In asset lifecycle information management, the number of changes and documents/records to track is extensive.
Project managers are the individuals expected to manage all this information and deliver their projects associated with this information on time and on budget.
These expectations can be a struggle for project managers because of the difficult challenge of managing large volumes of asset information while ensuring the most current information is available to the right people at the optimal time. The project manager is an integral member of asset lifecycle information and it is essential that the data handover process is seamless.
For any organization, the management of change aims to structure, control, audit, and improve the existing technique. These changes can be related to any topic, but in the process industry, management of change processes are usually related to plant changes. Efficient management of change is essential for organizations to keep their plants running reliably and safely, including staying compliant with regulations, such as those administered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). At the front end of the engineering cycle, management of change is a primary consideration as the engineers define which plant changes should be implemented. In addition, the management of change is integral to the information handover process from the project manager to operations and maintenance.
The information handover process between a project manager, operations, and maintenance can be fraught with challenges. If operations and maintenance struggle to receive the information in a usable form, this struggle can lead to expensive project delays, penalties, and even industrial accidents. This struggle can also create a huge financial burden for owner-operators.
Owner-operators spend 2-4% of the project cost to correct and reproduce operations and maintenance information manually because they do not have the resources to confirm everything when it is handed over by their contractors and vendors.
While a strong contract that defines what is expected from the supply chain can help, ensuring that the information is compliant is difficult. Even a small improvement on that percentage represents a significant reduction of this hidden cost, without even considering the additional benefits regarding the safety of operations, which is an absolute priority for all organizations in the process industry.
Collaboration for project managers and document control (the resources they use to manage the flow of documents) is imperative. It’s the only way to ensure that projects are completed on time and on budget. Without proper document control, collaboration is hard to achieve. There are also several other challenges that can get in the way of effective collaboration such as:
- Risk of project delays due to the wrong information
- Costly manual handing processes prone to error
- Unclear view of who has sent what to whom and when
- Security constraints when working with external parties
- Incomplete data handover and limited resources to verify the handover
- Uncontrolled sharing of documents through online services and emails
- Unexpected costs
Project managers need a solution that is secure, easy to use and deploy, with the ability to scale to meet demand. An effective solution needs to support the creation, evaluation, release, distribution, and discovery of information for asset projects. Lastly, the solution must be able to identify inconsistencies in data, so that it is rectified before it is too late.
Find out more about how Accruent can help project managers with Asset Lifecycle Information Management or get in touch with us today.
1Bever, Ken. “Problems with Information Handover.” MIMOSA, 20 July 2011
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