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Phantasialand | F. L. Y. | Vekoma Launched Flying Coaster | 2020

Oh shut up Brian. You're talking crap.

I work on big construction projects every day, and they D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y have a program. You literally can't build stuff otherwise, especially complex stuff like this.

It may not yet give an exact date, but they will have a target week at this stage. The completion of those walls will have been scheduled for months, and there will be a project manager somewhere tracking the installation progress against the projected plan. Each time something drifts, the program is reviewed and the dates are updated. That's not the same as having no deadline. The contractor(s) will have a target Practical Completion (PC) date, and there will be clauses in the contracts for penalties if this date is missed.
 
I don't care who you know, or what you think you know, you're clearly not understanding what they're telling you. Either you're too dimwitted to understand what he's telling you (likely, based on evidence), or he's not telling you the full story (also likely, if this person values their job).

A schedule has completion dates for phases of the project and, dare I say it, that could be termed as a deadline.
 
Hey Brian, just letting you know you’re massively contradicting yourself by saying they don’t have dates but they have a schedule.

What do you think the schedule is, build this at some point when you can be arsed and then maybe we’ll build this?

You may know a man but Matt literally does these sort of projects for a living. Maybe show some respect, pipe down and accept this pretty obvious stuff he’s telling you.
 
Ben said:
What do you think the schedule is, build this at some point when you can be arsed and then maybe we’ll build this?
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The funniest bit about Brian's logic is that he thinks all the subcontractors are just waiting to be called like, "Oh hey, you're up". They've got fleets of concrete trucks and steel transporters just idling outside Cologne waiting for the guys on site to bother doing the prep. They've been sitting there for weeks 'cos the construction crews are just chilling out.
 
Nah I'm sure all the contractors are perfectly happy being signed up for life with no end date in sign. All the machinery and cranes that are hired and the all money that it must cost the park... who needs forward planning in an expensive multi-million euros project? :p

They will obviously be aiming for before the summer holidays.
The majority of Phantasialand rides have opened in June (a couple in late May too).
So it's extremely likely that they are aiming for around that month too. Plus school holidays in the region don't start until mid July so that gives them some extra time to fall back on.
And as I wrote on the previous page they appear to currently be right on track for a summer opening.

Brian said:
Ofcourse, they have a schedule, but they arent rushing anything. I know the man you just mentioned.
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I highly doubt the project managers Hans-Heinrich Obergfall (responsible for almost the last 20 years of PHL projects) or Sebastian Jonas are chatting to you about all the details of this project. Just stop.
 
Sorry, but that's bollocks.

It ain't La Sagrada Familia, it's a cred that needs to see an ROI - therefore it has a projected opening date to work out the ROI.
 
Your logic is just... wrong.

Like, if everything is scheduled in with dates, then they DO have a deadline. The cranes will be needed on another construction site at some point, so the date the scheduled to leave is the deadline for anything that needs a crane. The same is true for every aspect of the program.

I don't deny that they probably don't have a precise date in mind (although I bet there is one on the books), but they'll know that it's going to be mid-May, or end-of-August, or sometime-2020.
 
Brian said:
Do I even have to comment on this?
Not for 2 days, for a couple of months...
Sometimes I am just asking myself, why do I even share info on this forum.
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I ask myself that question too. Why do you continue to share nonsense "information" on this forum?
As everyone, in particular Hixee who actually has experience in such projects, has pointed out that what you were saying is incorrect. Plus let us not forget 'concrete pouring gate' which was so ridiculous it defied all logic. I wonder why people aren't taking you seriously?

EDIT: Plus if you are actually getting information from someone at Vekoma and sharing it online well done for endangering that "Project Manager's" job. You do know Phantasialand read forums like this?
 
To play the Devil's advocate here, I think I can see where Brian is coming from. Obviously, sub-processes are on a pretty tight schedule. The contractor really needs to know for how many days he can rent the cranes, and the crane owner definitely likes to know when his cranes will be finished on that project so he can rent it out to somebody else. But it's impossible to plan out a project like this with perfect accuracy, you have to have some leeway, especially for sub-processes that will only start in the future. You can't tell the paint contractor half a year in advance that he has to show up with eight people on January 8 and work for six days, because if something happens that pushes completion back two days, that paint contract will have to be re-negotiated.

I can believe that their project delivery model goes somewhere along the lines of "When process A is more than halfway complete, we set the dates for initiation of process C". For example, process C may take a week, but is currently only scheduled within one month. Not sure if it is the first week of January or the third week, but sometime in January sounds pretty certain, and when process A is finished they will know which week.

Currently, the main contractor for the "raw building" is working on his tight schedule, but I bet it's still unclear when the pull-through tests will occur, for instance. That may be determined when the coaster is more or less finished and the contractor has moved out. But they have probably scheduled what will happen in the week the contractor finishes his work, perhaps carpentry work for theming details will begin.

The end result of all this leeway is that they haven't determined the opening date yet. Opening month, probably, target opening week might be more or less certain by now, but no date can be promised yet. For instance, it's very awkward to print 20,000 flyers displaying an opening date of May 20, and then hit a delay that pushes the entire process back by a week. Then you're stuck with boxes full of useless flyers, and you have to order new ones. Sometimes, it's best not to promise any dates until you've ironed out any uncertainties. With a complex construction project, there will be a lot of uncertainties.

I know the LEAN model of construction is pretty wide-spread by now, and that process indeed begins with a determined end-date, but I can totally see Phantasialand running a different delivery model. They're not a company specializing in projects like this, so they probably don't employ personnel trained in LEAN. It might be simpler for them to choose a different project model.
 
Pokemaniac said:
To play the Devil's advocate here, I think I can see where Brian is coming from. Obviously, sub-processes are on a pretty tight schedule. The contractor really needs to know for how many days he can rent the cranes, and the crane owner definitely likes to know when his cranes will be finished on that project so he can rent it out to somebody else. But it's impossible to plan out a project like this with perfect accuracy, you have to have some leeway, especially for sub-processes that will only start in the future. You can't tell the paint contractor half a year in advance that he has to show up with eight people on January 8 and work for six days, because if something happens that pushes completion back two days, that paint contract will have to be re-negotiated.

I can believe that their project delivery model goes somewhere along the lines of "When process A is more than halfway complete, we set the dates for initiation of process C". For example, process C may take a week, but is currently only scheduled within one month. Not sure if it is the first week of January or the third week, but sometime in January sounds pretty certain, and when process A is finished they will know which week.

Currently, the main contractor for the "raw building" is working on his tight schedule, but I bet it's still unclear when the pull-through tests will occur, for instance. That may be determined when the coaster is more or less finished and the contractor has moved out. But they have probably scheduled what will happen in the week the contractor finishes his work, perhaps carpentry work for theming details will begin.

The end result of all this leeway is that they haven't determined the opening date yet. Opening month, probably, target opening week might be more or less certain by now, but no date can be promised yet. For instance, it's very awkward to print 20,000 flyers displaying an opening date of May 20, and then hit a delay that pushes the entire process back by a week. Then you're stuck with boxes full of useless flyers, and you have to order new ones. Sometimes, it's best not to promise any dates until you've ironed out any uncertainties. With a complex construction project, there will be a lot of uncertainties.

I know the LEAN model of construction is pretty wide-spread by now, and that process indeed begins with a determined end-date, but I can totally see Phantasialand running a different delivery model. They're not a company specializing in projects like this, so they probably don't employ personnel trained in LEAN. It might be simpler for them to choose a different project model.
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Let we shake hands.
 
You're not wrong, Poke, but a decent project manager should be able to make forecasts like that. You know that great big airport building I've been working on (you know, this one: http://coasterforce.com/forums/threads/what-is-your-profession.39008/#post-928253) that makes FLY look like ****ing tiny-town? The army of project managers on that have been making forecasts like that for over a decade on that project and are constantly reviewing progress. They have had an "opening date" for about two years now, and all of the processes required for that to be met are fully scheduled in great detail. At one point that included the scheduling of 3, 20000 person each, shifts working 24/7 during the major structural elements.

Pokemaniac said:
They're not a company specializing in projects like this, so they probably don't employ personnel trained in LEAN. It might be simpler for them to choose a different project model.
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No, they're not. Which is why they hire someone who is. Using my example above, the client doesn't know how to do any of that stuff, so they hire a bunch of specialists. This is the same for a concert hall I've just helped design - the client doesn't know how to do the engineering or project management, they know how to run a venue. They pay for people like me to do the engineering for them. It's construction 101.

What Brian seems to have totally missed, is that not having a final date means that everyone is just chilling out. They do have a final date, his mate just hasn't shared it with him yet.
 
Speaking of experience, it would be absolutely barmy and unheard of for a company to have an open-ended date when proposing and investing in a project, it just doesn't happen.

Key milestone dates in the CDM (construction design management) process are usually outlined quite bluntly from the outset with an allowed contingency of days / weeks to allow for delays in construction.

In the project I'm involved in at the moment, we have a date-by-date roadmap, construction storyboard with everchanging blueprints, morning meetings, daily safety audits all to a strict set schedule and completion date. This is usually intrinsically tied to forecasting (as lofty points out) in regards to overheads, ROI, projected quarterly financials etc etc.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 
pvnks said:
In the project I'm involved in at the moment, we have a date-by-date roadmap, construction storyboard with everchanging blueprints, morning meetings, daily safety audits all to a strict set schedule and completion date. This is usually intrinsically tied to forecasting (as lofty points out) in regards to overheads, ROI, projected quarterly financials etc etc.
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Thank Christ, someone else who speaks sense. Good post, @pvnks, stick around - we might need some more of your help to stomp out this nonsense. :)
 
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