In the spring of 1990 Weyerhaeuser Canada Prince Albert, Saskatchewan Pulp and
Paper had an important decision to make. What project management system should be
chosen for the mill that would allow the annual shutdown to be most effectively
scheduled.
The needs of the Prince Albert plant were similar to those of many Pulp and Paper mills.
There are regularly scheduled shutdowns of the massive plant that are costly and tightly
managed. There is also the day-to-day maintenance work that must be allocated and
controlled. Of the two categories, the major shutdowns are the highest profile.
The Saskatchewan plant produces several products including: Hardwood and Softwood
pulp, uncoated free-sheet rolls and sheeted products such as photocopier paper.
Shutting down the plant can represent hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue
making the efficient execution of the shutdown project critical to the viability of the plant.
Therefore in the spring of 1990, Brown and Root of Houston were brought in to provide
Shutdown co-ordinator services. 'Brown and Root were selected for their expertise
throughout the Weyerhaeuser Organization, their use of the Open Plan scheduling
software, and their reputation for managing shutdowns at other Weyerhaeuser mills." says
Dan Snyder, Systems Superintendent at Prince Albert, "Our Tacoma head office
corporate maintenance manager, Jim Grant, was unequivocal in his support of the Open
Plan system, and was instrumental in introducing us to the package." The 1990
shutdown was managed completely with Open Plan and Brown and Root as were the
following shutdowns in 1991 and 1992."
The work of Brown and Root had been ongoing but the goals of Mr. Snyder went further,
"Although this organization got its first exposure to Open Plan from Brown and Root, our
long-term goal is to take over in-house, the management of all area and mill outages both
for one-day and extended shutdowns."
Despite the impressive references both from Brown and Root and within his own
organization, Dan and his group did their own in-house evaluation. "From the very
beginning we saw Open Plan as the tool to use for micro-scheduling." says Snyder.
Of the packages they evaluated, Open Plan came out on top. "There were three reasons
for our choice of Open Plan." says Snyder, "First, there was the broad base of support
within Weyerhaeuser in our other offices. Second, the support of the Canadian
representatives was impressive. The HMS Software technical staff in Montreal have been
very accessible. (HMS is the Canadian distributor of Open Plan) We're quite impressed.
The quick solutions we've received shows your invest in keeping your customers up and
running. The final reason was the flexibility of the product. The configurable menus and
reports were important to us as was the power and flexibility of micro-scheduling."
The flexibility of Open Plan has allowed Dan's group to begin to integrate the package
with their other systems. "Our work order system is on our mainframe." explains Snyder
who is now the Systems Superintendent, "We've designed an interface that acts as a
bridge; pulling work orders from the mainframe into Open Plan. The interface then
automatically creates logic and ties the work orders to milestones kept in a project
template." This allows the powerful scheduling tools in Open Plan to schedule the work
orders in the most efficient manner possible.
Although the Prince Albert team are satisfied with what Open Plan is doing for them now,
Dan's group has set their sights still higher. "We'd like to expand our use of Open Plan
to handle 'Run-Week Scheduling'." he says, "That would have Open Plan scheduling next
week's priorities and the regular ongoing maintenance work.
Although its been less than a year that Open Plan has been installed on-site at
Weyerhaeuser's Prince Albert mill, the experience has been positive. "Had we to do it
all over again, we would still go with Open Plan." says Dan
go to HMS Corporate 
