- Industry: Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing
- Services: Owner’s Representative
The Challenge
The Owner had the schedule and performance of a capital expansion and renovation project for a major new rheumatoid drug seriously at risk due to a log jam of unresolved contractor questions and issues due to a lack of onsite field engineering for automation during construction. Our team was contracted to join the team as the Owner’s Representative for Instrumentation and Automation construction and commissioning activities with the directive to get the installation back on track to meet the required project completion dates.
The Solution
We deployed multiple engineering resources to the site. At the time of deployment, there were more than 650 Requests for Information on the Process Control System backlogged in the site office. We worked with the contractors and the Construction Manager to classify and prioritize the RFI’s and to set about immediately developing answers for the highest priority items. Our team worked hand in hand with the Design Engineer and the contractors for the next 12 months providing 20 hour per day direction to their installation crews and resolving any and all issues that came up in the Automation area. We were frequently called upon to engineer alternative designs in response to changes in scope and or problems encountered with the initial design. This was a fast track project and there was simply no time to waste waiting for engineering to go through the normal A&E channels.
The automation installation included more than 8000 conventional I/O with no buss technology. The massive instrument wiring and tubing runs were in many cases subject to revised field installation since the design engineers were required to issue construction documents prior to equipment or instrument selections being finalized. Working with an outstanding construction crew, our engineering team resolved all the issues as they came up and kept the installation moving forward on schedule.
We also participated in the initial plant commissioning for the instrumentation and DCS systems successfully directing the Installation and Operational Verification of the DCS hardware, power supplies, communications networks, and instrument I/O.
The Result
The facility was completed and placed into operation in record breaking time largely due to the fast track field approach of multiple team members including our own. The customer seized this opportunity and implemented the tech transfer to initiate manufacturing operations also in record breaking time and ultimately received licensing and was able to ship product less than 2 years from start of commissioning activities.
