PROPLAN: Specialist Controls at the Heart of Every Successful Project

Headquartered in Rijeka, Croatia, ProPlan is a consultant company specialising in project controls and commissioning. “We start with planning and then ensure that projects are kept under perfect control, before finishing off with commissioning,” ProPlan condenses of its nearly two-decade long stint in providing that all-important knowledgeable, informed and steady hand at the crux of every successful endeavour.

“ProPlan approaches every client’s business as if it were our own, firmly believing that a consulting firm should be so much more than an advisor,” the company adds, an approach which has seen it drafted in to take care of a suite of projects across both oil and gas and shipbuilding the world over.

“We put ourselves in our clients’ shoes and collaborate to unlock the full potential of their business, which has resulted in enabling us to continually construct deep and enjoyable relationships.”

SPECIALIST SUITE OF SERVICES

“We have been in the industry for almost 20 years now, and are always building and growing,” outlines Director Vladimir Svalina, having himself been involved in almost every facet of the sector across a myriad of situations. “Increasingly frequently we find ourselves called upon because, through our specialist services, we offer something to which these companies do not have access within their organisation internally, or where the required workload has exceeded its capabilities or expertise.

“This is where, as ProPlan – thanks to a collaborative working style that emphasises teamwork, trust and tolerance – we are uniquely well-placed to intervene and uplift.”

This spirit of collaboration, so often named as priority of primordial importance by other sector players, extends to an unwavering commitment to always doing right by its clients and people, to demonstrate that, come what may, all parties are together in the undertaking. “We believe in demonstrating a ‘one team’ attitude, with a sharp focus on winning and achieving results,” Svalina expands, “and we’re passionate about making a measurable impact in all we do.

“Our unique culture and approach deliver enduring results, true to each client’s specific situation. We care for our clients’ businesses as if they were our own and as such we think and act like business partners, not academic advisors. We share our clients’ aspirations and work to understand their reality.”

So often the advantages of continuity throughout a project’s lifetime is cited, and ProPlan’s project controls span its very initiation right through to completion. Embedded within are planning, monitoring, reporting and analysis, while a collaborative approach is taken to strategy definition and procurement.

In project development, these multiple crucial elements work together to ensure a project’s success. Given how significantly effective controls increase the efficiency of projects in a variety of ways, while providing many other benefits, it would surely be reasonable to assume that it is a component afforded proper regard and investment; not so, according to Svalina.

“The rest of Europe is really behind the UK in terms of the heavy investment being made in the crucial area and art of project controls,” he notes. “It is actually something that is sorely lacking, and Croatia is certainly no different in this regard which has resulted in a market that is extremely small.”

OPPORTUNITIES NEAR AND FAR

This realisation on Svalina’s part, he furthers, was in fact behind ProPlan’s creation and has allowed it to forge an enviable foothold in the country’s undersupplied sector. “I have been a planner and project controls manager for many years and in many different contexts, which has allowed me to see first-hand the demand for development of the industry and the engagement of more personnel,” he describes.

“Being actively engaged in similar such roles presented me with the opportunity to found ProPlan, and it remains something in which I am not only experienced, but which is, too, a real passion for me.”

While it may seem superficially something of a downside, Svalina reveals a contracted home market has actually been key to ProPlan’s own development. “Where we have been able to succeed is in offering very specific, niche services,” he explains. “Now, we are deliberately and steadily spreading and covering different areas, and have been spurred to take on projects in the likes of Italy, Czech Republic, Kazakhstan and Egypt, where we have established offices.

“We have instituted full-service branches in Ravenna, Italy and Aktau, Kazakhstan, and these set-ups allow us to have all local legislation covered, and know that we are operating completely in compliance, while it has in turn made it much easier to secure local contracts.” Here, Svalina pinpoints just two examples in ProPlan’s work on the Litvínov-Záluží refinery in Czech Republic and Egypt’s Zohr field, believed to be the largest-ever gas discovery in Egypt and the Mediterranean.

“While there have historically been limited opportunities within our home market of Croatia, and the project controls culture is still not as developed as it is elsewhere, this is a situation which is itself improving,” Svalina qualifies, with the country clearly on the up in this regard.

“We are seeing much greater foreign investment from people who are used to having such project controls in their operations, and so we have seen real improvement with here and further afield.”

BEST-LAID PLANS

The other main arm of ProPlan’s operations is commissioning, which Svalina opines is, once again, undervalued by clients, contractors and companies. It sees ProPlan step in at technical completion and manage the commission schedule, safety procedures and supervision, through to detailed reporting and analysis as well as certification.

“Similarly to project controls, this is an area that is often overlooked and underfunded by both contractors and end clients,” Svalina reasons, “despite it being a hugely important part of any construction. Commissioning staff within any organisation are indispensable, but rarely is this sufficiently catered for, and again, this is where we come in with our expertise and abilities which so many companies lack. Not only for site activities, but also in commissioning engineering, which is a specific discipline in and of itself.

“It is an area in which it is critical to have operative experience like we do, of the different detailed procedures for each system and sub-system to ensure that absolutely everything is working correctly before handing over to the client. This is very much our area, and 75% of our employees have a college degree in engineering, a background that equally makes us easily able to adopt new knowledge and competences.”

Before finishing, Svalina is at pains to underline the pivotal importance of one particular element of ProPlan’s competences that underpins everything that follows: planning. “All over, and with many, many different clients, we have seen a severe lack of expertise and support in this area in the oil and gas sector,” he says.

“Planning is a very particular job, with fewer and fewer people who want to do it, requiring a certain level of technical knowledge to be able to speak to everyone involved in a project – from engineering to procurement, in different disciplines whether mechanical or instrumentation – a very wide knowledge base is required to communicate with the many different people implicated, each with their own specialism.

“Planning is the one thing that gathers everybody together on a single piece of paper with one dynamic schedule, and as a planner it is critical to have both technical abilities and a certain level of diplomacy, and patience, to make it all work.”

Of ProPlan’s 30 permanent staff, Svalina says, 11 are planners, which he describes as an extraordinarily high ratio. “I have seen many large companies, sometimes with more than 1,000 employees, which invest in engineering, procurement and supply chain management, but even they are not set up internally with this level of dedicated personnel for project controls.

“Our people are really what make us different,” he concludes, “tirelessly energetic in their effort to both support, and challenge, our clients in equal measure.”