A new factory can allow a business to leap ahead of the competition and remain in the lead for many years. It inevitably takes a great deal of focus and effort, though, to ensure a proposed factory will serve its owner well.
Fortunately, there are some proven ways to rule out many problems and stay on track throughout the process. Take the following four points into consideration when planning a future factory and impressive results await.
1. Performance Requirements Must be Defined Clearly
One of the most common reasons for gaps between a factory’s characteristics and its owner’s needs is a lack of clearly defined performance requirements. Before any other concrete steps have been taken, it will always be necessary to pin down and detail these crucial standards.
Resources available at cochraneng.com and other sites delve into the process more deeply, but defining performance requirements should normally be fairly straightforward. Most such standards will aim at ensuring that the quality, efficiency, or functionality of the finished product will be sufficient to serve a factory’s intended purpose.
Performance requirements are often established with reference to shortcomings of existing facilities that need to be addressed. That tends to make it particularly easy to get specific, since well-defined points of contrast will be available.
In other cases, it might be necessary to lay out performance requirements without such helpful context. That will normally require more planning and thinking, but can always be accomplished if given enough commitment.
2. Risk Management Must be Addressed Early On
Assuming that a project as complex as a factory build will proceed smoothly to completion is always a mistake. Many far simpler, less-important construction jobs run into troubles along the way.
Obstacles to the successful completion of a new factory need to be identified before the ground is broken. Every such danger must be addressed with both preventative measures and suitable responses in case an issue arises.
Effective risk management makes it much more likely that a factory will be completed on time and without going over budget. That only becomes possible when the required precautions have been put into place from the start.
3. A Capable Commissioning Provider Should Always be Assigned
Many modern factory build processes include a designated commissioning provider who is responsible for coordinating the various participants and stakeholders. An effective, involved commissioning provider will smooth the transition between construction and operation by ensuring that all the required information gets transferred as needed.
Trying to do without a commissioning provider will mean being forced to make other arrangements. Unfortunately, that quite often leads to problems that could easily have been avoided.
4. Testing and Inspection Must be Thorough and Revealing
Likely the most crucial stage of any factory build occurs at the very end of the process. Checking instrument loops, testing control systems, and inspecting construction work is even more critical than all the planning that happened beforehand.
These fundamentally important activities frequently receive short shrift, which will never be desirable. Testing and inspection processes should be recognized as inherently valuable and not mere boxes to be checked.
This will ensure that a new factory can be put online without disruption or backsliding. As with the other points discussed earlier, effective testing and inspection reduce uncertainty and help keep things moving forward as they should. That will always be welcome and will go a long way toward making the investment in a new factory pay off.
