Hydrocarbon Processing - November 2021 - 32

Engineering and Construction
quirements but will do so at an object level via object attributes.
Procurement teams, facilitated by a materials management
tool that can harvest objects from the CDE to capture timeliAs
capital project implementation transitions to
data-centric execution, EPC organizations that give
voice to a forward-thinking materials management
effort will position themselves to capture truly
transformational productivity enhancement.
ness (object required date attribute data and object lead-time
attribute data), commodity (object commodity group attribute
data, object technical attribute data and object submittal attribute
data) and quantity (object design maturity attribute data)
will be able to create proposal requests driven by schedule and
commercial aspects. Benefits of an MR-free execution include:
* Engineering
° Elimination of the bureaucracies required to quantify
MR scope, to time MRs to support the schedule,
and to create and manage MRs
° Clarity to focus design to support the acquisition
schedule from the CDE communication
* Procurement
° Better acquisition planning from CDE-harvested
information
° Ability to communicate and quantify risk to
project management when CDE-harvested
information indicates required acquisition initiation
of non-mature design data (balancing potential
surplus vs. schedule delay)
° When CDE-harvested information indicates
float between design maturation and need:
cash flow planning opportunities and better
market management (delaying or accelerating
relative to market temperature).
Gap elimination in the management of
ship-loose
materials. Most major equipment on capital projects arrives
with some ship-loose items (i.e., components shipped disassembled
due to issues such as logistics or warranty, requiring assembly
at the jobsite). Usually, the number of ship-loose items
is small, but, for complex equipment, the number can be in the
thousands. Managing the delivery, storage and assembly of these
items by the EPC contractor can be a challenge. EPC contractors
utilize supplier vendor representatives, generally at a notable cost,
to facilitate installation. When vendor representatives are to manage
the ship-loose items at the jobsite, and when the EPC contractor
has a robust warehousing activity, this is not a good value.
In a document-centric environment, details of granularity
of ship-loose items for complex equipment are not communicated
to the EPC contractor until these items are ready to ship.
Often, there are multiple shipments, and the packing list data
is not supplied in a data format that can be integrated into an
EPC contractor's materials management system. This sparse,
untimely and paper-based identification of complex equipment
component data negatively impacts jobsite receiving and ware32
NOVEMBER 2021 | HydrocarbonProcessing.com
housing planning. This either forces extensive manual input of
component data into the warehousing tool of the EPC materials
management tool at the time of receipt or causes a process
where groups of components are received
by lot, with details of each lot maintained on
paper. The latter causes extensive manual review
of lot details whenever a withdrawal is
requested. Construction planning is also significantly
impacted, as construction is blind
to granularity of assembly, often forcing the
construction team to delay detailed planning
until components arrive and an accurate state
of assembly at the jobsite can be ascertained.
Historically, despite grumbling by both warehouse and construction
staff, these inefficiencies have been accepted as the cost
of doing business, with the cost swept under the proverbial rug.
In a data-centric environment (particularly one where there
is a collaborative effort between the EPC contractor and major
suppliers entailing a model integration process), component
granularity, inclusive of attributes that articulate whether individual
items will be shipped as a loose item or as an assembled
piece of another ship-loose item, evolves in the CDE and model
as the design evolves, thus facilitating construction planning.
As the supplier's data matures by the time these components
are ready to ship, data will naturally flow to processes such as
supplier shipment packaging, shipment, receiving, warehousing,
issuance and assembly, thereby eliminating virtually all the
inefficiencies that EPC contractors face in a document-centric
environment. With the inevitability of owners requesting a 6D
model from EPC contractors, EPC contractors that proactively
engage in collaborative model integration position themselves
to support that requirement.
Takeaway. After reviewing an optimal integrated materials
management approach, highlighting what can occur when a
project does not engage in active materials management oversight
and involvement, and discussing the ongoing transition
from document-centric to data-centric execution, three areas
of potential transformational work-process changes were reviewed.
In discussing these three opportunities, nowhere did
the label " materials management " appear; however, all three
involve cross-functional coordination of materials-related work
processes-the essence of materials management. EPC organizations
that recognize that materials management is a function
of project management, and that give voice to the opportunities
presented here and the concerns raised by a lean materials management
resource team, will realize the potential that optimal
materials management can provide and will reap productivity
enhancements, thus enabling positioning as an industry leader
and profitable organization.
STEPHEN WYSS is a Materials Manager at Bechtel Corporation.
He has more than 45 yr of experience executing capital projects
for oil, gas, chemicals, power, metals, mining, rail and hazardous
nuclear processes. Over the course of his career, Dr. Wyss has
worked as a design engineer, field engineer, project engineer,
software consultant and materials manager in both design and
in construction at logistically challenged sites on five continents.
He is a registered Mechanical Engineer in Texas and California, and, in addition
to Bechtel, has previously worked for Intergraph, Black & Veatch and CF Braun.
Dr. Wyss earned a BA degree in architecture from the University of California
at Berkeley and holds a J.D. degree from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
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Hydrocarbon Processing - November 2021

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