How much of your project capacity goes to tasks that don't require a project manager?
It might be the front end — bids nobody had the hours to answer. It might be the back — an asset built and not earning while the closeout package is finished. We do not assume we know which. Two days on site tells us where the capacity actually goes, and we say plainly what is worth automating and what is not.
Most people who call you already know what they are going to sell you.
We do not. Sometimes the pipeline is the constraint and the delivery side is fine. Sometimes the pipeline is healthy and the work is stuck behind paperwork nobody has time to finish. We have seen both, and we have been wrong guessing from the outside.
So the audit covers the whole run — marketing, sales, estimating, contracts, permitting, engineering, procurement, project management, field, commissioning, closeout, O&M, finance. Fifteen departments. Two days. Then we tell you where the hours actually go, what would be worth changing, and what we would leave alone.
One reason the back end is worth measuring: in your sector the clock has a price.
In most industries late paperwork costs time. In renewable it costs money per day, and the amount is calculable rather than abstract. That does not mean it is where your problem is — only that if it is, the number is knowable. These are the three places it tends to hide.
Unbilled revenue
An asset that is built but not energized earns nothing. Every day between mechanical completion and commercial operation is revenue the project financed for and did not collect.
Statutory deadlines
Tax credit qualification runs on dates that do not move. A closeout package that slips past a deadline does not cost you a week — it changes the economics of the project.
Interconnection position
Queue positions carry real option value and real re-study risk. Documentation that holds up an interconnection milestone puts something far more expensive than engineering hours at risk.
One system, two engines — pipeline in, projects out.
The usual answer is a separate tool for each, bought at different times for different reasons. We build a single system that automates the repetitive work at both ends of the business, and leaves every consequential judgment with your people. Which engine you need first — or whether you need both — is what the audit establishes.
Growth
- RFP and proposal throughput — the reusable portion drafted, so the estimator spends the time on price and scope.
- Identify and target the right prospects — developers, EPCs and asset owners that match the work you actually want.
- Personalised outreach at scale — relevant and specific, never templated blasts.
- Follow-up that does not get dropped — the sequence runs whether or not anyone remembers.
- A pipeline you can see — what is in it, what stage, and what it is worth.
Delivery
- Commissioning documentation and closeout — test records, punch lists, as-builts and turnover packages generated per asset from the commissioning record.
- Compliance and performance reporting — offtaker, lender, utility and regulator reports drafted from the source of record.
- Submittals and equipment packages — verified against the specification, not against the last project.
- Legacy integration knowledge — captured and searchable, so schedules stop depending on who is on site.
- Every figure traceable — checked against a primary source before it ships.
Six places the hours usually go. None of them require the expertise.
These are the six we find most often across renewable contractors — three at the front of the business, three at the back. Every one is drafting, assembling, chasing or reformatting — work that consumes commissioning engineers and project managers without requiring their judgment. Whether any of them are true in your operation is the part only you can answer, and it is worth answering before anyone talks about tools.
Commissioning discipline does not care what generates the electricity.
MC Systems is the solar division of MC Consulting, an engineering practice since 1984. The reason this transfers is that the underlying discipline was never about reactors. It was about proving a system does what the specification says before anyone signs for it — and documenting it well enough that someone else can verify the claim years later.
Balance-of-plant monitoring, control rod systems, radiation monitoring, security and water treatment — then trained the utility's own personnel to run them.
Two and a half years authoring procedures and controlling the startup work package process through commissioning of both units.
Design team and onsite startup engineer for the site-wide electronic safeguards system. A fiber modem circuit redesign prevented forced replacement of every dual-link fault-tolerant modem on site.
Turnkey energy evaluations with 24/7 monitoring; automated energy-control systems reducing electricity and gas consumption across a multi-site portfolio.
Before you talk to anyone, including us.
These are useful whether or not you ever pick up the phone. Two of them will tell you honestly whether there is anything here worth paying for.
The Fit Check
Six questions, thirty seconds. Find out whether a conversation with us is worth your time before you spend it. It says no more often than it says yes.
The Workflow Diagnostic
Eight questions and the arithmetic to run any single process through them. It will tell you when a workflow is not worth automating — which is most of the value.
MC Consulting, Inc.
An engineering practice since 1984. Engineering capacity automation for industrial automation, controls and systems-integration firms. The full record, the method, and the diagnostic tools.
Twenty minutes. No pitch deck. Mostly you talking.
I will ask how the work actually moves through your company — where it starts, who touches it, what happens between winning a job and closing it out. At the end I will tell you whether I think there is something worth measuring properly, or whether there is not. Both are real answers, and you will get one either way.