Request Expert

Expert has successfully directed engineering and construction projects with values up to $700 million, primarily in the U.S.

Working directly for the Owner, he most recently completed a $200 million project, 5% under budget and 2 months ahead of schedule, for a pharmaceutical company in the northeast; the project won two categories in the prestigious Facility of the Year Award program. He implemented Primavera P6 scheduling software in a web-enabled environment that provided all stakeholders with views into the integrated project schedule. His cost control system enabled the Construction Manager to utilize their own system, but melded all costs (including Owner's expenses for engineering, validation, etc.) to maintain an accurate and timely reporting tool.

He has about 100 significant projects to his credit during a career dating to the 1970s. Many of Expert's projects were performed while he was employed by engineering design firms, providing services to biopharmaceutical, specialty chemical, and food & beverage clients. He has insight into the inner workings of Owners and Engineers which gives him the ability to quickly and accurately assess the capabilities of a project team and factors that lead to successful outcomes.

Expert has created many project plans for use in proposals and to justify funding requests. He recently (in 2011) was the project expert a legal team needed to negotiate a construction contract.

Expert is an outstanding chemical process engineer with more than 30 years in the field. His primary skills are in developing flowsheets, material and energy balances, selecting process equipment, and creating equipment arrangements. He is fluent in fluid flow, heat transfer, fractionation (distillation), and many other unit operations. His experience is in the pharmaceutical, specialty chemicals, and food and beverage industries.

He is currently writing the next edition of a book for chemical engineers to be published by Elsevier in 2012. This work is refreshing his knowledge of all aspects of chemical plant design. Expert is the author of spreadsheets that solve fluid flow and heat transfer problems, and has written papers on Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, relief valve vent manifolds, vent condensers, and others that were published in Chemical Engineering magazine, Chemical Engineering Progress, Journal of Air and Waste Management, and Pharmaceutical Engineering.

Expert directed the process engineering department of a large engineering contractor, and was the lead pharmaceutical technology professional for new engineering ventures in Germany and the U.S.

Expert's planning skills and experience range from single engineering-construction projects to corporate-wide capital strategy.

In Microsoft Project, he has created resource-loaded schedules with hundreds to thousands of activities, covering the complete life cycle of capital project engineering, construction, commissioning, and startup. He has built bridges from Project to Excel, using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), to enable presentation of simpler timelines to stakeholders who don't need to see the details, while ensuring that the different presentations are in perfect synch.

He has a deep understanding of process simulation, having presented at the Winter Simulation Conference and written on the topic for Pharmaceutical Engineering magazine (an ISPE publication). Expert recently created a comprehensive simulation of a plant that quickly answers "What if..." questions on topics such as plant capacity ("What if three more lines are ordered?"), timelines ("How quickly can production output be ramped?"), operational effectiveness (OEE) ("What is the impact if changeover of foil rolls is shortened from 10 minutes to 5 minutes?"), and staffing ("How many staff must be added if the plant is run 24/7 versus 18/5?"). While his work is technically detailed and nuanced, he successfully translated the results into easily digested PowerPoint presentations to create broad visions that the company's executive management could act on.

Expert is an accomplished writer who puts plans into words. Examples include written justifications for capital authorizations, proposals written for engineering companies vying for work, and Requests for Proposals written for Owners seeking engineering or construction services.

As project manager, he developed a conceptual plan for a manufacturing facility to make a specialty organic chemical. Working with a small team consisting of a technical expert from the chemical pilot plant and two engineers with a engineering firm, he planned the project approach and deliverables, and fully participated in the project execution. He delivered the results to executive management in the form of a report and PowerPoint presentation.As technical expert, he consulted with company and outside counsel to establish negotiating positions for a construction contract. He reviewed the proposed terms and conditions in the AIA Form, and participated in contract negotiations with the contractor. He provided the legal team with information and advice needed to negotiate the form of contract (in this case Guaranteed Maximum Price), payment terms, bonus, and penalty.As a technical consultant, he solved a client's requirement to treat biologically active waste from a fermentation process. He interviewed the scientists to learn their specific habits and needs, presented to them the available alternatives, and provided the process design details for the selected solution. This included calculations and equipment selection.He wrote a report that gave specific recommendations for establishing and adhering to performance-based exposure control limits. To accomplish this, he surveyed the U.S. pharmaceutical industry through his direct contacts, then consolidated the best practices into chapters on OEL determination, air hoods, air locks, facility layout, air handlers, liquid wastes, regulatory considerations for mult-product facilities, and process equipment design.Participating in a 3-person team, he spent three weeks at a facility that manufactures an active ingredient using a highly complex chemical process; the purpose of the assignment was to identify and recommend remediation strategies to debottleneck the plant. This resulted in a report of several hundred pages with findings and recommendations that was presented to the site's management team at the end of the 3 week period.