Completion-Focused Frameworks are Essential to Completing Capital Projects

Completion-Focused Frameworks are essential for Project Management Teams in order to complete capital project construction completions and commissioning. Without Completion-Focused Frameworks established in all stages of capital projects, I’m willing to bet you have one or more of the following problems on projects:

Overlapping construction and commissioning activities are inefficient, with details that get missed
Factory Acceptance Testing never aligns well with on-site testing
Incomplete installations cause snags during commissioning
Commissioning workflows are not well defined, progress is difficult to monitor, and gated signoffs at each stage are inconsistent
Deficiency tracking is still done using spreadsheets
Integration of control systems is challenging with more delays than you’re comfortable with
Commissioning needs to get done in half the time, but ends up taking twice as long anyways

Without Completion-Focused Frameworks, project teams quickly get overwhelmed with the complexity of finishing projects, causing delays and cost overruns.

The long-standing industry-norm is to defer completions to the end of projects. But without the necessary Completion-Focused Frameworks embedded in all stages of projects, including during procurement, design, and construction phases, it becomes quite cumbersome to track the project details for on-time completion.

The five aspects of Completion-Focused Frameworks to consider are:

Completions in Contracts,
Completions in FEED
Completions in Off-Site Testing
Construction Completions
CSU Completion Workflows

Let’s review how completion frameworks are embedded in each of these project phases.

Completions in Contracts

Completion-Focused Frameworks in contracts are required to ensure the details of how projects will be successfully finished are defined upfront. This defines the goalposts for all project groups to achieve, with no surprises. Contracts must define how projects will start, but more importantly, they must define how they will be finished. Completion-Focused Frameworks in contracts answer questions such as how design and construction groups are expected to use your project CMS Software, what workflows are required for construction completions and commissioning, and who is the authority signing off at each stage of your gated commissioning workflows.

As well, Completion-Focused Frameworks in procurement contracts define how equipment is to be tested in the factory, particularly how hardware and software are tested together during Integrated Factory Acceptance Testing of control and protection cubicles, to ensure that equipment has been fully tested before arriving at site. When IFAT is done poorly or not done at all, significant risk is deferred to your on-site testing, which causes delays during your critical-path on-site testing.

Completion-Focused Frameworks must be embedded within your procurement processes to ensure that the beginning of your capital project aligns with how it will be completed several years later.

Completions in FEED

Completion-Focused Frameworks are required during your front-end engineering design activities to ensure early project design activities align with the end of your project during construction completions and commissioning. During your staged design reviews (preliminary design reviews, detailed design reviews, final design reviews), input from all stakeholders is required to make any adjustments to align designs with later stages of the project. Small changes can save significant time and money during critical-path commissioning and startup activities. This is particularly true for control and protection systems, where more in-depth reviews are required. Completion-Focused Frameworks ensure that operational feedback is reviewed with programmers to ensure control functions operate as intended, and HMI screens meet the operational requirements of day-to-day operation of the new plant facilities. The time to review the functionality of these systems is during design and construction, not debugging these systems during on-site commissioning. Getting these wrong can significantly delay your project startup. Completion-Focused Frameworks during FEED ensure the right input from the right people is provided to design teams for successful commissioning and startup later in your project.

Completions in Off-Site Testing

Completion-Focused Frameworks are required during off-site testing, since these are the first tests to be conducted on equipment that will eventually be permanently installed on-site. If the first stage of testing is not accurately completed, second and third stages of testing will start to compound issues. This is particularly important for equipment requiring both hardware and software testing in the factory. When these details are missed in contracts, it is much more expensive to add them after the fact. Invariably someone makes the decision to not incur the extra expense to test in the factory, thinking time and money can be saved by doing testing on-site. This defers all the risk of issues being identified later during critical-path on-site testing, costing even more than the procurement change order. All this can be avoided by embedding Completion-Focused Frameworks into FAT and IFAT processes to properly test equipment before it arrives at site.

Construction Completions

Completion-Focused Frameworks are required during construction completions since this can be the most challenging aspect of projects. Completing construction is no small task, since there are a lot of details to manage, and every big and small detail starts to matter during commissioning. Miss anything during construction and there will be lots of snags during commissioning. Completion-Focused Frameworks provide the structure that is missing on projects to allow the transition from construction to commissioning to go much smoother. With established processes to follow that are tracked in software, both construction and commissioning groups know exactly what is required, and when it is required, so everyone can work collaboratively to get the job done. With Completion-Focused Frameworks defined early in your project, completing construction and starting commissioning is a well-defined process, and your project groups are much more confident to meet their due dates.

CSU Completion Workflows

Completion-Focused Frameworks are required during on-site commissioning, as this can be the most complex and fast-paced stage of projects. With so much going on at such a rapid pace, you need processes to focus on executing the work, as there is no time to delay. With Completion-Focused Frameworks established early in your project, teams are ready to execute commissioning to precision to avoid delays and start up the new facilities so you can get value from your new assets. Without Completion-Focused Frameworks to get through this very demanding phase of projects, project teams quickly fall behind, and get lost in all the details, with delays and cost over-runs that result.