Section D
Documentation
“The historian, essentially, wants more documents than he can really use.”
‘Prefaces,’ The Aspern Papers. Henry James.
A major problem for the project manager is the quantity of documents on a project. Which ones should you approve before they are issued? Which ones should you review, and for which ones do you need for information? Then there are the documents that the project manager generates themselves.
There may be 120 to 150 different types of documents produced by the project. In addition, on a major technological project, there could be in excess of 50,000 drawings. Further, each of these can be issued several times.
In today's world, much of the documentation will be computerized. Nevertheless, people do like to use hard copies. This hard copy document then acquires many notes and other annotations and, consequently, there will be a reluctance to transfer all of this information onto the latest issue of the document concerned. Making sure that people are not using a document that is out of date and ensuring that everyone is using the latest issue, requires thorough policing by, say, the project control manager's team or the project office.
Document management software is useful in providing version control, ensuring that only the most recent approved version is used. It also provides increased document security by controlling individual's access. In addition, it provides a ‘paper’ trail of who is accessing what and when. Further, it can facilitate archiving.
To assist with document security, try and persuade people to spend five or ten minutes filing at the end of the day and keeping their desks clear.
1 Contractor's Own Documents and Drawings
1.1 General
- Coordination procedure (see Section B).
- Document distribution matrix (see Section B, paragraph 2.17).
- Filing index (see Section F).
- Project instructions.
- Project roster – a list of people working on the project whether full time or part time and when they have their holidays booked.
- Procedures. Tailor these to suit your project management philosophy. Make sure you amend them to include your specific review or approval points. An example is reviewing or approving tender lists.
- It is useful to have a list of the company's preprinted standard forms that are required to be used. Attach this list to, say, the procedure index for ease of reference.
Progress reports: Many company reports are likely to have a standard format. The project manager needs to identify those reports that they wish to receive from others, in order to maintain control. They also need to identify the reports that they themselves will generate or that will be generated on their behalf.
There are two main categories: internal to the contractor and external for the client/financial organizations, such as banks, finance agencies/government organizations, offshore supplies office, Department of Energy. Whilst reports are generally issued monthly, vary this to suit the circumstances.
- Minutes of meetings. (See Part IV, Section N Project Meetings.)
- Quality assurance reports.
1.2 Project Controls
- Estimate – as sold. This should not change unless there are agreed variations.
- Cost report, Commitment and expenditure, Budget and forecast. This will have two versions – internal and external.
- Master programme, covering the basic technology or process, design, and engineering, drawing preparation, procurement and manufacturing/erection/construction.
- Detailed schedules, 30‐, 60‐ or 90‐day look‐ahead programme.
- Change order log, variations. Contract change register.
- Productivity analysis of the various design groups.
- ‘S’ curves showing overall project progress against planned, man hours expended and forecasts, also individual group curves with the same data. These ‘S’ curves are a key control tool for the project manager. See Section N.
- Manpower histograms.
- Critical path analysis.
1.3 Accounting
- Loan finance report
- Foreign exchange status
- Vendors payments schedule
- Subcontractors payment schedules
- Invoices to client and others
- Payments due.
1.4 Design/Engineering
- Design report
- Requisitions, requisition index
- Data sheets
- Specifications
- Equipment schedule or list – ‘tagged’ items
- Material take off for bulk items
- Dimensional and weight control
- Drawing index
- Lists of specific specialist items, depending on the technology. For example: instrument lists, steelwork schedule, or software modules
- Estimated drawing progress, drawings issued
- Vendor drawing and document index
- ‘By exception’ reports late‐start and late‐finish activities, late construction release and ‘hold’ registers.
1.5 Procurement
- Purchase order status report
- Exception reports on order placement
- Material progress schedule
- Material progress summary – problems
- Procurement progress
- Expediting and inspection planned visits
- Expediting reports – review these for items on the critical path and subcritical paths
- Inspection
- Orders shipped without clearance.
1.6 Construction
- Construction manager's report
- Subcontract status report
- Direct labour returns
- Key activities report
- Material status: overages/shortages/damaged – critical items
- Construction staff list
- Direct labour returns.
2 Vendor Drawings and Documents:
- Drawings and documents for review. Designers and engineers tend to ask for too many drawings and documents for review. Remember every drawing requested for review has to be chased up, logged, reviewed, transmitted, followed‐up, and so on. Challenge them to exercise restraint without compromising the integrity of their work. This can save many man hours.
- Documents for construction release.
- As‐built drawings and other documents for operating and maintenance manuals.
3
Remember, all documents will be issued several times and thus are a major problem, and the most important concern to be addressed is making sure that all members of the team are using the same and latest issue.
4
See also Section F Filing & Archiving, subsection 3, Master File Index.