Published here October 2004.

Introduction | Why Revamp
Assessment | Assessment Outputs and Initial Planning
Sequencing | Layout | Scope Changes

Assessment Outputs and Initial Planning

Once past these hurdles, the assessment data must be thoroughly tested. Have the assessor team been conservative or liberal in their approach? The team should not be in the habit of reassessing but by the same token the data must be reliable. However, you may have to collect more data or revise some of the assessors' findings based on new data from plant feedback or technological improvement suggestions.

The assessment data is then analyzed (this is a continual process) and from the data, operating experience, and team consensus, work breakdown structures (WBS) are developed for the data. For example, if the assessment has determined that a compressor needs to be rebuilt, should the lube oil console also be replaced? Or if a piece of equipment is salvageable, but has never worked correctly anyway, or new technology supplanted it ten years ago, then it will have to be replaced anyway. The team must make these calls during the planning process and assemble these elements into work package units and an overall WBS.

The revamp design team should be assigned earlier than would be the case on a grassroots project, as collection of data requires quite a bit of fieldwork by the piping and civil/structural personnel. You cannot design a revamp from the office; you need extensive field notes, surveys, pictures and measurements.

Beware also of the "unknown-knowns"! This happens when you describe an event to an operative and you get the response: "Well, Tim if only you had asked me I could have told you that would have happened!" So, find the old salts from the plant and listen! The assessment observations could have been mistaken. That 30-year old pipe, in otherwise good condition, may have flanges that leak. That vessel that was supposedly replaced 10 years ago was a project that was canceled. Or the wrong drawing is in the file and that existing vessel is actually 40, not 10, years old and is in desperate need of replacement.

Assessment  Assessment

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