Enhanced Work Packaging: Planning for Predictability and Productivity

Advanced Work Packaging (AWP) promotes a disciplined approach for project planning and communicating project scope from conception to turnover delivery. The deliberate engineering and construction management practices, required in AWP, are essential to improving craft labor productivity and predictability. RT-272 presents a model execution process developed through strong representation from owner, engineering, contractor organizations and contemporaneous efforts by the Construction Owners Association of Alberta (COAA) as well as their participation in this research.

Advanced Work Packaging provides a structure for focused execution planning that is directed at the construction workface. It is a process that reduces unproductive, non-value added time. A key requirement of this process is a collaboration between construction and engineering during the engineering planning phase. This collaboration ensures that the project is designed with a sequence that supports construction and that the supply chain is sequenced accordingly.

AWP is a construction-driven process that adopts the philosophy of “beginning with the end in mind.” The work packaging and constraint management process removes the guesswork from executing at the workface by tightly defining the scope of all work involved, and by ensuring that all things necessary for execution are in place.

AWP removes some of the routine execution planning from field supervision by explicitly considering work packages during project definition, engineering, and construction planning. The increased workface presence of supervision provides some of the labor productivity and predictability improvements.

The benefits that come from AWP can be achieved with investment and buy-in from the project team members and key stakeholders. AWP is a disciplined process starting early in the project life-cycle that requires an effective interface with supporting systems and therefore cannot be implemented without planning and evaluation. RT-272 provides a starting point from which companies can translate AWP into their own processes and plans for implementation.

RT-319, Transforming the Industry: Making the Case for AWP as a Standard (Best) Practice, built upon the work of RT-272.