Explore the practical, proven benefits of construction-driven capital project planning and execution with Advanced Work Packaging
The potential for on-time, on-budget capital project delivery has sparked enormous curiosity about the benefits of Advanced Work Packaging in recent years. It has also attracted a great deal of skepticism, largely because it challenges so many long-held beliefs about how capital projects should be built.
As a longstanding and outspoken advocate for construction-driven capital project planning and execution, I’m often asked to provide hard evidence about the impact of Advanced Work Packaging (AWP) on capital projects. Those who can see the potential of construction-driven capital project delivery want to know what they can expect. Skeptics want unequivocal proof that AWP works.
I love sharing details about the remarkable impact that Advanced Work Packaging is having on capital projects around the world. In this article, I’m going to list the benefits of Advanced Work Packaging as documented by industry research organizations, benefits documented by our own experience here at Concord, and a handful of case studies that I find most persuasive.
Industry-Documented Benefits of Advanced Work Packaging
The collection and publication of capital project industry data is led by the Construction Industry Institute (CII), the Construction Owners Association of Alberta (COAA), and the Advanced Work Packaging Institute (AWPI). Full disclosure: I was a lead researcher on CII’s IR272, the seminal report on Advanced Work Packaging. I then went on to complete my thesis on AWP at the University of Texas at Austin. All of which to say, I’m intimately familiar with the benefits documented by these organizations.
Benefit 1: Zero Recordable Incidents
Advanced Work Packaging increases the level of both safety and field safety planning, which reduces the exposure to unplanned work and to rework, which in turn reduces the likelihood and number of near misses and unsafe behavior on the jobsite.
Benefit 2: Increase in Labor Productivity
Industry data suggests that the typical laborer spends roughly 37% of their time working on tools, with the rest of the time wasted in non-productive activities. With the introduction of Advanced Work Packaging, we see an increase of 10% in on-tool time across the board, and an increase of up to 25% on select sites.
Benefit 3: Increase in Direct Field Supervision
On construction-driven AWP projects, the percentage of time spent by foreman and superintendents on direct supervision doubles to 30% from the industry average of 15%, and sites are safer and more efficient as a result. We also see higher quality installation, which correlates to improved operability upon completion.
Benefit 4: Reduction in Field Rework
The implementation of Advanced Work Packaging improves communication and alignment between engineering and construction, leading to a 20% reduction in field rework. This is because AWP forces stakeholders to align their expectations and commit to the project scope and sequence of execution, and in doing so it proactively addresses key sources of field rework including design errors, owner changes and vendor errors.
Trusted industry data confirms these four core benefits across the board, for every project that successfully adopts Advanced Work Packaging. If these benefits are interesting to you, consider taking the first step toward adopting AWP with a Concord Maturity Assessment.
Concord-Documented Benefits of Advanced Work Packaging
After more than a decade of working closely with some of the world’s biggest and most successful capital project organizations, we’ve learned a thing or two about how implementing AWP impacts outcomes. Here’s what we typically see.
Benefit 1: Estimates & Schedules Become More Predictable
Construction-driven capital projects consistently benefit from improved predictability in both cost and schedule. After implementing AWP, our clients better define their execution plan and their project promise, and then they deliver on it. It’s not just about saving time or money, it’s about estimating correctly and scheduling correctly, and thereby delivering predictably — safely, on time and on-budget.
Benefit 2: Improved Conflict Resolution
Advanced Work Packaging often surfaces hidden issues in an organization as early as possible: shortage of planning, insufficient definition, poor alignment and integration, poor constraint analysis, lack of leadership commitment, to name just a few. All of these issues create conflict during projects. When we implement AWP, these conflicts arise much earlier in the project lifecycle, and we have the opportunity to address it early on, before the cost of conflict escalates.
Benefit 3: Fewer Major Late Changes and Contractual Claims
We typically see fewer late changes and contractual claims on construction-driven capital projects. This is a byproduct of the first two benefits: with more predictability and better identification and resolution of conflict, we see much less change and litigation.
Benefit 4: Improved Constructability
In a traditional capital project, constructability conversations happen in separate workshops, and aren’t always effectively incorporated into the overarching plan. One of the key benefits of Advanced Work Packaging is that the Path of Construction (POC) workshops drive constructability to the very center of the planning exercise and incorporate constructability into the overall constraint analysis and construction planning. The result is that teams working toward alignment will come up with cost-saving measures, ways to speed up construction and many other ideas for making the project more predictable — and more likely to be delivered on-time and on-budget.
Benefit 5: Not Just for Petrochemical
It’s true that Advanced Work Packaging was initially developed by and for petrochemical capital projects, but here at Concord we’ve successfully applied it in a host of entities. On one fracking project, we saw an improvement of over 50% in the timeliness of bringing wells online — evidence that AWP can bring measurable results in a principle-driven, collaborative way.
Benefit 6: Expanded Leadership Capacity to the Entire Team
Understanding and applying foundational concepts in Advanced Work Packaging gives your employees an additional layer of technical expertise. For example, if you’re a lead engineer or scheduler using AWP, you’re better equipped to be a productive team member, to communicate better, to discuss how to solve problems, and you gain a better understanding of stakeholder perspectives. Our clients are often pleasantly surprised by this leadership capacity piece!
Case Studies
The following Case Studies are drawn from CII’s Advanced Work Packaging: Implementation Case Studies and Expert Interviews, Implementation Resource 272-2, Version 3.0, Volume III.
$1.8 million in Reduced Labor Costs
An industrial old and gas project that involved 80,000 hours of work over four months saved $1.8 million on labor and reported lower TRIR compared to previous seasons and an improved RFO date.
Improved Constructability, Loss Mitigation
An industrial power project that involved 1 million work hours over two years reported improved constructability, cleaner jobsite, reduction in material loss and quick identification and mitigation of issues.
$740,000 in Reduced Costs
An industrial oil and gas project that involved 80,000 hours of work over four months reported a $740,000 reduction in overall costs after adopting AWP, along with zero OSHA recordables, a lower TRIR, a zero weld rejection rate — any they turned the project over to operations five days early.
Improved Collaboration and Stakeholder Satisfaction
An industrial chemical project that took 84 months to complete reported improved collaboration between construction and procurement, better reporting accuracy and efficiency, and improved stakeholder satisfaction.
So there you have it: a summary of up-to-date industry data and case studies that show the benefit of Advanced Work Packaging in driving on-time, on-budget capital project delivery. If you’re interested in leveraging the benefits of AWP for your own organization, the Concord team is standing by to assist. Simply complete the form below and we’ll be in touch!
