Writing the Book on Project Management and Modularization

We took a little summer break, but we're back with all-new content! First up, we had a chance to speak with Michael Kluck, senior project manager-Engineering for KBR’s Integrated Solutions business, who put some of his pandemic downtime to good use and wrote a book, “Modularization: The Fine Art of Offsite Preassembly for Capital Projects.” Mike tells us about about his journey from subject matter expert to author of what is both a hands-on guide to modularization and a study on effective project management.  Don't miss it!

Transcript

IN ORBIT: A KBR PODCAST

Season 3, Episode 12

Writing the Book on Project Management and Modularization

INTRODUCTION

John Arnold

Hello, I'm John. And this is In Orbit. Welcome to the podcast, everybody. We appreciate you taking some time out of your day, checking in with us and staying in our orbit.

One of the most fascinating things about being part of a company like KBR is how our experts across so many different industries, on both the government and commercial sides, are able to go in, recognize a customer's goals and pain points, and then deliver solutions and expertise at any stage of a project's life cycle that help the customer achieve those goals.

My guest today, Michael Kluck, is one such expert. Mike is a recognized industry expert in project management and modularization, or offsite pre-assembly. And he, unlike me, during the pandemic put some of his downtime to good use and wrote a book that is both a practical hands-on guide to modularization and a study on effective project management.

We're thrilled to have him with us today to talk about his book, which is out now and available for purchase on your Amazons or your Bookshop.orgs, or anywhere else you get your books. Welcome to the podcast, Mike.

Michael Kluck

Hey. Thank you very much.

John Arnold

We're so glad to have you. Before we really dive into the meat of the discussion about the book, I wonder if you'd tell us a little more about yourself and your career journey?

Michael Kluck

Yeah, I can. I graduated, I won't say when, from U of H, Houston, with a civil engineering degree. I went to work for Exxon. I talked to them early and I said, "Well, my civil degree isn't really as strong as I'd like it to be." And he said, "Don't worry, we'll teach you everything you need to know." So 20 years or so, I went through all the different main reservoir drilling, production and construction and civil engineering assignments. Most notable were, of course, my modular onshore and offshore plant work.

And then I left them and went to Kellogg, really Brown & Root, which is now Kellogg Brown & Root, in engineering project management. I was assigned as a module coordinator right off the bat for a gas to liquids project in Nigeria. I participated after that in several modularization and study researches, efforts within Construction Industry Institute, the University of Texas research facility.

And then as people started hearing about what I was doing, more people asked me to advise. And it sort of snowballed into becoming sort of a de facto subject matter expert.

John Arnold

That's outstanding. That's a nice problem to have, that word of mouth gets around and you kind of land in your lane.

Michael Kluck

Absolutely.

John Arnold

So, as we said, you have co-authored a book with Dr. Jin Ouk Choi, associate professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The book is called “Modularization: The Fine Art of Offsite Preassembly for Capital Projects.” And it is published by JW Wiley, one of the largest and most well-known publishing houses specializing in research and education.

First of all, as someone who knows a couple of people who've written books, I commend you. What an achievement! Just getting the thing done is impressive. To now have it published and out there for consumption is nothing short of miraculous in this day and age. So will you tell us about that journey a little bit?

Michael Kluck

Yeah. It's interesting. Basically, I've always thought about writing a book, but I didn't know where to start. So Dr. Choi approached me back in 2020, and we'd worked several years ago on a research project on modularization with CII [Construction Industry Institute].

And he said, "What do you think about writing a book?" And I said, "Well, I've thought about it before." He said, "Well, I have a contact with a publishing company." And so he said, "Okay, well..." We talked about it a little bit. And so in a day or two we got a contact and the three of us got together and they said, "Well, this is what you need to do. Here's where you need to start."

He said, “We need to have a framework." Okay, so we put together some chapters and idea of the progression. And then they said, "Okay, well can you give us a little bit about the subject content? We want to find out if this book is something that people would be interested in." So we gave it to them.

It was industrial modularization. So they had three experts on modularization reviewing it, but they were all building and cities and houses and buildings. And so they looked at it and said, "Well, this is interesting. We've never seen this type of book before." So they turned over and JW Wiley gave us the green light.

So then they sent us a contract. It was like 20 pages of stuff. And I was going, "Man, that's a lot of stuff I got to review and sign off on." And there was a lot of liability stuff. But I did realize real quickly that I wasn't going to make a lot of money on the sale of book proceeds. I mean, this is a labor of love more than anything else. So after that they said, "Go," we started on a date and the rest is sort of history.

And some people ask me, "How do you start on a book?" Well, I told you the first part. And, really, it's really … you start with … you got to get something from your head and down through the keyboard into the computer. You start with a word, a sentence, then it's a paragraph, and then pretty soon you're doing a chapter.

And the thing you got to do is a lot about the 80/20 rule. Don't try to be perfect. Try to get the stuff down on paper. I did find out, in some cases, it was two or three weeks before I looked back at what I did, and I go, "Did I write that? That's not too bad." And so you get it out. And it's easy if you have knowledge about the subject and you really like it.

And one other thing, Dr. Choi and I were an interesting mix. I have sort of a slightly wandering — if you can't tell by the end of this podcast — a stream of consciousness type of narrative. But Dr. Choi has a penchant for referencing and documenting, so we ended up being a perfect match.

I would write, get quirky, end out on a thought-provoking limb or down some rabbit hole, and he'd reel me back in. And then I would write about what I did, and then he was able to find references that supported what I was doing was correct. So it was pretty slick. So the result was the 50,000-word estimate that we had turned into 114,000 words, and 114 illustrations, and about 220 pages on the project.

One other thing people asked me is, "What's the hardest part, or what was the most difficult?" And really it was getting some companies and people to agree to allowing use of an illustration. We ended up doing a lot of our own reworking of illustrations because it was just easier.

John Arnold

Interesting.

Michael Kluck

And that's sort of it

John Arnold

That totally makes sense. Well, as someone who spends a lot of time in the writing and editing part of this job, in marketing and communications, what you just said, the 80/20 rule — but especially just sitting down and getting something out on the page — is a great piece of advice for any kind of creative endeavor. And so, again, that's so commendable. And that's wonderful advice for maybe some budding writers out there that are listening.

Michael Kluck

Absolutely, absolutely.

John Arnold

So you said that while the focus of the book is modularization, or just from a technical aspect, it's more of a study of project planning. Would you expound on that a little?

Michael Kluck

Yeah. And I always tell everybody if they buy the book, I said, "Read the preface." I said, "I talk about why we call it an art." Really, modularization is not rocket science. It's also not a new idea. I mean, our construction industry has had it around for 50-plus years. It's a simple idea: you take a piece of a process plant and you build it somewhere cheaper and faster. And then you ship the completed section to the job site for essentially a plug and play installation.

And so over the past 50 years some people have gotten it right and a lot of people have not gotten it right. And why? A lot of people don't understand the breadth and depth of impact that the project gets when the decision is made to modularize.

Research, back to CII in our book, identified over 100 execution plan differences between the stick-built and module philosophies, along with 25 critical success factors that must be addressed for a successful project. That's a lot of stuff for someone to get right who has never done it before. So we always say, "If you're going to go down the modular path, get somebody in your organization that knows about it."

So in the preface, I compare it to the art, as some people ask me about the art of modularization. I compare it to painting a masterpiece versus slapping colors on the wall. All the materials are the same. You got the brushes. You got the oil. You got the canvas. But it's the artist that takes these materials and tools and, with his expertise, mixes them a little differently and applies them differently, and turns them into either a masterpiece or a bunch of blobs on the wall.

And the same thing with a modular project. It's the project manager that must understand the needs and be able to take the same things that a stick-built project tool uses and mix them and apply them differently so that it comes out in a positive manner.

John Arnold

And when you say “stick-built,” we're talking about projects that are built on location, correct?

Michael Kluck

That's correct. Yeah, yeah. Sorry for the vernacular, but yes —

John Arnold

Oh, no worries!

Michael Kluck

— stick-build is built on site and the module is built somewhere offsite. But, yes.

John Arnold

For a little bit of context for anyone that's never seen ... I mean, you drive down the Energy Corridor down south of Houston and you see the Chevron refineries and things like that. I mean, impressive structures.

And these modular installations are extraordinarily impressive. And so the idea that this is preassembled prefab, and then loaded on a ship and transported, and then assembled is really, really sort of breathtaking to think about. And so I imagine from a project management standpoint that there's so much that goes into that.

So for any engineers out there that are interested — I mean, your writing style in this — I have to say, read the preface and the first part of the first chapter; it's a very, very accessible writing style. And, I mean, you painted the picture perfectly.

Michael Kluck

Yeah. I tend to just write, or I write as I talk or whatever. And so I have trouble with TLAs, three-letter acronyms, and other things. So also anything with more than two or three syllables gives me trouble, so I tried to keep it simple.

But if you go down the Energy Corridor and you see those large plants, a lot of them were stick-built. But if you can imagine cutting those things up into four or five or six sections, building them overseas and coming back and plugging them in, that's what the book is about.

John Arnold

Outstanding. So in your book and elsewhere, you've pointed out some of the factors that have given modularization a bad rap historically — things like improper implementation, poor planning, and really just an incomplete understanding, I guess, of the nature of the process. So where is that coming from? What have engineers, customers, et cetera, not gotten right about modularization?

Michael Kluck

People focus on the engineers, but really it's the whole project team that doesn't get it right. And I frequently start discussions about modularization with an open-ended question about, "Who has had a negative experience with modularization?" I just said, "Show your hands." And I see a lot of hands. And then I say, “Who's had a positive experience?” You don't see very many. And so there's usually a lot more negatives.

And so to further emphasize this point, in chapters four or five or six, I don't remember, I had had a hypothetical module project that I described and it's called the Perfect Module Storm. It's a parallel on the movie with Mark Wahlberg and [sic] Richard [George] Clooney about a simple fishing trip that turned into a disaster, I think everybody's seen it.

But it starts out with a job that was awarded based on agreeing to a schedule that would be a compressed as concession for the award. So already the contractor was compromising. Contractors at the site said, "No, we need all the time, so engineering's going to have to suck it up." So engineering was squeezed. And then I go through 18 steps, it spirals out of control with a completely overrun and busted schedule.

And then the second-guessing and finger-pointing begins, with the conclusion, quote, "Modularization was a bad idea; next time we stick-build." And why is that? It's because proper, prompt planning and sequencing was not followed as required to support the fabrication effort.

So again, I mentioned it briefly, “Who's at fault?” Everybody in the project is at fault, because they think they can manage a project the same way they have managed all the previous stick-built projects, as I mentioned.

I previously mentioned the execution plan differences and the critical success factors. These can potentially impact a lot of the project execution. And they must be addressed early to determine which ones might impact it and which ones don't. And while a lot of research has been focused on how to determine the module potential of a project, little has been written on actually how to implement the project successfully. So to be successful, a company has to have folks who have been through a module project to understand how some of the nondecisions that they made later are going to be really an impact to what they can do from a module standpoint.

So the book spends a lot of time walking through project scenarios — from initial assessment of a project with a brand-new project manager on Monday. I have in there a comment, something like, "Here's your new project and details. And oh, by the way, business development told the client that we'd go ahead and modularize it. Okay, get started." And that's how it starts. And it takes a step-by-step approach then — “Okay, what do you do? Where do you go to find this? And how do you get started after that?”

John Arnold

Very interesting. So let's talk a little bit on the other side, the flip side of that. What are the major benefits of adopting this approach?

Michael Kluck

Yeah, I'm glad you bring it up. I've talked so much about it and said, “Why would somebody want to do it with all the issues? Why is it desirable?”

Very early in the book, we'd spend a chapter or two on just the current state of the industry, and the fact that many mega jobs, over 90%, overrun cost and schedule. And there's got to be an alternative approach to this because currently it's unsustainable. Our industry's unsustainable at that.

Our industry doesn't have the luxury of building many of the facilities where we would like to. They have to be in the proximity of where there's either required raw materials or close to a consumer or manufacturer. So instead of building in Hawaii or Belize, where I'd like to build, we build in places like Nigeria, Angola, near the Arctic Circle, or even in the middle of the desert. And it's really not the best place to put 3,000 to 10,000 people, tell them, "That's where you're going to live for a couple years and that's where you're going to work."

And then in addition, you're bringing in all these people, most of which haven't worked with each other, and you're asking them to work side by side, away from your home, away from amenities, using equipment that may not be exactly what you'd like, and then with harsh weather or environmental extremes. And then you expect them to do it safely.

John Arnold

Interesting.

Michael Kluck

So what does modularization provide? You can build 80% of this plant in a facility located in a temperate climate. You have a steady and experienced craft labor pool who get to go home in the evening. And more importantly, they have procedures in place to perform much of their assembly work at grade, because once completed they have enough cranage or heavy-lift equipment to pick up these pancake structures and stack them. And the work comes to them, they don't go to the work. They can concentrate on honing their skills rather than driving or riding the bus to the job site.

So what it results in, the key driver is the higher productivity or time on tools produced, with also a lower all-in wage rate. When you combine the two, you can end up with a tremendous savings advantage and actually have productivities of 10 times what you may see at the job site.

John Arnold

Wow.

Michael Kluck

So what does modularization provide? It takes care of the two big elephants in the room when you talk to the client: cost and schedule. It gives you a benefit for both. But it also gives you the subtler benefits of all these things I mentioned above: craft and management that has a better work-home life split, regular working hours with people they know, and hopefully they're more happy and productive.

Along with all this comes the efficiency of consolidation of equipment, materials and craft labor more efficiently utilized because of the volume of the work is centralized. So if you're looking at ESG and sustainability and that sort of thing, you have a place that is more efficient than a job site. So it just makes sense.

John Arnold

And it sounds like from an ESG perspective too, it has a big impact on a lot of ... a social impact built into it as well. As you were talking about the work-life balance and not having massive pollution in one place. It seems like there's lots of that sort of intrinsically built into the thought process behind modularization.

Michael Kluck

Absolutely. Both on that side and at the job site, you don't need as large a plot space to lay out all the stuff. So you don't impact the local area, you don't impact the community. It's a smaller workforce. It goes to the site. And so where you are in a pristine forest or if you are in a nice area, you have less that you will sort of muck up.

John Arnold

Excellent. So with your career experience on both the client side and the EPC side — engineering procurement construction side — I imagine you've seen lots of changes both in execution of modularization and in the ways that projects are managed. And I'm sure many factors go into that, whether it's dwindling labor force or what have you. So what have been the biggest changes or advancements in the field?

Michael Kluck

I'll probably date myself here, but the biggest move has been the large clients such as Exxon, Shell, DuPont that have initially had their own engineering and construction staff are now relying on the large EPCs to keep up with the constant changes.

I mean, as you know, that just the technology is such that it's tough to keep up. But with respect to modularization, we are finally seeing a shift in terms of timing on when the client and the contractor start looking at this. Initially, everybody thought it was okay to go ahead and start looking at whether you're going to do a module job versus stick-built in what is called front-end loading, FEL-3, or FEED, which is front-end engineering design. And that's just way too late.

To be an effective module program, the client needs to start looking at it before he even brings in a contractor. So we're talking about instead of FEL-3, it's like FEL-0 or FEL-1 which is opportunity framing or assessment. And he does that normally internally in his office. So we're trying to get the word out to the client that he needs to get somebody into his organization early before he gets us in there, because he needs to be thinking about these things.

John Arnold

Right. So as tools of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Fourth Industrial Age proliferate — the machine learnings and your artificial intelligence begin to take over everything — what are the tech trends that you see making the biggest impact on modularization in the near and long term?

Michael Kluck

Yeah, there are a bunch of them. In the book we mentioned 26 technologies that have potentially impact.

John Arnold

Wow.

Michael Kluck

We're already using building information modeling, BIM. And of course radio frequency identification, which is the little stickers you see on all the parts and pieces we have laid out everywhere. We're looking at virtual reality, augmented reality, and laser scanning we use a lot in just getting these big pieces designed and cut so they fit when we finally put them together.

But, to me, the two biggest impacts are the improvement in the 3D modeling as well as this ability to actuate, triangulate the XYZ dimensions of all the connections that need to be matched up when you put these big modules together. And then what's interesting, they've got point cloud. You can really go crazy on this 3D modeling and this laser scanning. But you really need to be, because it's so intensive as far as memory, you need to be smart about how you do it. And so some companies are looking at how to simply use XYZ measurements to look at just first fits on specific pieces of pipe.

And what they do is they now are able to not only look at that, but they also look at the dimensional changes with respect to temperature, and they're able to fit that into the mix and they can tell you exactly how much it's going to grow based on how hot it is, and they can do that and then allow for a much better fit.

So we need to be smart about how we measure and what we measure. And I think that's a big potential for the near future, to make sure that if we have the opportunity to do this we can start building large pieces in multiple parts of the world, bring them all together and let them fit. Much like Ford Motor Company does with a car.

John Arnold

Right. Very, very interesting.

Michael Kluck

And then finally, the use of a digital twin. A lot of that is being used: a virtual representation of the actual project. We're still a long way off, and the biggest issue is getting all the different technologies you have, from engineering design to procurement to logistics, all they have different programs and they don't talk to each other. So in order to get it together, we need something that feeds it all together and fits in one big digital twin.

John Arnold

All of those advancements are, I guess, potentially game changing in modularization?

Michael Kluck

Yeah, I think they will be. And I think the neat part about it is there is so much technology out there that it's not just your mom and dad's, or your grandfather's, old construction industry anymore. I mean, the technology is there We need the people that can really learn to use the virtual reality, and use some of these technologies and gaming technologies that are there, to help actually show and walk you through some of this stuff and sequence of events as far as construction. And a great opportunity for somebody that likes that sort of stuff.

John Arnold

Yeah, that's fascinating to me. Well, now that book one is in the bag, you have plans for a follow-up?

Michael Kluck

My short answer, without my wife listening, is yes. But there was a lot of late nights and other things and so ... But I think the perfect storm of having that much, as I call it, “cannon fodder” for a book, as well as a large segment of time on my hands, is probably not in the cards But I still have some ideas about where we should go with modularization and what we need to explore. The first book was just, try to get everybody up to the first level and then I think we can really, really push it. So yeah, there's some opportunity here for that. Timing? I won't tell you.

John Arnold

That's fantastic. So why don't you tell our listeners where they can get their hands on it?

Michael Kluck

Oh yeah, this is my favorite part of this podcast. The easiest way to do it — you probably can't remember the whole title, which is “Modularization: The Fine Art of Offsite Preassembly for Capital Projects.” But if you Google, Google “modularization-Kluck,” my last name, K-L-U-C-K, and it comes up. In fact, a lot of other things come up too. But anyway, that's the first thing that comes up. And it can be bought, probably not at the brick-and-mortar stores, like a Barnes & Noble, but you can get it online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, JW Wiley. And even Walmart had it. They were advertising it. I don't know how that works, but anyway, but ...

John Arnold

Excellent. Yeah, can confirm that a simple Google search of modularization and your name do bring ... I think that your name was the top hit, the Amazon return was the top hit. But then, yeah, I looked on some other websites and found it there as well, so you're out there. And folks, if you're interested in it, and like I say, it — even as someone that has zero technical background — it's an interesting read. Especially if you're involved in a company like KBR that does a lot of this high-end engineering. Before I let you go, is there anything else you'd like to add?

Michael Kluck

One thing I really cannot overemphasize: the book is about proper and complete project planning. It's about how to build a module, but this is just one way to get through the project planning. And the reason we did it this way is modularization requires a lot of project planning be initiated much earlier, because very early in the project you're now sending stuff to an intermediate module yard in order to build it, as opposed to sending it years later down to site. So it makes poor planning and other things much more obvious when you don't do them.

And finally, the book talks about large industrial modules, because myself and Dr. Choi know these the best and we have a bunch of examples. And they have some terrible consequences if you get it wrong. But if you can look beyond the surface, the points being made applied to any size module job, and really, as you've mentioned, any type of project planning job. It just tells you, "Think about what you're doing, plan it, and then work the plan." Everybody says that, but nobody seems to do it.

John Arnold

Bigger, broader life lessons to be learned from reading this book, it sounds like! Mike, we thank you so much for your time. Encourage all of our listeners to go out and check out the book. And share this podcast episode with folks that might be interested in learning more about either modularization or a better way to manage your project. But in the meantime, yeah, we thank you so much for being with us.

Michael Kluck

Oh, thank you. And like I tell everybody, if you have a question, give me a call. I have never been one that's been unwilling to talk about the subject, so.

John Arnold

All right. Well, we'll talk to you again soon, I hope, when the next book comes out.

Michael Kluck

Thanks a lot, John.

CONCLUSION

John Arnold

So there you go, dear listeners! We hope you'll run, don't walk, to your nearest computer or pick up that mobile device and order Mike's book. That title again is “Modularization: The Fine Art of Offsite Preassembly for Capital Projects,” published by JW Wiley. It is available on most of the big book websites, but you can also get it at Bookshop.org and support your local book retailers.

Again, we want to thank Mike so much for his time. And a special shout out to Emma, our producer, for her amazing work in helping get the podcast out to your ears. And if you like what you heard today, or if you have an idea for a future episode, let us hear about it by sending us an email at InOrbit@kbr.com.

As always, thanks to everyone listening, we appreciate you spending some time with us and keeping us in your orbit. Take care.