the apparent motivations are for organizing them in a certain way. The study then addresses how the strategic organization and staffing of a site affects its ability to achieve the practices necessary to manage and maintain an effective project system.

IPA has facilitated the IBC for more than 25 years. The industry outcomes and trends discussed during the IBC are representative of actual projects IPA has evaluated, and the research findings are derived from IPA databases with detailed information from more than 18,000 projects.


IBC 2017 EMEA ‘Roadshow’

IBC EMEA 2017 will take place May 11-12, 2017, at the World Trade Center in The Hague, The Netherlands. This day and a half conference is an opportunity to meet with companies that execute projects in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Russia.

Like IBC 2017 in Leesburg, Virginia, USA, the IBC 2017 EMEA “Roadshow” will feature the presentation of project performance metrics for large and small projects across the region. New IPA capital projects research presentations and project professional development sessions will be held.

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