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PMSA Western Cape invites you to our 26 September 2017 Event
'Project Complexity and how to effectively measure complexity in projects:
The case of a refuelling outage in a nuclear power.'
Presented by Noxolo Mabumbulu
ABOUT THE TALK
It is a fact that projects have become larger, technologically more sophisticated and are organised with a higher number of contractors and partners, compared to 40 years ago. The majority of large, complex capital projects often incur significant cost/budget and schedule overruns. These delays and cost overruns are seemingly, the rule rather than an exception. Research shows that one of the reasons for project failure is the increasing complexity of projects or an underestimation of the project complexity. There is therefore a fundamental need to: understand the drivers of complexity, be able to measure it, to enable Project Managers to plan and execute complex projects successfully (within budget, duration and quality).
Two main scientific approaches to project complexity, namely; descriptive complexity and perceived complexity were established. Descriptive complexity considers complexity as an intrinsic property of a system. Perceived complexity considers complexity as subjective, since the complexity of a system is understood through the perception of an observer and both approaches can coexist. There are vital layers of complexity that must also be considered such as: social, cultural, operative and cognitive complexity to understand complexity within projects, as they affect performance in a project. A three dimensional model that encompasses the complexity dimensions (origin of project complexity), severity factors (the extent to which complexity dimension will be a problem) and the nature of interdependences (pooled, sequential, and reciprocal) was developed. This model was used to assess complexity of the refuelling outage in a power generating plant
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Noxolo Mabumbulu is currently the Maintenance Manager at Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, a nuclear power generating plant in South Africa. Noxolo has graduated from Cape Peninsula University of Technology, where she received her B-Tech in Mechanical Engineering. She further acquired BSc Hons in Technology Management from the University of Pretoria and has recently graduated for her MSc in Project Management from the University of Cape Town. She is registered as a Professional Engineering Technologist with the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA).
After her first degree Noxolo launched her career with South Africa Rail industry where she worked as a Maintenance Engineer (5 years’ experience). She later joined the South African Power Generating utility (Eskom) as a Mechanical Engineer. She later progressed to being the On-line work Manager with a mandate to ensure maintenance activities are executed to increase the reliability and availability of the plant. She is currently appointed as the Maintenance Manager at Koeberg Nuclear Power station (12 years’ experience in Eskom), mandated to maintain the capital and non-capital assets thereby increasing their life cycle, plan and execute unit outages (shutdown) within the allocated budget, duration and quality, etc.
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