Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
By Karen Bray
Page 1/2
3. Spend time with the tank farm personnel when working in an existing facility.
The majority of the cost for OSBL often comes from piping and tankage costs. The tank farm
personnel are the best resource to help the project understand the flexibility that exists in the
current system and are often not included in project planning. There may be out of service
piping that can be tested and reused, or simple jumpers that can be made to eliminate new pipe
or the need for new tankage. Taking the time to do research on the existing system can
potentially save significant money on a project.
4. Define insulation and tracing requirements early in the project.
Adding an inch and a half of insulation to a six inch line increases the space occupied by that line
on a pipe rack by 50 percent. Missing this insulation on even one line can sometimes cause a
complete change in civil/structural scope if there is no longer room to hold it in the rack. Having
to add a level or expand a pipe rack size late in a project can be a detriment to both budget and
schedule.
Tracing in the OSBL can be difficult to define until exact pipe routings are known. There may
not be steam in certain areas or even electricity available. Simply assuming steam or electricity
is available and applying a factor to pipe length to cover tracing costs early in a project can lead
to significantly low estimates. While this is not necessarily a cost-saving tip for OSBL, it is a
lesson learned and something that is easily missed in OSBL scope.
5. When working in an existing facility, meet as many people as possible.
The ISBL portion of the project is typically located in a well-defined area of a facility, and the link
to the rest of the existing facility is the OSBL. It is therefore important that those on the OSBL
are good ambassadors for the project. It tends to be those on the OSBL that end up in the
existing control rooms, units, and even the cafeteria answering questions about what the new
ISBL project is all about. On many projects, especially if it is a grassroots unit, the ISBL will not
have a large need to spend time in the existing facility. The better the relationships are between
the OSBL and the operators, engineers, and managers of that facility, the better the entire
project will likely go.
The tips presented above are a few key lessons learned based on past OSBL projects. Many of
them may seem straightforward or even obvious, but they can often be forgotten during todays
fast-paced capital projects. Hopefully taking time to think about these things can save your project
significant time and money overall.
By Karen Bray
Page 2/2