By Fernando Remolina, Director, Projects and Planning in Astivik Shipyard,Colombia, and previously staff at DAMEN Shiprepair & Conversion. Fernando is the author of the book “Shipyard Project Management”. He also
manages the Shipbuilding and Ship Repair Project Management LinkedIn group.

Imagine that you are a Project Manager or part of a Management Team (Operations Manager, Managing Director, Production Manager, Manager Projects, etc.) working for a shipyard, how would you control a project or all the projects as a whole? Fernando talks you through the main areas of shipyard management and how to stay afloat!

KPIs are a measure of achievement and are essential to keep track of projects in a ship repair yard. As I have mentioned in my Shipyard Project Management book and some other articles, ship repair projects are managed in a VUCA environment (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) and a follow-up strategy becomes a must. This time I’ve designed a dashboard that can be used by shipyard project managers and the shipyard management team to measure how effective the projects are performing on a weekly basis. Let’s see how this dashboard works.

Large ship drydocking in a shipyard

The Shipyard Management Dashboard Explained

In the left section of the dashboard, you can find the name of the project (vessel) and relevant information such as ETA, docking date, undocking date, departure and percentage of progress, that are needed to keep an eye on the key milestones. In the right section, we can find the KPIs per project based on a traffic light report, such as:

  • TIME: this KPI identifies whether the project is behind, ahead or on schedule. It can be calculated using time control methodologies like Earned Schedule and Earned Value Management together with MS Project.
  • CM: this refers to the project Contribution Margin, which indicates if the project is generating the monetary contribution expected by management. It can be calculated using Earned Value Management methodology together with forecasting.
  • HSE: this KPI refers to how the project is performing regarding health, safety and environment. It can be calculated based on the accidents, incidents and unsafe situations presented during the project.
  • QUALITY: this KPI identifies if the jobs we are executing on the project are based on the yard’s quality standards. It can be calculated by the number of findings presented during the week.
  • CUSTOMER: this is the only KPI that is measured at the end of the project and it is calculated based on the result of the customer satisfaction survey like in the project QUEEN ANDREA.
  • INCOME PER DAY: this is one of the most important KPIs for management because it tells you if the project is producing enough income per day as estimated by the yard. Please see the project GEMINI S on the dashboard above, most of the KPIs are green but that doesn’t mean that this project is bringing the needed money home, so decisions need to be taken asap.

With this weekly report, all parties involved can take informed and on-time decisions to avoid surprises in the end. One of the users of this report is the yard’s management, where they can see what’s happening and can easily give support to the projects when needed.