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Cradle Your Completions With Digital Handovers | Energy Industry Blog

Written by Lisa De Vellis, PE | Nov 10, 2021 2:09:56 PM

Kids are a lot of work. Parents put in countless hours, resources, sweat and tears into getting children to the point where the caring responsibility can be transferred to others. Could you imagine a doting father – eyes closed and hoping for the best – tossing his kid to their new teacher?

As tempting as it may be at times, such leaps of faith can go horribly wrong for all involved parties. When it comes to completion phases of industrial construction or maintenance projects, this same haphazard risk exists with non-digital handovers, where traditional paper-based systems leave too much room for error and delay.

Completion management software ensures that your asset – in whom you invested significant amounts of money, time and effort – is handed over to a well-prepared owner-operator armed with a portfolio of legacy and comprehensive care notes.

 

What Is Completion Management Software?

Using software solutions for completion management minimizes errors and delays that compromise smooth operations during the handover of a facility or project from contractor to client. This digital solution avoids labor-intensive paper trails and other delays that plague non-digital handovers.

A Completion Management System (Completions, for short) is effectively a single-source of information into which all activities are inputted, thereby creating a global sharing environment visible to all parties that includes such features as streamlined project management tools and reporting.

Offering full transparency, the shared Completions interface makes for a dependable and quality-assured integrity management system.

A thoughtfully designed Completions database drives industrial projects from early phases through completion and is compatible with digital operational systems that follow.

Handovers are, simply, the transfer of responsibility of the new or repaired asset(s) from contractor to client. Digital handovers confirm that, for example, all Inspection Test Records (ITRs) have been completed to spec in advance of this changing of hands.

The terms completion and handover are easy to mix up, but they represent the two distinct phases of the overall handover process, for which completion management software systems serve to minimize disruption.

 

Handover Milestones and Transfer of Responsibility

As mentioned, digital completions systems address the two phases that make up the transfer of asset or facility responsibility from the contractor to the owner-operator, which are as follows:

  1. Complete Phase, which ensure that the construction project and/or maintenance activities are finished to specification and are quality assured; and
  2. Handover Phase, which ensures that the asset(s) and/or facility is fit for purpose and ready to be brought online, or energized.

Traditionally, these phases would require lengthy paper-trails that are prone to human error. Any inaccurate or missing information runs the risk of compromising compliant and efficient operations following transfer of responsibility to the client.

Completion Managements Systems certify each of the two milestones, ensuring that the owner-operator inherits what I’ll refer to as a plug-and-play operation without unnecessary headaches, hassle or downtime. Effective completions result in safe, dependable, maintainable and operable deliverables that are fit for purpose.

Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) projects, as well as maintenance and operations contracts, require sound commissioning practices that are most easily achieved through the use of digital project completion management system software.

 

The Digital Advantage of Project Completions Software

Completion software documents system inspection results. Digital ITRs include the tagging of each piece of equipment. The system prompts users to complete the necessary tests, including walkthroughs, queries sign-offs, and grants inspection certificates when appropriate.

When compared to traditional paper-based systems, project completions software mitigates the main sources of lost-time, through:

  • Eliminating form-filling errors and lost paperwork;
  • Clearing up ambiguity relating to real-time status of works;
  • Streamlining communication, removing delays stemming from sharing paper-based information;
  • Data-filtering capabilities and information and monitoring of individual pieces of equipment and subsystems;
  • An easy-to-query master database, accessible to everyone;
  • Real-time data synchronization and status updates; and
  • Automatic scheduling updates that ensure no forgotten tasks.

As a one-stop shop, any user – whether contractor of client – can easily pull validation checks, ensuring that ITRs have been properly completed. User-friendly data grids can be filtered by system, revealing its status and making life a heck of a lot easier for all those involved.

 

The Quest Towards Operational Excellence

A digital completions and commissioning management system is essential in the quest towards operational excellence. Owners-operators inherit upfront all data and information via a single shared source, while contractors leave with their reputations intact.

Completion management software – designed to accommodate the entire handover lifecycle and beyond – minimizes scheduling errors and delays, and reaches key milestones on time.

There won’t be any screaming babies when using completions software solutions to meet expectations. Efficiencies made possible through digital handovers translate into productivity, safety and profitability, ensuring that the integrity of project works gets passed onto a happy client and sustainable business relationships.

Effective project handover, made possible through digital software solutions, is beneficial for everyone involved.

 

If you are looking to implement next-gen completions,