PL:Contract Management Plan

From ITERMAGwiki

Latest revision as of 18:31, 28 June 2008

Generalities

The Contract Management Plan is a document that describes the Contract management system used by a Contract Manager.

The objective of the Contract Management Plan is do define the approach to be used by the Contract Manager to deliver the intended scope of a Contract.

The Contract Manager follows the Contract Management Plan following input from the ITERMAG Project Leadership.

The Contract Management Plan includes the following main aspects:

• Contract Structure;
• Scope Management;
• Schedule Management;
• Financial Management;
• Quality Management;
• Resource Management for resources like people, tools and others;
• Communications management;
• Contract Change Management;
• Risk Management; and
• Procurement Management

We go through these proposed components one by one for an ITERMAG Contract to determine whether they should be part of the ITERMAG Project Management Plan or not, and what the current status is.

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Contract Management Structure

Each ITERMAG Contract is structured as a Project, and is a component of the ITERMAG Consortium Structure, as shown in the following figure. This structuring is not explicitly in the ITERMAG Consortium Agreement, but is left to management by the ITERMAG Project Leadership, under the approval of the ITERMAG Steering Committee.

Context

The Contract Management provides surveillance of a Contract. The Contract Management functions under the ITERMAG Project Leadership. The ITERMAG Project Leader reports to the ITERMAG Steering Committee.

Contract Manager

Each call for interest gives rise to a "Contract Project" for which a Contract Manager is nominated by the ITERMAG Project Leadership and approved by the ITERMAG Steering Committee. The Contract Manager develops a plan of action to generate an offer. In case of a contract being awarded, the Contract Manager is responsible for the correct execution of the Contract. The Contract Manager reports to the ITERMAG Project Leader.

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Scope

The scope of an ITERMAG Contract is defined by a call for interest or call for tender which gives rise to the contract or F4E grant itself. Both are referred to as "Contracts". It is then reduced, if necessary, by the ITERMAG Project Leadership and ultimately by the ITERMAG Steering Committee.

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Schedule

The scheduling of a Contract is handled under Primavera using the following independent contract schedules:

• Magnetics construction planning, strongly linked to the ITER IO planning
• Contract planning, independently generated for each Contract and linked to the Consortium Project Planning

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Tendering

The ITERMAG Project Leadership is initially responsible for creating a proposal for responding to a call for interest or a call for tender. This Outline Offer includes:

• the resource requirements for each Member
• a back-to-back agreement (backing contract) between Members to agree and guarantee these resources
• the contract schedule
• the contract costs for each Member
• the contract risks

This Outline Offer is submitted to the Steering Committee for modification or approval.

After approval by the Steering Committee:

• a Contract Manager is confirmed by the ITERMAG Steering Committee after proposal by the ITERMAG Project Leadership
• a full commercial offer is established
• the offer is transmitted to the ITERMAG Steering Committee for final approval and ultimately submission to the Client.

The process for handling a call for interest or a call for tender is illustrated in the figure below.

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Financial

The Contract Manager creates a contract spending curve when creating a draft offer. The Contract Manager is subsequently responsible for maintaining records of all the costs incurred by all Members, and on comparing them with the predicted spending curve. Deviations which suggest a significant final deviation from the original cost estimates (>5%) shall be immediately signalled to the ITERMAG Project Leader.

Splitting of the revenu from a Contract will be on an uniform basis according to the ITERMAG Consortium Agreement.

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Quality

The Contract functions respecting the Contract Quality Plan under the ITERMAG Project Quality Management System. This Quality Plan presents the procedures and tools to ensure that the individual Contract Management Plan is correctly and traceably executed by the Contract Manager.

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Resource Management

Human Resources are "assigned" to work for the ITERMAG Consortium and will either be allocated to the ITERMAG Project Leadership or to a specific Contract Manager. Clear accounting of the allocated resources for a Contract will fall under "Finance". Forward planning of the required and allocated resources will be generated by the Contract Manager. Non-release of the required Human Resources is foreseen to be a major difficulty due to the extreme pressure on Human Resources in the Members.

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Communications

Communications are partially described under Project Structure, and include internal and external communications.

External communications

• Technical decisions: Client <--> Contract Manager, copied to Contract Team and ITERMAG Project Leadership and archived.
• Technical information exchanges: Client <--> Contract Manager, copied to Contract Team and ITERMAG Project Leadership and archived.

Internal communications

• ITERMAG Project Leader --> Contract Manager, copied to ITERMAG Project Leadership and archived.
• ITERMAG Contract Manager --> ITERMAG Project Leader, copied to ITERMAG Project Leadership and archived.

Status --Jo 22:41, 25 April 2008 (CEST) The usage of the Wiki under development for ITERMAG is being evaluated as appropriate for archival. How to handle E-mail is under discussion.

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Change Control

Change Control contains 3 elements:

• Technical design changes
• Contract condition changes
• Internal management changes

Technical design changes

• Client <--> Contract Manager, Design Change Request and cost/schedule impact signed on both sides after agreement, copied to ITERMAG Project Leader and archived. The DCR clearly states all interfaces affected by the change. ITERMAG Project Leader rejects or approves change and signs. If impact on cost-schedule is significant (TBD) final decision is deferred to ITERMAG Steering Committee by ITERMAG Project Leader. The Design Change Decision is then archived.
• ITERMAG Member --> Contract Manager, Design Change Proposal signed on both sides after agreement, to be submitted to ITERMAG Project Manager for transmission to client if Contract Manager agrees.

Contract condition changes

• Contract Manager --> ITERMAG Project Leader, Contract Condition Change is notified if performance, cost or schedule variations lead to conflict with the contract conditions. ITERMAG Project Leader assumes responsibility.
• Client --> ITERMAG Project Leader, Contract Condition Change is notified if technical changes are required by the client. ITERMAG Project Leader evaluates the impact of the changes and reports to ITERMAG Steering Committee with a proposed action.

Internal management changes

• Member --> ITERMAG Steering Committee, Member reports any change in resources previously allocated.

Status --Jo 23:10, 25 April 2008 (CEST) The development of the change request system is intimately linked with the Quality Plan and appropriate procedures and forms will be proposed by the QA experts under request by the ITERMAG Project Leader.

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Risk

Assessment and management of risk is an integral component of the contract assessment on a case by case basis. Risks include:

• Unable to deliver the scope/performance of the contract
• Unable to deliver the scheduling of the contract
• Unable to meet the estimated value of the contract

Risks are assessed by:

• Contract Manager for a first technical and commercial view
• ITERMAG Project Leadership to ensure a common technical and commercial view
• ITERMAG Steering Committee to ensure a global financial and strategic view

Decisions on risk are the authority of the ITERMAG Steering Committee.

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Procurement

Procurement of external resources/material

Status --Jo 23:10, 25 April 2008 (CEST) Not yet considered.

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