Improving the data handover process

Factories are constantly under change for performance improvements and revenue optimizations. Change projects affect the actual situation on-site and should ideally be initiated using up-to-date or as-built technical asset information. In many cases, however, this is not the reality.

From ARC’s whitepaper:
Asset Lifecycle Information Management - Managing All of Your Information Handover Challenges
Handover is a major event in every asset’s lifetime. In the context of ARC’s model for Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM), it is the time when responsibility for an asset is formally passed from the Project Performance Management (PPM) group to those responsible for Asset Performance Management (APM).

Achieving Handover implies that that all parties agree that the physical asset is complete, meets design criteria, and is “ready for operation.” As this generally marks the end of project activity, getting the physical assets to this state is a major goal for every PPM organization. Ready for operation is certainly a major accomplishment, but it does not mean that the asset has achieved true Operational Readiness. Functional assets are more than physical equipment and Operational Readiness requires that the APM organization is also ready to use and care for the costly investment. Furthermore, this has to be achieved by Handover to avoid costly delays in the generation of benefits and lingering problems that can forever plague asset performance.
Read more about Asset Lifecycle Information Management here

During the change project, internal and external team members work on the design and engineering data gets approved for construction. During construction, remarks and markups are added to this engineering data. After commissioning and before handover to operations, it is best to make the documentation and data as-built. This is expensive, so in many cases the data is handed over with the remarks and markups. In itself this is not a big problem, but maintenance may not feel very confident using this data as a reference when going out in the field.

Especially when working with multiple contractors and suppliers, the handover process is very cumbersome, because a lot of documents and data are received in an unstructured way. These may be provided digitally and perhaps even in folders, but still it is a lot of work to find out which documents are necessary for operations and maintenance and to which assets they are related. To improve the handover process, BlueCielo offers a clear strategy which can be implemented through our Asset Information Management solutions.

BlueCielo’s strategy for seamless handover:
Within the BlueCielo Meridian solution suite, we enable the full management of the master data of your production assets. This means that change projects can be initiated with the available documentation of your assets. At the start of the project it is clear which asset-specific documentation must be delivered, such as updated Process and Instrumentation diagrams, Specification sheets, overview drawings, installation instructions, updated standard operating procedures, etc. In addition, the approval cycles can be set, ensuring that the necessary documentation is delivered and is available in the right format at the end of each project phase.

After construction and commissioning, the documentation can go into a so-called “as-built” project, enabling the documentation to be checked and, if necessary, updated before the release to master – in other words, before the documentation is released to the organization for the next phases of the asset life cycle.

After handover, the organization will benefit even more if the provided data and documents are related to the revenue-generating assets by making the relation between the assets and the documents, so called “tag-doc relations”. In this way, operations and maintenance can find all asset-related documentation through the asset-specific tag number. The creation of the tag-doc relations can be done either manually or through tag-extraction from the drawings. It is also possible to import the relations from Excel spreadsheets or databases provided by the contractors or suppliers.
 
Using the above method, there is still no guarantee that data reflects the actual situation in case of a new change project. It is therefore crucial that during operations and maintenance, remarks and markups are made, either to initiate a quick plant change or as input for larger change projects. This closes the loop. Operations and Maintenance help to keep a proper reflection of the as-built situation to improve the project start-up and to reduce engineering costs. Engineering, on the other hand, helps by handing over a rich set of data to Operations and Maintenance in order to reduce search time, improve safety and to comply with applicable regulations.  

Solutions to improve the handover process
The above strategy requires internal procedures, the commitment of all internal stakeholders and a targeted Asset Information Management solution to support the process. The BlueCielo Meridian Enterprise solution, in combination with the Asset Management module (for managing tag-doc relations and providing integrations with maintenance management systems), can be extended with specific modules to support the full Management of Change process, including the improved handover process at the end of projects.

By utilizing the BlueCielo Meridian Advanced Project Workflow module, the master data is under full control in all change projects managed on a yearly basis and asset-related technical documentation can even reside in multiple change projects concurrently. Within the projects, the data is also fully controlled through configured document workflow and project workflow, allowing project progress management and monitoring.

If work is outsourced to external contractors or suppliers, BlueCielo offers various solutions within BlueCielo Meridian Enterprise, with the Engineering Collaboration Portal BlueCielo Kronodoc as the latest addition to the suite. By using this portal, external project team members provide the documentation within the entire project and document workflows. This ensures that the handover process is seamless, since data and document approval takes place in early stages of the project instead of at the end of the project.

To find out how BlueCielo’s solutions for improved data hand-over process can help your business, contact us.