VLEK
FR/EN

Industrial project advisory · Industry, energy, offshore

The bid.The contract.The schedule.The delivery.

VLEK works on what is decided before commitment: the bid, the contract, the schedule. Then stays to verify that what was written is what is delivered.

Let’s discuss your projectView cases
01/

For whom

For those who design, sign and deliver industrial projects.

Project engineers (MOE) and design offices managing industrial works. Project directors and leaders of contracting companies. Industrial owners who want the view from the other side of the table.

The right moment to call us

  1. 01A strategic bid worth tens of millions, due on a tight deadline.
  2. 02Several technical solutions on the table, and a choice to make by weighing contract, delivery and required skills, costed from real project experience.
  3. 03A FIDIC or EPC contract to sign, with risks no one has yet quantified.
  4. 04A schedule slipping, with no one knowing by how much.
  5. 05A disagreement taking shape with a client or subcontractor.
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Services

Before signature01

Advisory

The bid and the contract, while everything can still be decided.

Bid preparation and review, from costing to submission, including the technical submission and bidding strategy. Review of FIDIC, EPC and EPCI standard contracts and public procurement contracts: risk allocation, pricing clauses, penalties, claim deadlines. Each deviation is quantified, in euros and days.

Weight the risksCheck the timesAlign contract and riskTrack interfaces

Technical and economic review of the contract, conducted with your legal adviser when the question requires it.

View advisory cases
When a disagreement takes shape03

Expert services

Establish the facts, quantify them, demonstrate them.

Independent technical opinion, review of an estimate or schedule, delay and additional cost analysis, drafting and defence of claim submissions, negotiation support, party-appointed expert services.

Audit the schedule
View expert services cases

Step by step

What VLEK can bring at each stage of the project.

From contractor consultation to delivery follow-up, interventions are chosen à la carte, wherever the project needs them.

  1. 01DCE

    Design and tendering: review of technical documents, work-package breakdown, contractual safeguards, deadlines required of contractors.

    Align contract and riskTrack interfaces
  2. 02ACT

    Bid analysis: checking the times, methods and schedules submitted, beyond price alone.

    Check the timesAudit the schedule
  3. 03REVIEW

    Review of contractors' schedules, installation procedures and method statements, with recommendations to improve them.

    Audit the scheduleCheck the times
  4. 04DET

    Construction supervision: schedule drift, interfaces between packages, analysis of contractors' claims.

    Weight the risksTrack interfaces
Let's talk about your next assignment
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Methods

Five methods, the same from one assignment to the next.

The difference does not come down to intuition. Each one follows the same procedure on every assignment, and every result can be reproduced by a third party.

  1. 01

    Weight and quantify the risks.

    Each risk is assigned a probability and quantified, in days and euros. The weighted matrix shows management what really matters, not a list of colours.

    Used in :AdvisoryDelivery
    View case 01
  2. 02

    Audit how the schedule is built.

    The schedule is checked against its construction rules: sequencing logic, links and constraints, critical path, float. A poorly constructed schedule proves nothing, whether in committee or in a claim.

    Used in :DeliveryExpert services
    View case 04
  3. 03

    Check times against references.

    Each duration is checked against quantities, production rates and trade reference times. We know whether the schedule is achievable before committing to it.

    Used in :AdvisoryDelivery
    View case 03
  4. 04

    Align the contract with real risk.

    The contract is assessed against the actual site risks: safeguards to include, clauses to neutralise, project packaging adjusted so that each risk is carried by whoever can control it.

    Used in :Advisory
    View case 01
  5. 05

    Record and track the interfaces.

    Every interface between work packages, companies and disciplines is recorded, assigned to an owner and tracked to resolution. This is often where projects go off course.

    Used in :AdvisoryDelivery
    View the situation
04/

Results

of substantiated difference between the proposed position and the position actually open to negotiation.

Typical case: difference in estimated formwork time, measured against 270 observations.

of working-day drift between two revisions of the same schedule.

View cases
05/

What sets us apart

Both sides of the table.

Construction management and offshore installation on the delivery side, bid preparation and contract analysis on the client side. Most practitioners have seen only one side, and it shows in their analyses.

A second distinction: risk is quantified, in euros and days, line by line, reproducibly.

Contractor side

deepwater offshore installation, turnkey projects, EPC tender responses, business unit management.

Client side

programme management for RTE and CEA, audit of a Société du Grand Paris contract, management of a portfolio of 300 projects.

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About

Valentin Mahy, founder

Since 2007, I have negotiated and delivered industrial contracts, for contractors and owners alike. Today I put that dual experience to work on your projects.

At sea first, off Angola, Congo and Vietnam, installing pipelines and umbilicals in deep water. Then on the owner side, managing budgets, risks and schedules for energy programmes. Finally leading a business unit of turnkey industrial projects, preparing EPC bids up to €100m and negotiating their contracts.

From automated metro to offshore oil and gas, from power grids to heavy industry: this diversity is an asset in itself. A solution proven in one sector often solves a problem in another.

That is where VLEK comes from: knowing what a clause costs, because you have had to deliver it.

I design my own analysis tools and keep a constant watch on newly available tools, so that clients get the best advice and the best tools. This makes it possible to compare two schedules task by task, or check an estimate against hundreds of observations, in hours rather than weeks.

Career

  1. 2026

    VLEK
    Founder

    Industrial project advisory: bids, contracts, delivery verification.

  2. 2020 to 2026

    Eiffage Métal
    Contractor side

    Project manager, then creation and management of a turnkey projects business unit, then head of the pre-project team. Opportunity portfolio up to €100m, EPC bids, FEED studies, contract negotiation. Bids: lithium hydroxide production unit for Rio Tinto (Vanguard project), new pickling line for ArcelorMittal as consortium leader. Delivered: protection buildings for the MY02 basin at the Toulon naval base, denitrification unit for a 20 MW power station in Mayotte.

  3. 2018 to 2020

    Ortec Group
    Client side

    PMO team manager on six offshore wind connection projects for RTE, audits by the French Energy Regulatory Commission. Audit of the line 15 contract for Société du Grand Paris. Management of a programme of twelve construction projects for CEA.

  4. 2017 to 2018

    Assystem
    Client side

    Selection and deployment of a tool to manage a portfolio of 300 projects for Storengy.

  5. 2012 to 2017

    Subsea 7
    Contractor side

    Deepwater project and installation engineer. Umbilicals for the CLOV project in Angola (US$1.3bn), pipelines for the P17/P18 project in Vietnam. Tender responses, offshore rotations, teams of twenty people.

  6. 2011 to 2012

    Technip
    Contractor side

    Offshore project engineer: loading, installation and commissioning of equipment on platforms in Congo.

  7. 2007 to 2010

    Siemens
    Manufacturer side

    Development engineer on the Neoval automated metro: industrialisation, subcontracting, manufacturing schedule.

Education

  • 2010 to 2011

    University College London

    One-year course in marine engineering in London: design, analysis and operation of naval systems.

  • 2007 to 2010

    EI.CESI

    Engineering degree through apprenticeship in industrial engineering, majoring in project management: risk analysis, value analysis, continuous improvement. Work-study at Siemens.

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In practice

Every assignment has its own client area.

Everything produced is filed there, indexed and dated: the client sees what was delivered, when, and under which revision. Superseded documents no longer circulate by email.

Clear pricing.

Daily rate, workload estimated deliverable by deliverable at scoping, firm ceiling stated in the proposal.

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Fields

Energy, defence, heavy industry and offshore, across all trades: industrial piping, structures, installation of units and equipment, decarbonisation projects.

Bids·Contracts·FIDIC·EPC·Schedule·Risks·Piping·Structures·Installation·Offshore·Defence·Nuclear·Decarbonisation·
09/

Contact

A bid to secure, a contract to review, a schedule drifting?

Let’s talk.

Write06 86 62 02 45

VLEK, La Madeleine, near Lille. Assignments in France and internationally.