Save Time and Money with Early Commissioning Plans
Stakeholders involved in the construction and delivery of major projects would concur that the commissioning and completions phase is the most critical and complex project phase. Most would agree that the biggest hurdle during this phase is to organize and manage data effectively.
According to a report by McKinsey, major construction projects, on average, are delivered one year behind schedule and 30 per cent over budget. Megaprojects with high levels of complexity create productivity bottlenecks that can slow work to a crawl, which sometimes occurs when 70 per cent or more of the project is complete.
At this stage, commissioning handover dates are fast approaching, and project delivery teams are often behind schedule and over budget. Faced with these daunting challenges, delivery teams struggle not only with project fatigue but with an actual or perceived lack of project success.
Early Engagement
Commissioning is the last major phase before operations. Under the constraints of extreme time pressure or delays, commissioning activities sometimes continue after the initial operation of the plant, which can cause delays, safety concerns and cost issues.
During this phase, special efforts are also required to ensure safety and reliability; since commissioning, start-up and shutdown activities have been responsible for many accidents, failures and other issues, these activities merit special attention.
Integrating the commissioning plan with the core construction planning in advance would eliminate these pitfalls. To ensure the integration occurs smoothly, adopting CCMS – Commissioning Completions Management System at the start of any project would allow you to make rapid choices on what gets done on-site to attain the fastest, safest completions possible.
CCMS allows you to stay on schedule and budget by managing large quantities of equipment, activities, and data involved in completions, commissioning, and turnover. Which in return, would allow you to deploy quickly, offer a more sophisticated approach to project portfolios (standardization), and allow transparent and consistent reporting across all contractors.
Benefits of CCMS to Asset Owner’s and Contractors
Correct commissioning is vital for the optimum operation of any plant or facility, where sufficient time and resources must be allocated to different commissioning and start-up stages.
Hexagon’s own CCMS solution Intergraph Smart® Completions (ISC), used in some mega-projects throughout the world, would help you achieve optimum operation by providing exceptional performance and results. It is a reliable and predictable system designed to achieve your start-up, commissioning, and completions goals.
Traditionally, asset owner’s do not manage the completions process; however, these days, major operators have started to annex or take control of the completions data earlier during projects.
Asset owners are now instructing contractors to use CCMS to manage completions and commissioning activities. With CCMS, all parties would have increased visibility from construction “area build” to “system handover” transition.
During construction, projects go through a “blackout” period while contractors transition from area-based construction to system turnover. Critical time is lost during this period as the project team struggles to get systems and reporting established for system turnover.
In some cases, the construction planning groups do not consider system priorities in their area-based planning (IWPs) simply because they do not have the visibility of this information.
Thus, causing system turnover delays due to this lack of transparency. For example, when contractors realize certain portions of a system are behind schedule, they do not have enough time to recover.
However, with Smart Completions, the information will be readily available, permitting contractors to plan and adjust accordingly to facilitate a timely turnover of systems.
Many contractors are familiar with Advanced Work Packaging (AWP), a construction-driven planning and collaboration system that helps build capital projects that are sharply focused on creating a constraint-free work environment in the field.
Adopting this project delivery process with Smart Completions would ease collaboration during commissioning.
There are instances where a system could sit almost ready for commissioning for extended periods. Something that is early in the commissioning sequence could be late in the construction sequence, which pushes the entire schedule back. With Smart Completions and AWP, early planning, transparency, and collaboration allows teams to coordinate and expedite to reduce the start-up schedule.
Watch this webinar for more information on Advanced Work Packaging (AWP).
Intergraph Smart® Completions
Smart Completions enables properly prioritized transition from bulk construction to bulk completions to systems completions while readily identifying work fronts.
Smart Completions is designed to consolidate asset information and verify installation, testing and performance of all equipment, instruments, piping, and Control System Input Output (I/O) points. The flexible foundation provides projects with the tools needed to track all facets to ensure system integrity and deliver the end product that meets ISO specifications or higher standards.
For more information on commissioning, digital completions and Intergraph Smart® Completions, download our whitepaper Digitizing Completions to Increase Project Performance and Value