Impacts of the change of scope during execution: a study case in a metallurgical plant

Abstract

purchasing group through the identification of the causes of the scope changes. The direct participation of one of the authors in the project scope change process in the renovation execution phase allowed the production of the technical report according to the protocol of Rojo and Walter (2014) according to the single case study method in a company in the metallurgical sector. Data were collected with the direct participation of one of the authors in the process studied through management reports, quotes from the refractory reforming service provider, purchase orders, and direct observations from October 2019 to March 2020. The results obtained show that the total cost of the project due to reworks, increased by 162% of the initial cost due to the lack of complete definition of requirements for determining the scope of service. The analysis results of the Ishikawa diagram for the determination of the main causes of the incomplete initial scope, point out: a) environment - lack of access to the interior of the oven, visit and evaluation without planning; b) method - superficial technical analysis; c) people – failure to communicate with suppliers; d) machine – outdated drawings; e) material – undetected damage. Project planning and project manager selection were considered critical criteria, in addition to these, liability management were the lessons learned through the development of this study. Despite being a unique case-specific to a metallurgical environment, this study contributes to the increase in the number of empirical studies in the academic field on scope change, recurrent in other areas in projects and the practical/business field, it provides the lessons learned that could be considered in similar operations, not being restricted to the niche of metallurgical plants, as the same principle extends to projects, whose scope involves equipment reforms.