The story:
During one project’s weekly coordination meeting, it was discovered that the small valves required for venting and draining the pipe installation during the hydrotest were not ordered. The valve specification contained special trim for the process requirements, translating to an unexpected 12-week delivery, and delay of the hydrotest.
The impact:
The Procurement Team tried to mitigated delays by paying a premium to decrease delivery time, but the hydrotest was still delayed, which also delayed the final QA/QC inspection sign-off. In addition to the additional procurement cost, 2 weeks were lost from the schedule.
Root cause:
The main issue in this scenario is a lack of coordinated and early communication between the involved departments / silos. The work package was approved to proceed without confirmation that all relevent issues had been identified and resolved.
Lesson learned:
When following Advanced Work Packaging Best Practice, an Installation Work Package (IWP) is completed 90 days prior to execution. This material issue would have been found and resolved during IWP development. Also, there are 60-day and 30-day (prior to execution) status reviews to ensure that any constraints discovered during IWP development have been mitigated. An IWP cannot be executed until all constraints have been removed, ensuring that the issue above is identified and addressed without causing further issue.
Building from experience:
Team Builder Solution’s experienced professionals apply the principles of Integrated Project Delivery, utilizing Advanced Work Packaging, to identify constraints such as these. This methodology mandates early identification of constraints through communication with all relevant team members, and subsequent review and approval stages prior to execution. Approval of all work packages helps to identify and resolve these types of communication issues.