It is common for construction projects that the contractor’s scope of work will include installing static and rotating equipment as part of the project’s mechanical works. The contractor should undertake the installation of mechanical equipment in accordance with the contract requirements, specifications, workshop drawings and installation manuals as approved by the project’s engineering consultant. The inspection of installation activities of those equipment shall be in accordance with the contract requirements for which it is highly recommended to have them itemized in a predefined checklist.
Using a Project Management Information System (PMIS) like PMWeb, the project quality management team can create inspection checklists that are specific for installing static and rotating equipment. Static equipment includes for example Pressure Vessel, Heat Exchanger, Reactor, Column, Storage Tanks, Bins, Silos, Air Cooled Heat Exchanger, Air Cooled Steam Condenser, Condenser, Evaporator among others while rotating equipment include Gas Turbines, Steam Turbines, Compressor, Gearboxes, Diesel Engines, Reciprocating Engines, Controls and instrumentation, Ancillaries and Accessories among others.
In an earlier article “016 Inspection Checklists for Static and Rotating Equipment on Construction Sites”, it was detailed how PMWeb custom form will be used to create two sperate forms, the first for Static Equipment while the second will be for Rotary Equipment. Each one of those two forms will include general details of the project and the equipment such as project name, report date, equipment type, equipment reference number, equipment installation location, manufacturer name among others.
In addition, the forms will include the checklist items that are specific for either static or rotary equipment. The list will include items that relate to Material Receiving and Control, Pre-Installation and Installation. A table will be created for each item of those three categories to enable assigning each to a different project team member if needed as well as adding new categories or expanding existing categories with new checklist items.
The equipment inspection checklist report will capture the details of all inspections carried out for static and rotary equipment. The tabular section will capture the details of the equipment as well as the actual approval dates for Material Receiving and Control, Pre-Installation and Installation. Visuals will be used to show the quantity of inspected equipment by category as a donut chart as well as by type as a histogram.
For projects where Building Information Modelling (BIM) is used, the LOD 500 will have all project assets modeled as constructed assemblies showing actual and accurate in size, shape and location of those assets. By associating the inspection checklists with their relevant equipment, project stakeholders will be able to better monitor, evaluate and report on the equipment inspection performance. This can be achieved by using Vcad for MS Power BI from BLogic which is a solution that enables viewing IFC BIM models using MS Power BI. Vcad is a MS Power BI custom visual that is capable to link the geometric elements of IFC files to the data it contains which will be associated with the inspection checklists captured in PMWeb. To ensure that the PMWeb PMIS information will be automatically associated with the VCAD BIM information, the inspection form will include the field for the “GUID” which is used in the IFC BIM model to provide a unique identifier for the different objects or assets included in the model.
The Visual Static and Rotary Equipment Inspection Report will provide the project stakeholders with an interactive report where they can visualize and filter inspected equipment by their category, status, vendor, type, name among others. The displayed BIM model will show the selected assets in “Green” shade as well as the count of selected assets. By using the X-Ray view option, the project stakeholder can view selected assets that could be located behind a wall or another unselected asset.
The selection of assets can be achieved by clicking on any of the displayed MS Power visuals. For example, for the visual titled “Equipment by Category”, when the project stakeholder clicks in the “Static Equipment” shade of the donut chart, the report will automatically filter the displayed assets in the Equipment by Type and Equipment by Status visuals, the Equipment Inspection Log and of course the displayed BIM model.
About the Author
Bassam Samman, PMP, PSP, EVP, GPM is a Senior Project Management Consultant with more than 35-year service record providing project management and controls services to over 100 projects with a total value in excess of US $5 Billion. Those projects included Commercial, Residential, Education and Healthcare Buildings and Infrastructure, Entertainment and Shopping Malls, Oil and Gas Plants and Refineries, Telecommunication and Information Technology projects. He is thoroughly experienced in complete project management including project management control systems, computerized project control software, claims analysis/prevention, risk analysis/management (contingency planning), design, supervision, training and business development.
Bassam is a frequent speaker in topics relating to Project Management, Strategic Project Management and Project Management Personal Skills. Over the past 35 years he has lectured at more than 350 events and courses at different locations in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and South America. He has written more than 250 articles on project management and project management information systems that were featured in international and regional magazines and newspapers. He is a co-founder of the Project Management Institute- Arabian Gulf Chapter (PMI-AGC) and has served on its board of directors for more than 6 years. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI), a certified Planning and Scheduling Professional (PSP) and Earned Value Professional (EVP) from the American Association of Cost Engineers (AACE) and Green Project Management (GPM).
Bassam holds a Masters in Engineering Administration (Construction Management) with Faculty Commendation, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA, Bachelor in Civil Engineering – Kuwait University, Kuwait and has attended many executive management programs at Harvard Business School, Boston, USA and London Business School, London, UK.