AWP Processes

Optimizing your material management processes is a key component of Advanced Work Packaging. 

Developing comprehensive tools and reports to streamline material handling ensures efficiency and effectiveness throughout the project lifecycle

Advanced Work Packaging (AWP) is a structured approach to project planning and execution that enhances efficiency and predictability in construction projects. The process begins with the development of a comprehensive Project Execution Plan and a Path of Construction, which outline the project’s overall strategy and sequence.

Detailed work packages are then created early in the project lifecycle, ensuring that all necessary resources, such as materials, equipment, and instructions, are available when needed. 

This proactive planning minimizes delays and maximizes labor productivity by creating a constraint-free work environment. 

The following is a breakdown of the process categorized into the three main components required:

1. Advanced Work Packaging
2. Information Management
3. Workface Planning

Advance Work Packaging (AWP)

Advance Work Packages is a disciplined approach to improving project productivity and predictability. 

It is a complete set of work packaging for project deliverables for Construction (Construction Work Packages – CWP), Engineering (Engineering Work Packages – EWP), Procurement (Procurement Work Packages – PWP), and Installation (Installation Work Packages – IWP).

In short, AWP describes the processes upstream of the Construction Work Packages that aligns Engineering and Procurement to facilitate the sequential creation of Construction Work Packages.

  1. AWP Champion

    Owner’s representative and member of the Project Management Team, responsible for the application and oversight of AWP, Information Management and Workface Planning by all of the Project Stakeholders.

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  2. AWP, IM, WFP Procedures

    The responsibility of the AWP Champion, and lists the major milestones, sequence of events and the factors for success. The cornerstone of the execution plan is the creation of procedures for AWP, Information Management (IM), and Workface Planning (WFP).

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  3. Path of Construction

    PoC is the articulation of the optimal building sequence base upon the release of Construction Work Packages along with setting of major equipment and modules. The process of creating an optimal PoC by CWP is the Construction Team telling us what they want and how they want it.

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  4. Level 3 Project Schedule

    Starts to take shape in the latter half of the Interactive Planning Session (IPS), part B of the PoC. The IPS identifies the delivery date of complete EWP and PWPs to satisfy the requirement of the specific start dates for CWPs.

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  5. Engineering Work Packages

    An engineering deliverable, single discipline that contains all of the engineering data required for a single Construction Work Package: Scope of Work, Drawings, Vendor Data, Bill of Materials and Specifications, in both PDF and electronic 3D model files. EWPs are developed sequentially to satisfy elements of the Path of Construction, which will facilitate sequential procurement and the execution of CWPs. A single EWP is represented in the schedule as a single level 3 activity.

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  6. Procurement Work Packages

    A procurement deliverable, that contains all of the materials required to satisfy a single CWP. Typically, a single discipline, in the case of steel and pipe the PWP becomes a discrete fabrication package that is expected to be manufactured and delivered as a distinct group of components.

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  7. Construction Work Packages

    A single discipline of a Construction Work Area (CWA) that defines a logical division of construction work with less than 40,000 work-hours. A CWP is a component of the WBS, a single level 3 activity on the project schedule and is the downstream product of a single EWP and PWP when prepared for construction. The division of work is defined such that CWPs do not overlap and they can be used as contractual boundaries of work. Each CWP is dissected into a series of IWPs by the Workface Planners.

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Workface Planning

The process of organizing and delivering all the elements necessary, prior to the commencement of work, to enable labor to perform quality work in a safe, effective, and efficient manner. In a coal mine the workface is that point where the pick hits the coal, in our world of construction it is that point where our trades people turn materials into a functioning plant. Therefore, Workface Planning is the process of identifying what these people need and what we must do to get it to them.

  1. WorkFace Coordinator

    Owners representative who reports directly to the AWP Champion. Responsible to be imbedded with and manage the Contractor’s WFP department, coordinate the turnover of CWPs form the Construction Management Team to the Contractors, and oversee the function of IWP development and constraint management.

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  2. 3D Planning with Workface Planning Software

    This variety of commercially available software is utilized for several functions. It integrates with the 3D model, allows users to build Installation Work Packages, develops tasks for IWPs, accepts fabrication data, calculates planned value, links drawings to model objects, displays current state (progress) of any component , shows the current state of materials , and can sequence and schedule IWPs.

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  3. Level 5 Project Schedule

    The Rolling Wave Construction schedule is the sequence of IWPs created by the Workface Planners and Construction Superintendents, developed from individual CWPs as they are released IFC. Utilizing the 4D simulation from the WFP software, the construction team then validate that the schedule makes sense.  The planned value of IWPs in the level 5 schedule guides the arrangement of work so that the team can earn progress at the rate needed to finish the project on-time.

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  4. Installation Work Packages

    A discrete portion of constraint free, construction work that can be executed by a single foreman and crew, in a single 7 Day period. Dissected from a single CWP and made up of tasks from whole drawings. Each IWP becomes a single level 5 schedule activity.

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  5. Materials / Tools / Documents / Access Work

    Are common constraints for every IWP that must be identified and removed by the Workface Planners, resulting in: Right materials delivered to the worksite, access to cranes, manlifts, welding machines, pumps and hand tools, then the latest revision documents and finally access to the workface through scaffold, permits, transportation and the identification of congestion. Any one of which could derail the plan if not addressed before the foreman gets the IWP.

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  6. Tool Time Survey

    Theses Time on Tools studies are a systemic process that captures a numerical snapshot of the activity levels of the trade workers on a construction project. Typically carried out every 2 months during the construction phase – they show actual results and trends that can be linked to project events. The power of this type of review, is that it isolates cause and effect cycles and shows their impact on the project, which allows the construction management team to focus on high value issues.

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  7. Foreman and Crew

    Responsible for the direct supervision of one labor crew in a single discipline, with typically 1 foreman to 10 crew members.

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Information Management

The management of information is a strategy that starts with the idea that
everybody on the project needs information that is created by somebody else on
the project. The target of the strategy is to design systems and interfaces that
align the data publishers and formats with the needs of the end users. The
desired outcome is to ensure that all the right people have access to the data
that they need, that it is compatible with other project data and it is
formatted to be interoperable.

  1. Information Manger

    Position is responsible for developing the processes that will make the Workface Planning (WFP) software fully functional, which includes data architecture and training for the Publishers of data. Position requires acute understanding of WFP software, 3D modelling, AWP, with general comprehension of engineering processes, supply chain, and how to operate in a cloud environment.

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  2. Work Breakdown Structure

    The creation of the WBS for AWP and the development of the WBS library forms the template for the project nomenclature. This naming convention (WTF-I-12-E4-C05-14) will then be used to identify physical components, drawings, spools, steel members, schedule activities, cost codes and work packages.

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  3. Work Package Nomenclature

    The creation of the WBS and the development of the WBS library forms the template for the project nomenclature. This naming convention (WTF-I-12-E4-C05-14) will then be used to identify physical components, drawings, spools, steel members, schedule activities, cost codes and work packages.

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  4. Project Control

    Project Controls support for AWP comes in the form of an EPC level 3 schedule that displays EWPs, PWPs and CWPs in dependent, End to Start relationships. This is based upon the sequence of work identified during the Path of Construction. Estimated quantities are identified by CWP, which provides the foundation for Earned Value Management to support AWP and the continuous improvement of the estimate.

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  5. Cost Codes

    Aligned with the components identified in the AWP Work Breakdown Structure, the Cost Codes are applied by the Foremen by transferring the IWP number onto timesheets. This simple function ties Earned Value to Burned Value at an IWP level, which can then be rolled up to CWPs for very accurate Cost Management.

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  6. Workface Planning Software

    The population and maintenance of the WFP Software is a never ending task that draws new engineering, fabrication, materials, planning and progress data into a consumable format each week. Properly managed the software quickly becomes the hub of all construction information and is the bedrock that facilitates Workface Planning and the creation of constraint free Installation Work Packages.

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  7. Document Control

    Developed as a single, online, document management warehouse that stores the latest revision documents by EWP, the document management system required to support AWP combines all IFC documents into one place, with managed Stakeholder access.

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  8. Procurement Information Management

    The process of identify data as a deliverable and then getting that unique data from fabricators in electronic format so that it can be linked to components in the 3D model. The process starts with an expectation set in the contracts with enough detail to tell fabricators that we expect the data in a digital format on a weekly schedule.

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  9. 3D Model Attributes

    Think of the 3D model as a database that has a comprehensive list of project components and each component has a list of features (attributes). When fully populated by Engineering these attributes allow the construction teams to mine this data and answer complex questions, complete with images of what the data looks like in 3D.

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