Is your Engineering documentation available?

Imagin that you are starting up a gas compressor, or may be you are repairing an oil heater, and you do not find the technical information about those equitments, or even the control narrative that you have found does not match with the cause and effect matrix. Which of the documents found are the goods ones? Which is the documentation that will let you troubleshoot such a problem?

Let's review together all those elements that they will guide us, and some recommendations to take into account when we are selecting, supervising, or just running an engineering project.

For those projects that, the engineering is 100% ready and the equipment or facility is already handed over.

The question arises in an environment in which the equipment is already installed and we must face the correction of an unexpected failure that compromises production. Unfortunately we do not have how to mark on the calendar when failures will occur, so that we can prepare, with trained personnel, the appropriate tools and all the documentation that will allow us to resolve the fault in less than 5 min. However, some facilities with critical equipment that compromise the production have its backup facilities (pumps, motors, compressors, ovens, boilers, among others) that could allow maintain the production rate, while maintenance personnel solve the problem.

During those golden minutes, is recommended:

1. Locate people who have more experience and knowledge on the equipment under fault.

2. Locate the updated documentation, the last engineering revision must be stamped "as built" at the bottom right corner, normaly if your are facing with an electric or instrumentation fault, surely you will find those drawing in the pocket at the front door inside the Motor Control Center, or inside of the corresponding PLC Marshaling Panel.

3. Be sure, be aware, that operational staff, shift operator or the facily's responsible, give you a green light to intervene the equitment, this is the first safety measure that must be taken into consideration, and that all security locks have been installed.

4. Having straight acces to the warehouse's responsible in order to locate and manage the spare part required to solve the problem, in my opinion, this link is very important because it could represent until 40% of the time needed to enable the equipment back to production.

5. Be supported by a very strong logistic departament, since, if a lifting, loading or transportation equipment is required, the technician in charge of solving the faults or his/her supervisor must notify the logistics team to mobilize the resources with the rush of the case, for example, if a fluid pump is damaged and must be replaced, while the mechanic decouples the pump and the instrumentalist uninstall the measuring instruments, the lifting truck that will take the pump to the external/internal workshop should be coordinated with the logistics personnel immediately, as well as the truck that will bring the new pump to be installed.

6. It is recommended to register the entired event, cause of the failure, modality of the failure, tools used, activated mechanisms, in short, all the information that allows to carry out the proper analysis of failure, as well as search and find the root cause.

7. After the situation has been controlled, or even if there is not any emergency at all, keep the information ordened and a place easy to find, surely if the information is controlled and shared, it will be accesible. For sure your company should have a Document Control Departament where you should find all that technical information, otherwise, the available drawings will lead you to the engineering supply company, or a vendor who will give you the necesary support.

For those projects that, the engineering will start or just started.

Firstly we have to verify the main actors and stakeholders on the life-cycle of the engineering projects, then the contracting modes, that definitely carry an important weight in this whole matter.

As every project is born to respont to a temporary need, it must have a biggining, a development, and a delivery or end, in all these stages, the definitions of roles and responsability it is fundamental, since there, it is born all the dynamics of the system that will generate the information. The client occupies a stellar role in this whole game, since it will depend on the quantity and quality of information given to the engineering team.

Normally the deliverables of engineering projects, come from clients where its main goal is different than an engineering approach, for example; oil & gas production, beverage, food transportation, automotive, among others, therefore, they contract specialized engineering companys to deploy the engineering, or even the procurement, construction and start up of new production units, also we have to take into account that every manufacturer could have its own engineering department or contract an engineeing firm, whereby all these actors will generate an ecosistem that must run together, in order to get a succesful, timely and sincronized deliverables.

The communication strategy between the active actors is of vital importance, if we take the above example, we will see that the client is requiring to add a new gas compressor to improve the gas pressure downstream, assuming that the technical departament got already all calculations, analysis, and is totaly define the gas conditions, humidity, volumen to be managed, quality of the gas, discharge pressure, among others. All this specifications, are deliverables to the client engineering team, once this team has completed the approvals and authoratizations for management of chance procedures, the client will be ready to begin the engineering project, whereby it is recommended to review the following points in order to reach up organized, timely and syncronized deliverables:

1. Clear definition of the Scope of Work.

2. Clear definition of teamworks clients - providers.

3. Clear definition on roles and responsabilities for every members of the teamwork

4. It is recommended to develop periodical technical workshops among the internal members of the engineering team, this will create an environment of contribution and support between the disciplines.

5. Good document control management, in my opinion it is the angular stone of the whole engineering, since it will lead to carry the follow up and control of each deliverable, document internal/external codification, manage of change, evolution of each revision, logging and follow up of time used by the active actor to develop every product.

6. Periodic presentations to the client are recommended to report the progress of the engineering products, the integration of all disciplines will also be won, at the end of the day you can collect the concerns and impressions of the project.

7. During the evolution of the products, it is recommended to have a focal point for each specialty on the client side (see scheme below), in this way when the products are submitted for approval, customers will have the history and knowledge of the product.

Last but not least, it is recommended to have an automated Documentation Control System that allows you to control the flow of information internally and between customer - supplier, store deliverables, track product development, coordinate formal deliveries, in short, everything related to the development of the project.

I hope these recommendations be very useful to find your engineering documentation before or after the production unit start up, do not hesitate to contact me for more information at dpfluitec@gmail.com.