Hydrocarbon Processing - April 2021 - 52

Engineering and Construction
workforce members enter and exit the field construction
facility to minimize risk exposure to COVID-19. These
required, and necessary practices are important to protect
workers from exposure. However, they come at a cost to
productivity. Naturally, a smaller fabrication shop crew vs.
a full field construction crew-that could be thousands
of workers-minimizes the impact to productivity and
eventually cost and schedule. Working in a controlled
environment, which is offsite from the client, also allows
for ease of maintenance of sanitized workspaces with a
smaller concentration of crew members.
5. Reduced commercial and contractual risk.
Decreased productivity, schedule delays, rising project
costs, among others, resulting from a COVID-19
environment, present themselves eventually as
commercial and contractual risks, such as liquidated
damages and a possible force majeure. By leveraging
the inherent benefits of modularization, suppliers
and owners can minimize the likelihood and/or
severity of such commercial and contractual risks.
The geography of the pandemic. Unlike field construction,
modularization is not geographically constrained to the plant
site. If a customer's site is in a region where there is a high risk of
COVID-19 exposure, the fabrication of the modules is location
independent; therefore, a fabrication site that is in a state where
COVID-19 has a much lower prevalence can be selected.

In general, modular construction can ensure safer construction because the assembly area can be restricted to have as few
as one or two workers in a horizontal orientation separated by
much more than 6-ft. However, on larger projects, it is even possible to split the fabrication across two or more geographically
separate assembly locations, minimizing the number of modules and workers present simultaneously, thus reducing the risk
of project interruptions should a COVID-19 outbreak occur at
one of the fabrication sites.
By applying the inherent health and safety, quality, cost and
schedule benefits and leveraging them in a COVID-19 environment, owners can lower project delivery risk to manageable levels; therefore, enabling sound project go/no-go decisions. Our
industry is built on projects and employing a modular project
delivery model during a COVID-19 environment can be the
path to successful project delivery during these times of uncertainly. Flexibility, creativity, resourcefulness and social responsibility have become key characteristics of project execution
across the oil and gas and chemical industries.
MAURICIO VILLEGAS is the Manager of Business Development at Koch
Modular Process Systems, supporting innovative technology companies on
their pathway from concept to commercialization, providing pilot testing and
process conceptualization services, process design package development,
detailed engineering and modular constructed systems. He has more than 25 yr
of experience in the engineering and construction industry, delivering projects
across industries ranging from small brownfield projects to greenfield megaprojects. Prior to joining Koch Modular, he held various management roles at
WorleyParsons, Technip, IHI E&C and Arcadis. Mr. Villegas earned a BS in
Business Administration and Management from Northeastern University.

LIVE WEBCAST

Tuesday, April 27, 2021 | 10 a.m. CDT / 3 p.m. UTC

Building the plant of the future: innovating for
efficiency & sustainability
Amit Kar
Director Global Pursuits
AVEVA

From changing regulations to an evolving new normal, capital projects face rapidly shifting
market dynamics. In this ever-evolving landscape, how do you prepare for what's ahead? Short
answer - Foster flexibility, transparency and collaboration.
Join Amit Kar, from AVEVA, for a 1-hour session where he will discuss how EPCs and owner
operators can leverage technology to build resilience now while also laying the foundation for
the plant of the future. During the session, he will provide expertise on how the right mix of
people, technology, and processes can create structure without hindering creativity at your
company to help you achieve the following:
* Create automated transparency in capital project engineering and execution
* Leverage every interaction to build trust between the Owner-Operator and the EPC
* Accelerate the path to operational nameplate capacity

Lee Nichols
Editor-in-Chief/Associate Publisher
Hydrocarbon Processing

52 APRIL 2021 | HydrocarbonProcessing.com

http://www.HydrocarbonProcessing.com/Webcasts

Hydrocarbon Processing - April 2021

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