Project Management

Highly Technical Project Spanning Four Years & Four Countries

Project Highlights

Project Length: 4 years

Project Budget: $4.5 Million

Core Number of People: 25

Individual Vendors: 6

Managed Work & Teams Across 4 Countries

To effectively meet complex manufacturing, installation, and timeline requirements, dedicated project management was required.

As part of a capital improvement at Los Alamos National Laboratory, two microscopes were purchased from Thermo Fisher Scientific. At the time of purchase, the laboratory for the microscopes was in the construction process. Each microscope from Thermo Fisher Scientific required manufacturing to custom specifications. Installation of the microscopes was in an area with a high level of safety and security requirements.

Long Lead-times

The customer wanted to take delivery of the microscopes as close to the time of installation as possible. The construction schedule that determined the installation start was continuously changing. Manufacturing lead times for the microscopes were up to one year.

Changing Project Requirements

As with all projects, there were changes. In particular, this project had a lot of significant changes. The changes included 20 contract modifications, a change to the overall contract risk level that significantly impacted the work, and an entire reshuffle of the customer’s project team.

Customer Review/Approval Process

There were close to 100 document submittals that required customer review and approval for work to progress. Each document submittal and revisions were reviewed by 5 to 10 different people.

Resource Inefficiency

Before Spin Digital Consulting’s hiring for project management, the customer’s team would default to the Account Manager and Field Service Engineers for questions or concerns. This approach was problematic for many reasons.

Project Plan & Schedule

Spin Digital Consulting developed a comprehensive project plan and schedule. These tools were critical in keeping the project moving forward. Dependant tasks and lead times were closely tracked. In project meetings, it was possible to get a realistic idea of how something such as a month delay for install readiness would impact the overall schedule.

Centralized Communications

With the high level of changes throughout the project, maintaining central communications was critical. With a Lead Project Manager and customer Procurement Engineer overseeing the entire project, the opportunity for mistakes was minimized.

Customer Relationship

Spin Digital Consulting’s customer relationship made dealing with the changing project requirements easier than it may have been. The tight working relationship made it possible to get the best results for all aspects of the project in challenging circumstances.

Resource Distribution

Having one overall Project Manager allowed for work to be distributed to the correct person rather than directed to the closest person.

Rick S. Procurement Engineering Lead - Los Alamos National Labretory

“The utilization of Spin Digital Consulting’s project management for the procurement, installation and testing of the TEM and SEM was a great beneﬁt to LANL. The dedicated project manager was a single point resource that was needed for the resolution of the complex situations and issues that occurred. The timely and accurate resolution of the issues was the primary reason that we were able to meet the delivery and installation milestone. The dedicated project manager was able to focus on LANL needs, conduct and organize roundtable to resolve issues, develop a workable and achievable success path, and had the foresight to look forward to mitigate potential issues.”

Dan G. Senior Account Manager - Thermo Fisher Scientific

“We could have gotten the Themis and Scios installed at LANL as early as we did without Spin Digital Consulting. In a way, it was customer success management in addition to project management. Additional sales were directly inﬂuenced by the direct project management.”

Steve G. Senior Service Manager - Thermo Fisher Scientific

“My team and I interfaced with Spin Digital Consulting on a regular basis and the demands from LANL were unprecedented. Having a project manager for this was key to our success.”

To effectively meet complex manufacturing, installation, and timeline requirements, dedicated project management was required.

As part of a capital improvement at Los Alamos National Laboratory, two microscopes were purchased from Thermo Fisher Scientific. At the time of purchase, the laboratory for the microscopes was in the construction process. Each microscope from Thermo Fisher Scientific required manufacturing to custom specifications. Installation of the microscopes was in an area with a high level of safety and security requirements.

Long Lead-times

The customer wanted to take delivery of the microscopes as close to the time of installation as possible. The construction schedule that determined the installation start was continuously changing. Manufacturing lead times for the microscopes were up to one year.

Changing Project Requirements

As with all projects, there were changes. In particular, this project had a lot of significant changes. The changes included 20 contract modifications, a change to the overall contract risk level that significantly impacted the work, and an entire reshuffle of the customer’s project team.

Customer Review/Approval Process

There were close to 100 document submittals that required customer review and approval for work to progress. Each document submittal and revisions were reviewed by 5 to 10 different people.

Resource Inefficiency

Before Spin Digital Consulting’s hiring for project management, the customer’s team would default to the Account Manager and Field Service Engineers for questions or concerns. This approach was problematic for many reasons.

Project Plan & Schedule

Spin Digital Consulting developed a comprehensive project plan and schedule. These tools were critical in keeping the project moving forward. Dependant tasks and lead times were closely tracked. In project meetings, it was possible to get a realistic idea of how something such as a month delay for install readiness would impact the overall schedule.

Centralized Communications

With the high level of changes throughout the project, maintaining central communications was critical. With a Lead Project Manager and customer Procurement Engineer overseeing the entire project, the opportunity for mistakes was minimized.

Customer Relationship

Spin Digital Consulting’s customer relationship made dealing with the changing project requirements easier than it may have been. The tight working relationship made it possible to get the best results for all aspects of the project in challenging circumstances.

Resource Distribution

Having one overall Project Manager allowed for work to be distributed to the correct person rather than directed to the closest person.

Rick S. Procurement Engineering Lead - Los Alamos National Labretory

“The utilization of Spin Digital Consulting’s project management for the procurement, installation and testing of the TEM and SEM was a great beneﬁt to LANL. The dedicated project manager was a single point resource that was needed for the resolution of the complex situations and issues that occurred. The timely and accurate resolution of the issues was the primary reason that we were able to meet the delivery and installation milestone. The dedicated project manager was able to focus on LANL needs, conduct and organize roundtable to resolve issues, develop a workable and achievable success path, and had the foresight to look forward to mitigate potential issues.”

Dan G. Senior Account Manager - Thermo Fisher Scientific

“We could have gotten the Themis and Scios installed at LANL as early as we did without Spin Digital Consulting. In a way, it was customer success management in addition to project management. Additional sales were directly inﬂuenced by the direct project management.”

Steve G. Senior Service Manager - Thermo Fisher Scientific

“My team and I interfaced with Spin Digital Consulting on a regular basis and the demands from LANL were unprecedented. Having a project manager for this was key to our success.”

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Project Management

Highly Technical Project Spanning Four Years & Four Countries

Project Highlights

To effectively meet complex manufacturing, installation, and timeline requirements, dedicated project management was required.

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