This seminar will show you how to reduce your capital project expenditures by 10% or more per year. There have been major developments in capital project cost control that have been empirically proven to accurately predict final project cost at any point in the project. This means that overruns can be identified and quantified early, allowing plenty of time to make the changes necessary to bring the project back into budget.

   At the time of the initial cost estimate, Definition Rating, empirically proven by several studies and subsequent use, a tool invented by John Hackney, one of the founders of the American Association of Cost Engineers, which also endorses the tool, allows one to accurately predict final cost probabilities by examining the detail level of the information the estimate was based on. One of the most interesting costs that can be calculated with this tool is the final cost that the project has a 50% chance of either being over or under. This is a good number to base contingencies on in funding requests or to base the funding request itself on. Besides giving a realistic final cost of a project, this 50% number, if used in the request for funds, can provide reasonable funding for projects while still challenging project managers and providing them with an objective measure of their performance. Definition Rating can predict the overrun probability of any submitted budget. It is also powerful to use when doing capital planning, giving plausibility to the conceptual estimates used that is so often lacking.
    When the project is approved and begins, another tool, Earned Value, can accurately predict final project costs when only 15% of the project’s budget has been spent. This amazing prediction can be made when only four percent, or less, of the budget is spent if bids are set up in a certain way. Scopes of work will be provided on a CD which will set bids up as required for this to happen. Earned Value’s use will be explained not only with individual tasks, but also with whole contracts, making the whole process much easier and less time consuming, without sacrificing accuracy.
    Earned Value’s big results came out of the examination of over 20 years worth of Department of Defense (DOD) projects of all types, over 700, in fact, and subsequent use in all industries. It is recommended for use by the ANSI Standard on Project Management, the PMBOK, and is an important part of the written examination administered by the Project Management Institute for Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.
    Besides covering the early prediction of final project cost, project risk and ROI selection will be addressed. The CD will contain a spreadsheet that evaluates project risk and suggests appropriate ROI’s. It will also contain a program that will solve for the fixed capital investment, FCI, that satisfies the input economic requirements of your project, i.e., ROI, cost of money, construction duration, etc.. This allows quick determination of the feasibility of a project and gives the project team a number to scope to or below, eliminating the wasted project team time that frequently results when project teams scope in the dark and consequently turn in a request for funds that is too high. It also calculates Payback, Internal Rate of Return, and does Equipment Replacement Cost Analysis. In addition, the CD will contain engineering scopes of work (SOW) to get better, more economical engineering through hard money bids: Preliminary Engineering SOW, Detailed Engineering SOW, Design / Build SOW.
    “Cutting Edge Capital Project Cost Control,” is a three hour on-site presentation costing only $999.00 (total cost: no additional expenses) for any location within 200 miles of central downtown Chicago (the intersection of State and Madison), $1499 for over 200 but within 800 miles, and $1999 over 800 miles but in the lower 48. (Combine this seminar (same day or next) with “Cutting-Edge Capital Project Definition, Planning, Scheduling, and Execution” for just $800 more, no matter the location.) Just think of the ROI for each percentage point drop in capital expenditures per year! However, the seminar won’t just consist of a lecture on theory with the expectation that attendees will be able to apply it after just one talk. As mentioned, a CD will be distributed with files and spreadsheets covering all topics discussed. The spreadsheets will automatically calculate all results discussed when the appropriate project data is entered. When the speaker is done speaking, he will spend the rest of the day helping attendees enter their project data into the spreadsheets.
    Your presenter, Glen Rosentrater, President and founder of CP Project Services, inc., author of this seminar, has spent his entire career in project management. He has an MS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has spoken on project management related topics all over the country, speaking at local AICHE dinner meetings, presenting project management seminars, and most recently speaking at the 2008 AICHE Midwest Regional Conference on September 22. He has had several articles published in Chemical Engineering Progress dealing with various topics in Project Management, the latest, “How Will You Manage”, published in the July 2008 issue. He is also certified by the Project Management Institute (PMI) as a Project Management Professional (PMP).