Outcomes
Cycle time was compressed from a best-demonstrated performance of 19 days to a sustained average below the 14-day target, and as low as 10 days. Each cycle reduction generated associated cost savings of approximately £0.5 million, with savings accumulating across a programme that had previously been haemorrhaging cost through extended plant leases and repeated delays. The client noted that having Curzon embedded within the project proved highly effective, with pragmatic, tailored interventions and a test-and-learn approach that encouraged genuine adoption and ownership across the project team.
Background
Despite significant effort to find a workable engineering solution, the project had consistently failed to meet planned delivery cycle times. The best performance ever achieved was a 19-day cycle against a target of 14 days, and that level of performance was far from consistent. Non-recoverable costs were accruing rapidly through the extension of expensive marine engineering plant leases.
The delivery model itself was part of the problem. The project relied heavily on the experience of individual agents, managers, and foremen to manage communication and coordination, without the structure or formality needed to make performance repeatable. Each production cycle had effectively been bespoke, meaning lessons from one cycle were rarely carried forward to the next, and there was no standard process to return to when unplanned events caused deviation.
Curzon Approach
Curzon embedded directly within the project team rather than advising from the outside, a decision that proved critical in a technically complex and fast-moving marine environment where understanding the operational reality was a prerequisite for designing effective interventions.
Working alongside the project team, Curzon identified and implemented an optimal production process with defined task times, giving the project a consistent plan to execute against and measure performance for the first time. Cross-functional short-range planning disciplines were introduced to improve visibility across the operation and reduce the instances of unplanned stoppages caused by poor communication and lack of coordination between functions.
Communication cascades to front-line teams were strengthened to ensure the right plan was being executed at the point of delivery. A process improvement pipeline was prioritised to accelerate implementation of the highest-impact solutions first, and close monitoring was used to highlight avoidable downtime and drive operational fixes such as deck layout standardisation.
Critically, the concept of a standard process was established and maintained. When unplanned events caused deviation, the project now had an agreed sequence to course-correct back to rather than improvising a new approach from scratch. The shift from bespoke to repeatable was the foundation on which all of the cycle time improvements were built.
