AACE Bulletin
India Section
Despite the continued spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and the second wave hitting India hard in early 2021, the India Section continues to conduct programs on virtual platforms. Thanks to the continued efforts of the section board and the members, the section has conducted four virtual technical lectures, two virtual technical series event, one student outreach program and two member connect programs.
The India Section’s virtual member connect program – Coffee With the India Section – provides an opportunity for the section members to meet representatives from AACE International. The section conducted two sessions:
- 25th Apr 2021: Shoshanna Fraizinger, Vice President, Education Board, AACE International and now President-Elect.
- 28th Feb 2021: Sivakumar Venkatasubramanian, President, India Section
Pragya, the monthly lecture series conducted by the section, has seen good participation from the industry members within India and the region. Pragya, as host of these technical sessions, covered a wide range of topics.
Recent Programs
On January 23, Laurie Bowman presented a program titled, “A Guide for Designing a Meaningful Risk Matrix.” The program proposed an approach that can satisfy the needs of both qualitative and quantitative approaches to risk management with the intention of developing a risk matrix that is more meaningful and useful for stakeholders. Key aspects in the design process include ensuring appropriate mathematical scaling of likelihood and consequence categories and identifying the risk tolerances of the organization. This presentation provided guidelines for setting up a well-scaled matrix so that the categorizations of risk value are more consistent, resulting in improved communication and decision-making for the projects, programs and portfolios that use them.
Also in January, P.K. Vijay, of the Central Project Organization, ITC Limited, presented a program titled, “Digitalization of Construction, A Case Study –The Indian Context.” This presentation was a case study on the evolution journey of digitalization and how it helped users to survive the disruption of project schedule due to the pandemic. The challenges and myths, cost, talent acquisition, and the Indian construction ecosystem. The paradox “discipline through digitalization or digitalization through discipline.
In February, Lakshmi Narayanan, Head of Project Controls for Larsen & Toubro presented a program on “Project Management in Mega Construction Projects.” With the ever-increasing size of mega projects over the past two decades, effective project management techniques, innovations and project facilitation methods are the need of the hour. This lecture presented a case study on an ongoing airport project where project monitoring and control systems were effectively used, along with digitized communication management and 4D BIM.
Also in February, Abdullah Akpinar, managing director, PCM Project Controls Services Ltd., and president of the Turkish Section, presented a program “The Covid-19 Pandemic and Impacts on the Construction Industry.” Construction industry players have experienced varying degrees of impacts because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The nature of the impact and extent of the ramifications are in large part dependent upon the location of both the respective businesses and underlying projects. This lecture highlighted the need for industry members to address both short -term and long-term business challenges, as well as formulating project-by-project solutions in the face of the new global and national environment.
In March, Alwyn Noronha presented a program titled, “Cost Management –Challenges in Construction Projects.” The talk was on the role of costs, how it loses prominence in managing projects and how this leads to cost overruns.
Also in March, Purushothaman Srinath, a research scholar with IIT Madras, presented a program titled, “Project Planning and Control –A Primer.” The talk provided an overview on application of time management techniques like Gantt charts, CPM and PDM, linear scheduling, theory of constraints and critical chain project management.
In April, Muhammad AzriAhmad Baharom, a director of the Malaysia Section and a technical professional (TP) and principal engineer in planning and scheduling with PETRONAS, as well as KhairulHafiz Zolkipli, a technical professional (TP) staff engineer in planning and scheduling with PETRONAS, presented a program titled, “Agile Approach Through Timeboxing in Mega Project -First Fully Automated Petrochemical Clad-Rack Warehouse in Southeast Asia at RAPID Mega Project.” The presentation discussed that delivering a MEGA project is often seen as very challenging especially in a complex and integrated facility like a refinery and petrochemical integrated development (RAPID) projects in Malaysia with investment of more than USD25 Billion. Each facility or package require to be planned and organized in order to ensure timely completion of the package, sub package and integrated system while supporting the whole project objective. The lecture described the method of planning used for the Automated Petrochemical Clad-Rack Warehouse Project adopting Agile approach via time boxing methodology.
On May 15, Raju N Rao, a speaker, author and entrepreneur, presented a program titled, “Getting the Most Out of a WBS.” The talk highlighted the concept and technique of WBS in applying it dynamically and how it can work when organizations are constantly changing strategy. It answered the question, “Can the type and method of decomposition be done depending on the purpose for the project and organization, the project domain or sector, and phase of the project?” It also addressed how can the connection between projects and strategy be better understood using WBS as a tool.
In Other India Section News
Student Outreach—The India section is also actively engaging with the student community through university connect programs. Since the first meeting between the India section and the Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science (HITS) University in February 2021, a HITS- India Section taskforce has been formed to oversee the development of this collaboration. On 15th May 2021, an India Section Student Section was launched at HITS. HITS is interested to offer its students certification courses on cost engineering and TCM at various levels and is also keen on creating a post graduate program on cost engineering in association with AACE in due course. Since the first meeting between the India Section and HITS University in February 2021, a HITS-India Section taskforce has been formed to oversee the development of this collaboration. HITS students have been included in the India Section knowledge sharing sessions to create awareness of AACE and its offerings for professional development.
TECHNICAL SERIES—The section also conducted two technical series spanning five hours each under its SCUBA series.
The March 21 series was on “Project Portfolio Risk Management” by Laurie Bowman and Emmanuel Mulambya. The program focused on essential and specialized knowledge areas under risk management, aligned with AACE’s Skills and Knowledge for Cost Engineering professionals. The event was well received from participants from various sections within the region.
The May 21 session was titled “Planning, Scheduling, Progress and Performance of Projects, Programs and Portfolio,” conducted by Girish Dhavalikar and Sankar Subrahmaniyam. The session covered various topics of sections 3 and 4 of the AACE’s Skills & Knowledge of Cost Engineering, Edition 6, including a case study.