Advanced Work Packaging: Design through Workface Execution, Version 3.1

CII Research Team (RT) 272, Advanced Work Packaging: Design through Workface Execution, was chartered to review current work packaging practices and identify an enhanced model for implementation that represents the better or best practices available. This implementation resource (IR) is the product of a team of industry experts and academics, whose work together included the following: a review of the current industry and trade literature; case studies of work packaging in the global industrial and commercial construction sectors; and the development of an execution model for the project life cycle—from project definition to system turnover—with an emphasis on field implementation. This model, together with supporting definitions, assessment tools, and examples of leading industry practice, represents a logical synthesis of best practices across a range of work packaging activities. It includes extensions that support a holistic process of planning for work packaging, beginning at project definition. The research team validated the model through external expert review. Implementation of the model is supported by extended discussion of contracting, process integration, job roles, templates, and assessment tools in IR 272-2 Volume II, Advanced Work Packaging: Implementation Guidance. IR 272-2, Volume III, Advanced Work Packaging: Implementation Case Studies and Expert Interviews is presented as a supplement to aid effective implementation.

The first volume is composed of three sections, the first of which reviews the scope of work packaging and its benefits. The second section presents a framework for the work packaging model for project life cycle implementation and field implementation, along with supporting definitions and summarized recommendations. The third section provides summary comments and recommendations.

Research Team (RT) 272 Phase I was originally chartered in 2009 as Enhanced Work Packaging: Design through Workface Execution, and reported out at the CII annual conference in 2011. From the beginning, the Construction Owners Association of Alberta was a collaborative partner in the research, contributing data from its members’ pioneering implementations of workface planning. Due to the promise of early industry success and COAA’s interest in a continued collaboration, CII and COAA jointly chartered Phase II of the research in 2011. As part of Phase II, the team focused on refining the alignment between the original CII effort in Phase I and COAA’s ongoing workface planning efforts. This led to two substantive definition and name changes: 1) the original name, “Enhanced Work Packaging,” was changed to “Advanced Work Packaging,” both to better characterize the scope of the recommendations and to remove potential confusion with the acronym for Engineering Work Package; 2) in the context of Advanced Work Packaging, the COAA term “workface planning” is used to refer specifically to construction execution of the AWP process.