How many people does it take to manage a new building and equipment installation? What is the best way to manage a project? Do professional project managers get better results than those who are a first time project manager? What are some of the project budget busters?

Several years ago the NAA decided that rather than have the traditional individual seminars throughout the year they would consolidate these seminars for prepress, press, packaging, and health and safety into one week at one location. This reduced staff time, expenses, and attendees' travel costs.

At this year's NAA SuperConference in Phoenix I chaired a panel on building and press installations. We had the opportunity to explore these questions.

When a project is complete, regardless of the pain and suffering that the managers had gone through they are generally happy and positive about the projects. Kristy Gerry, Production Director of the Omaha (Nebraska) World-Herald identified the rational behind these feelings.

She stated as the months passed since the startup, the memories of the pain and suffering seemed to diminish. She observed this might be due to the same reason that women have more than one child by stating "when the birth occurs the result is so special that you soon forget about the negatives and that is the same thing with a new building".

All projects have unexpected negative surprises. The projects that each panelist had been involved in were no exception. Bill Moore, President and COO of George R. Hall Contracting, a company specializing in press erections and rebuilding, referred to some of the surprises as "budget busters." He sited a budget buster example that occurred when he was the project director for the new Cleveland (Ohio) Plain Dealer building.

When the presses were delivered, which was in the winter months, the press hall did not have heat. He was forced to rent high output gas heaters so the press could be installed properly. This was not budgeted and it became extremely expensive to maintain a temperature of 55°F/13°C.

Another common budget buster is not providing adequate provisions for the trucks and the access into the building. The more difficult the removal and movement of units and folders into the building, the more it will cost. All erecting contracts state that there should be adequate access and openings. If there is not, then added costs can occur for the buyer.

This would include providing an almost level approach to the building. This is required because some trailers have only 18"/46 cm clearance. If the building approach, including turning radius, is not adequate and able to support 75,000 pounds/34,000 kg, the buyer will have to pay for additional site work, which can really be a budget buster.

Surprises come from different interpretations of contract clauses. This is particularly true when off shore suppliers are new to the American market. The standards or accepted way of doing business are different in other countries.

Running the IFRA press acceptance test is one example. The IFRA document is silent on how long the press will run before samples are pulled. A publisher was taken back when he went to check on the acceptance test and found out the press was running for three hours and no samples had been pulled.

He asked when the test would be concluded and the printer running the test stated it could take another couple hours. At that point the test was stopped. The publisher"s reasoning was that his run was only 1.5 hours long and what did he care what the press did after four or five hours and why should he waste the newsprint.

He disagreed with the way the test was being conducted and the test documents were not definitive.

This misunderstanding might have been avoided had Moore's advice to "discuss all issues" so everyone understands what the clauses and words mean. Unfortunately, this is not often done.

"There will be surprises because the buyers' and the sellers' representatives are human," said Mike Sheehan, Vice President, Production for the Wall Street Journal. "The challenge is to minimize the surprises by planning."

The Wall Street Journal's press additions to 19 presses and 17 locations took over three years and 12 to 18 months of planning. "When you think you have done enough planning, do a little bit more," suggested Sheehan.

Planning was critical to the Wall Street Journal's success. They only had two days a week when the presses could be out of commission and there could not be any risk that the presses would be back on line for the Monday edition. To further complicate the project, the Wall Street Journal decided to reconfigure many of the presses so they were all identical.

This meant moving units from one side of the press to the other and making changes within the press. Then they added towers. "We never lost a color position, pages or edition because it was planned well," Sheehan stated.

The challenge for Jack Stanley, Senior Vice President, Operations & Technology, Houston (Texas) Chronicle, was to integrate the Houston Post's offset presses to print the Chronicle. The project involved rebuilding and the reconfiguration of all the presses and the surprises were many.

The approaches to creating a project schedule were very different. The president of the Omaha World-Herald determined that the new press and building would be operational by September 1, 2002. The Wall Street Journal determined the schedule based on the task that needed to be done.

In both cases, when the date was set, the schedule was expected to be met. As Sheehan stated, "time matters and money motivates." There will be tension created by the schedule and pushing to meet the deadline. This creative tension, as Gerry calls it, is good for the project.

Both of these approaches worked in this case. However, as I was quoted in the Ann Arbor (Michigan) newspaper, the number one …, and two and three and four reasons new installations have trouble that affects advertising or circulation was starting up before the operation was ready.

Time based schedules rather than event based schedules on new equipment can be deadly. A press going on edition before it and the crew are ready is a receipt for unhappy customers and bosses.

Training of the crews was a critical part of the Wall Street Journal's and Omaha World-Herald's plan. The training results are best when there are specialist conducting the training. They have to understand the equipment and how to train. We see training programs becoming better, but many are not based on the people accomplishing the specific results.

They are 'rub on training', which means that the operator is exposed to training and it is hoped that the training is understood. It is much like rubbing sun tan lotion on and hoping it will prevent sunburn. If it is not strong enough or does not cover all the exposed areas, it will not be effective and pain will follow.

Good planning provides the basis for good schedules. Good schedules provides the basis for good communication, monitoring and successful completion. The more detailed a schedule, the more thought and discussion of issues will take place. The more understanding everyone has of the schedule elements and its respective responsibilities, the better the chances will be for minimal surprises.

A good schedule was once described, by a production manager whose name has been forgotten, as a living and breathing document. He chose this analogy to stress the point that it should not be considered as a document that is done one time and then posted on the wall and forgotten.

Every project schedule will have changes and these changes can affect other elements of the project. Therefore, it has to be able to be modified and the affect of a change to other elements has to be understood.

This may be one of the reasons the Wall Street Journal felt they could not advocate the managing of the project to an outside source. They felt they would lose control of the project if they were not actively involved.

The Omaha World-Herald had a unique approach to managing their complex project. They assigned supervisors and managers to each equipment installation. They assigned the people based on their management ability and their knowledge of the area. A circulation manager was responsible for the cart system for transporting bundles to the truck and then to the distribution center, for example.

This team of 14 people met weekly to report the progress and in some cases made arrangements for facilities of services their manufacturer needed. This provided a lot of overview of the projects and created a sense of team between the manufacturers and the newspaper.

Assigning so many people to the elements resulted in more over site than any project manager could possibly have had. It created an ownership relationship with the managers. This is fitting, as they are an employee owned company.

The Omaha World-Herald, made a jump from letterpress to offset and by-passed traditional plates systems by installing Computer to Plate (CTP). They changed their entire operation.

The hardware is only one part of an installation and according to Gerry, is the easiest part. The process and the interdependencies of the various departments is what takes the time to change and to get it right.

"An integrated work flow involves every corner of the operation," said Gerry. As an example, they identified 132 deadlines, from reporters to plate room that had to be met to meet their delivery times. They reviewed and monitored these deadlines daily.

All the processes have to be right before the hardware can be effectively utilized and the obligations to the advertisers and readers can be met. This has to be accomplished before the launch.

They all agreed that good results start with a good plan and good results happen when there is good project management present.