Waterfall Project Manager Simulation — Suncor Energy (Petro-Canada)

The scenario

Suncor's downstream business moves Petro-Canada branded fuel through a network of distribution terminals where tank trucks are loaded for delivery to retail stations and commercial customers. At most of these terminals, a unionized rack operator meets every truck, verifies the order, sets the preset on the loading arm, and supervises the load. It works, it is safe, and it is slow — and it does not scale to the volumes the network is forecasting. Leadership wants to know whether carrier-driver-operated automated loading — the model used at high-throughput terminals across North America, where a trained, badged driver loads their own truck through an automated bay with no operator present — can work inside Suncor's operating reality. Rather than commit capital to a network rollout, they have funded a contained $1.2M, 14-week proof at a single Greater Toronto Area terminal in Mississauga. The Toptech Multiload II preset system, OPW Civacon overfill protection, and driver card access are proven products; the open questions are operational and human, not technical. The pilot lives or dies on its credibility. Two automated bays, a cohort of carrier drivers to train and certify, a TSSA Fuels Safety variation to secure, and a Unifor rack crew whose attended-loading role is exactly what the pilot is testing away. You are not being asked to prove the technology works in a lab. You are being asked to prove it works here, answer the questions a $40M network decision will rest on, and resist every pressure to expand the pilot until the answer stops meaning anything. Your job is to make the result believable.

What you'll do as the project manager

• →Commission two carrier-driver-operated automated loading bays at the Mississauga terminal and run them in live service for a minimum 6-week measurement window
• →Train and certify a cohort of at least 24 carrier drivers to self-load safely, achieving zero recordable safety incidents during the pilot
• →Secure the TSSA Fuels Safety variation and joint Health & Safety Committee sign-off required to operate driver-controlled loading at the site
• →Define and measure the evaluation metrics — throughput per bay-hour, load accuracy, safety events, driver cycle time, operator redeployment — that a rollout decision requires
• →Deliver a board-credible scale / no-scale recommendation for network-wide rollout within the $1.2M / 27-working-day envelope

Project management skills you'll build

The challenges you'll navigate

• •The Unifor rack crew reads the pilot as the first step toward eliminating their jobs and withdraws cooperation, starving the trial of the operator knowledge it needs
• •Scope expands — a third bay, a second product grade, a second site — until the result can no longer be cleanly attributed to the automation
• •The TSSA Fuels Safety variation takes longer than the schedule assumes, compressing the live measurement window below a credible length
• •Carrier drivers are not released for training on time, leaving too small a certified cohort to produce meaningful throughput data
• •The pilot 'succeeds' on a shortcut — favourable conditions, hand-picked drivers, an operator quietly helping — and the result misleads the rollout decision

Technology & stakeholders

You'll manage 7 stakeholders, including Marc-André Charbonneau (Director, Downstream Digital & Terminal Automation), Helen Prentice (Manager, Downstream Digital PMO), Gord Healey (Terminal Operations Manager, Mississauga), and more.

What you'll walk away with

A verified, shareable record of a completed enterprise project — plus the PMO deliverables you produced along the way (charter, project plan, SteerCo deck, closure document). It's real, demonstrable project management experience you can put on your resume and speak to in interviews.

Frequently asked questions

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