The power to succeed

Of all the available techniques of project management, planning and cost control have the greatest power to add to shareholders’ value – or destroy it, when they’re not used or are poorly applied.

Enthalpy has a long history of leading planning and cost control techniques through study and project phases. In fact, within the Enthalpy group, planning and cost control are second nature for project teams.

Many of the typical logic chains involved in executing studies and projects have now been modelled to become standards, and benchmarking of typical durations for various project procedures is now available.

Together these techniques have been combined into a range of generic study and project schedules and structures to aid the planning process.

Regardless of its expertise in this area, Enthalpy has learned the value of considering project planning and cost control as parts of a whole-of-business approach to the development process.

Linked with resource analysis

Planning without resource analysis is a nonquantifiable technique, so Enthalpy strongly endorses the use of resourced schedules linked to cost forecasting. It considers cost forecasting to be an essential tool for managers to be able to respond to and correct trends.

The lag time between identifying, reporting and reacting is now recognised by Enthalpy as the key factor in successful cost control.

As a result the organisation uses a welldeveloped set of procedures and techniques to control and report costs during the study and project phases.

A particular emphasis is placed on timerelated costs, as Enthalpy recognises this function to be critical to outcomes.

Within Enthalpy, strong disciplines exist in the areas of:

• Budget change processes
• Commitment and payment recording
• Estimates to complete
• Use of definitive estimates
• Control of contingencies
• Definitions of capital and operating cost splits
• Levels of reporting to give balances and continuity

By clearly defining reporting needs, Enthalpy ensures there is consistency across outcomes.