IBC 2023 Highlights Market Trends, Fast Schedules, and More
The 2023 annual meeting of the Industry Benchmarking Consortium (IBC 2023) will be in person for the first time since 2020. The IBC and its focused sub-committees drive continuous capital project system improvement for the world’s leading companies in the manufacturing, energy, and infrastructure industries. Held at the Lansdowne Resort in Leesburg, Virginia, on March 20 to 22, 2023, IBC 2023 includes new industry research study presentations, industrial sector breakout sessions, and project performance competitiveness briefings for large and site and sustaining capital projects. The annual meeting also provides opportunities for networking with attendees from other owner companies who are leading initiatives to improve capital project delivery.
IBC 2023 includes a keynote speech by IPA Founder and President Edward Merrow and the following new research studies:
Market Trends in Capital Projects
This research study outlines the state of the overall industry macroeconomic market condition and its implications on capital projects and project systems. We will discuss procurement and supply chain trends based on recent project data in IPA’s proprietary database and also share the industry’s perceptions on the supply chain, escalation trends, and engineering and construction labor market from our market survey.
Remote/Hybrid Working Models
The COVID-19 pandemic changed how project teams work together. Teams had to react quickly to adapt to change, and many of those adaptations have evolved over time from temporary solutions to the “new normal,” with variable success. This study looked at how project teams have organized and adapted to the project work environment since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fast Schedules
Following up on an IBC 2018 study on how (and why) to go fast at the project level, this study explores speed from the system perspective: What are the organizational system constraints and enablers of going fast? This study will answer the following questions: What type of organizational structure promotes successfully schedule-driven targets? What planning action items need to happen and when to promote schedule-driven success? How important is the business sponsor and their continued role? What types of projects are inherently faster and what conclusions can we draw from the findings?
Construction Safety Performance
Over the many years that IPA has benchmarked construction safety, it has shown a steady improvement trend. However, over the last few years, that trend has plateaued. Although the averages have leveled off, IPA observes that some member companies achieve construction safety performance that is much better than average, which indicates that the current industry average does not represent some theoretical lower limit or that there is no room for continued improvement for most IBC companies. This study uses IPA’s data to explain the relatively large gaps in performance between the companies with the best safety performance and the rest of Industry to provide IBC members with specific recommendations that the best performing companies implement to drive their superior results.
The IBC is a voluntary association of owner firms in the chemical, petroleum, minerals processing, food and consumer products, life sciences, pulp and paper, and power and infrastructure industries that employ IPA’s quantitative benchmarking approach to improve the value from their capital project systems. Through benchmarkings of both large and site-based systems conducted by IPA, IBC member companies receive exclusive insights into how their capital project systems and project outcomes stack up against their industry peers with respect to safety, cost, schedule, and operational performance. Member companies agree to support the continuous improvement of their own capital processes through measuring and comparing performance metrics.
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