About PPSS
Specialist project controls, built around how good controls work actually gets done.
PPSS is a specialist project controls consultancy. Senior practitioners work inside the delivery team, with direct ownership of the schedule, the records and the reporting.
How it started
Kurt Stevens started PPSS in 2010.
Kurt had been planning and scheduling on live infrastructure and energy jobs for a few years by then. He set the firm up in August to work from inside the project team.
He had watched projects get into trouble when controls were treated as overhead. The schedule, the records and the reporting lagged the job. Things held together better when an experienced planner owned them, sat with the team, and put their name on the output.
Fifteen years later, that is still the job. A senior practitioner leads every PPSS engagement and stays accountable for the work.
How we work
Embedded, not advisory. Senior, not delegated.
You get the senior person
The practitioner who scopes the engagement is the practitioner doing the work. There is no handover to a junior team after the first meeting. No account manager between you and the person on the schedule. The same senior practitioner stays with the project through to completion.
The work holds up
Schedules, records and reports are built to stand up to scrutiny, from a board, a client, a contractor or an independent reviewer. That is not a byproduct of good controls work. It is the point of it. Contemporaneous records, defensible logic and one version of the truth are built in from the start, not assembled after a dispute has already formed.
Depth over breadth
PPSS works in project controls. Not general management consulting, not digital transformation, not HR advisory. The depth of what we deliver comes directly from not spreading across disciplines that are not ours. When something needs project controls expertise, that is what you get.
Leadership
Kurt Stevens has been planning and scheduling projects since 2007. He started PPSS in August 2010 and has led it ever since.
The first two years were brownfield work on assets that were still running. He was lead planner and scheduler on a $60M motorway free-flow tolling upgrade, and project scheduler on three substation design and construction projects.
He then joined Project Management Solutions Australia, later Primavera Australia, as a planning and scheduling consultant. Training and implementation became a large part of the role. He taught the Basic, Advanced and Administration Primavera courses, and ran P6 administration for a power generator at head office and across its four station sites. One job from that period was a dual overhaul of two 350MW units and a coal handling system. More than $150M, over 350,000 man-hours, and twelve weeks to do it.
Most of the PPSS work has been shutdowns, overhauls and other live-asset jobs. Hydro and coal-fired plant, refinery demolition, alumina boiler shutdowns, fertiliser turnarounds. Mine studies in gold, copper and coal. CSG water infrastructure, rail renewals, ports. There has been ICT program integration for a state government department as well.
Where he has taught
- Defence
- P6 training to a defence prime, under contract to Oracle.
- Rail
- P6 training to a metropolitan rail operator, under contract to Oracle.
- Government
- Public sector groups in Sydney and Newcastle (via Oracle), and regional council engineering and support staff.
- Power generation
- Boiler and turbine OEMs, focused on maintenance and shutdown scheduling.
- Engineering consultancy
- Project managers and project engineers at a tier-one consultancy.
- Engineering and construction
- A multi-state contractor across Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney and Melbourne, and an oil and gas engineering firm.
- Water
- An area water board, implementation plus training and mentoring.
- Chemicals and fertiliser
- A nitrate plant, implementation plus training.
The practitioners
Senior practitioners placed directly inside your project.
Beyond Kurt's direct involvement in engagements, PPSS places experienced planners, schedulers, project controls leads and Primavera P6 practitioners from a network of senior practitioners, each with substantial capital project experience across the sectors PPSS works in. Practitioners are matched to engagements based on sector experience, project type and the specific controls challenge the project is facing.
Those consultants come from many backgrounds, including former tradespeople who have worked hands-on on the same capital projects PPSS supports, not only from planning and controls roles behind a desk.
Next step
If you want to understand whether PPSS is the right fit for your project, the fastest way is a direct conversation.
No sales process, no discovery questionnaire. Tell us what the situation is and we will tell you honestly whether we can help and how we would approach it.