In industrial maintenance and construction, managing and documenting manual work processes has remained mostly unchanged. Processes are, for the most part, still paper-based, siloed, and lack accountability and transparency at the work face, making them inefficient and difficult to improve in a significant manner. This makes reviewing and ensuring the work quality quite arduous, which ultimately leads to accidents, downtime, and rework.
During a typical maintenance activity, 30% of work is actually rework
Studies have found that roughly 30% of work on a project is rework, with 50% of all rework determined to be caused by poor communication or lack of information. Unplanned work activities to correct mistakes can cost 3X the cost of planned work activities.
For site operators during shutdown or planned maintenance events, and for Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contractors during projects, finding tools or technologies to reduce (or even eliminate) rework can significantly benefit schedule and labor associated inefficiencies.
What does this mean in terms of numbers?
For example, an average rate of rework in greenfield construction projects can be as high as 10% of total labor. This means that, a $100 million capital project, where the labor component of total project value is 30%, would incur labor-related costs of $30 million and rework costs of $3 million.
This is cost associated with rework labor alone and does not take into account any impacts to project schedule or, most importantly, any potential impacts to safety during the commissioning and start-up phases.
How can a digital solution help?
Digital solutions are becoming more common as go-to options for companies looking for a competitive edge. Return on Investment (ROI) drives decision making and any potential solution that can demonstrate savings must maximize that value in the near term.
Cumulus ensures that work is done right the first time. Our Smart Torque System gives managers real-time transparency into who did work, how long it took them to do it, and how well it was done, allowing them to address quality and process issues as they occur.
Our customers have realized up to a 60% reduction in QC/QA costs associated with any flange management related project activities, resulting in an ROI of 10x or greater. These are near-term opportunities for cost savings as a result of better work quality and the access to actionable real-time information from a digital solution.
Are you looking for an easy way to check the digital box? Let us help.
