Pre-commissioning cleaning: Keep it simple

Whether you're launching a new refinery project, an expansion project, a power project or any other large-scale industrial project, advanced pre-planning serves an essential role in predicting the ultimate success of the venture. Each project will have a specific set of pre-commissioning requirements, which means you need to assemble a team of experts that can cover the many facets involved.

• Pre-planning your project. A big piece of the pre-planning process includes developing a timeline that will carry you from construction to start-up as smoothly as possible. To reach a successful outcome, your plan must be all encompassing and well thought out. You will rely heavily on all the support groups you've hired to get their jobs done on time and in sequence with minimal delays. Electricians have their scope, then there's piping planning, civil and other construction activities, commissioning and so on. Properly vetting this team of experts ensures you can trust each group to handle its role thoroughly without extensive oversight and supervision.
• Choosing your vendors. With any of these large industrial projects, your focus will be keeping everything on time and on budget, and vendors play a big part in your ability to achieve these goals. You will most likely only want one vendor source for each trade to help control the chaos. By keeping it simple, you can establish stronger lines of communication, which keep the project moving forward. Communication will always be a driving force, so anything you can do to keep it controllable will save precious schedule days and help to control costs. Let's face it: You don't want three different electrical companies trying to show you their way and end up running over each other.
• Pre-commissioning cleaning. This brings us to pre-commissioning cleaning -- everyone knows it has to be included. Vendors will have cleaning scopes to be studied and understood. Simple, right? It can be if you can rely on a vendor with years of experience you can count on. At first glance, it seems easy to understand cleaning scopes for the entire project and make appropriate plans. However, who decides where to access each system to create an effective cleaning circuit early in the project so you don't have to rework piping and/or equipment? Who can pre-plan the cleaning of all of the major systems in sequence so that you minimize rework and schedule delays? Who will provide a list of replacement gaskets for valves or equipment that have to be bypassed or temporarily removed for any cleaning event? If you find a vendor experienced enough to pre-engineer these events and supply all of the necessary equipment to get you through all of the different cleaning processes, that would make the most sense, right?
• Keep it simple. Selecting a pre-commissioning cleaning partner that offers client support in all facets of pre-commissioning cleaning events will help control project costs. There are specific factors you should consider in this choice. Equipment designed to be user-friendly with minimal footprint provides quicker mobilization, and you need equipment to perform all cleaning methods such as steam blowing, chemical cleaning, lube oil flushing, aqua-lazing, pulse flushing, hydro-testing, etc. This allows for the selection of the most effective and efficient cleaning option that would also contribute to project cost savings. It is also critical to ensure your contractor of choice has enough equipment at any given time to support large-scale projects -- and even several major projects simultaneously. If they don't, you're taking a risk that when your project is ready for pre-commissioning, they may not be able to mobilize. Full-service pre-commissioning cleaning means one contractor for all of your pre-commissioning cleaning needs, which will consolidate the flow of information, enhance communication, reduce costs and help maintain your project schedule. Keep it simple -- communication is your driving force to reaching plant start-up.

For more information, visit www.bwenergyservices.com or call (281) 534-9300.