PROJECT COMMUNICATION PROCEDURE AND DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT by Kalyan K Basu

INPUTS FOR EFFICIENT PROJECT MANAGEMENT Project progress is ensured through a set of decisions taken under existing constraints Inputs for decision making are many Project report recommendations Layout finalization Design finalization Estimate finalization & budgeting Planning network & milestones Construction methodology etc

EFFICIENT DOCUMENT DELIVERY SYSTEM EACH STAGE OF PROJECT DECISION INPUTS ARE OBTAINED THROUGH DOCUMENT FLOW BETWEEN DIFFERENT STAKE HOLDERS Documents of all kinds – technical, commercial, financial, MIS – are thus extremely important for a project manager. Stake Holders are Owners, Consultants, Designers, Suppliers, Civil contractors, EPC or Erection contractors More often than not different stake holders have different requirements and forms of documentation

EFFICIENT DOCUMENT DELIVERY SYSTEM .......Contd Owner requires documentation of the plant for the whole life of the plant in a systematic database which will be retrievable easily – this demands a very elaborate harmonised document numbering which is not always understood by other stake holders. Consultants’ perception of documentation, may be somewhat different Designers and suppliers of equipment often try to follow their own way from the manufacturing point of view Site storage systems require proper documentation for retrieval and issue for construction

EFFICIENT DOCUMENT DELIVERY SYSTEM .......Contd EPC contractors and other site contractors require documents during contract execution but may not be able to do proper justice due to various factors – high cost of IT backbone & trained manpower, difficulties of bringing all sub-suppliers and sub-contractors on the same level of understanding and appreciation of document delivery system

EFFICIENT DOCUMENT DELIVERY SYSTEM .......Contd A major techno logistic issue is the document submission and approval procedure adopted by Owner and Consultant. Major technological up-gradation has happened in this area. Many consultants around the world have taken positive steps towards reduction of paper communication and replaced by electronic transfer and approval of drawings & documents

EFFICIENT DOCUMENT DELIVERY SYSTEM .......Contd The above improvement of document delivery and approval system needed investment in IT backbone and special software Investment in good document control & management systems earn good ROI for the owner in the form of faster project completion Suppliers and contractors may not be able to afford to invest after having accepted fixed price contract.

EFFICIENT DOCUMENT DELIVERY SYSTEM .......Contd There are instances in international projects where the owner helped all contractors by providing working software license at owner’s cost for a limited period and thus achieve uniformity of documentaion Another model could be to specify the needed software platform during tendering so that all bidders can include license cost in bid estimate If the approval process is done electronically a lot of time can be saved and available human resource can be more profitably utilized

EFFICIENT DOCUMENT DELIVERY SYSTEM .......Contd Evolution of Delivery systems In the earlier days paper moved by post consuming days in movement Next came email attachments: constraint of size limitation surfaced soon despite huge increase in internet speed Subsequently, companies adopted File Transfer Protocol or FTP which allowed uploading and downloading of very large data volume in a few minutes.

EFFICIENT DOCUMENT DELIVERY SYSTEM .......Contd Evolution of Approval system In the earlier days paper prints of drawings were commented by each disciplines and then somebody collated all comments on one sheet To reduce time, companies adopted a task force concept where a selected group of engineers were entrusted for entire approval. This group sat down in a closed group around a table for marking all comments and stamp it for sending to EPC contractor or machine supplier.

EFFICIENT DOCUMENT DELIVERY SYSTEM .......Contd Evolution of Approval system Next adoption was receipt of drawings electronically followed by marking on prints obtained from pdf format drawings With development of editing software, design and consultancy companies adopted comment marking on drawings using editing software. This increases the speed document flow substantially saving precious engineering time and cost

EFFICIENT DOCUMENT STORAGE SYSTEM .......Contd Document Management At every stake holder’s office, all received and despatched documents must be stored and retrieved efficiently In the old days large record rooms stored huge volumes of manuals, drawings etc in paper copies and printable transparent sheets employing a sizable manpower

EFFICIENT DOCUMENT STORAGE SYSTEM .......Contd Document Management With the development of electronic drawing tools, storage rooms were replaced by computers and external storage devices. Next development is the modern Web Based Document Management System (DMS) to efficiently manage storage, retrieval and change management (sometimes termed revision management) Most recent development of cloud storage for a realtime access to latest revisions by all stake holders

CONCLUSION We can improve project implementation efficiency By adopting a harmonised document numbering system By using FTP for all document transfer By ensuring use a modern uniform advanced engineering software system for all participants in a project By adopting modern editing software for approval process By adopting an efficient DMS

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