How many of you think that you’ll “just know” if you’ll be ready or not when the unit comes off line. Say that it’s sixty days or so until the unit is scheduled to be handed over to you. Let’s also assume that this is more than the standard, bi-annual outage you’ve become accustomed to. Let’s say that this time, there’s also a scrubber tie-in scheduled. So in addition to the regular contractors and maybe a turbine and/or boiler OEM to deal with, you’ll also have all of the contractors involved in building the scrubber infrastructure. And for sure, you’ll have the scrubber-work labor contractors as well as the I&C and controls software folks on hand. Will those guys really have the system debugged before you energize?

With that thrown in, are you still comfortable with the gut-feel that you, and everyone else involved in the outage, will be ready? Well, there are tried and true ways of moving from gut-feel to objective confidence.

For a review of four different approaches to looking at outage readiness, go to http://www.power-eng.com/articles/print/volume-115/issue-11/features/outage-readiness-assessment.html. It’s an article published in Power Engineering magazine for this past December’s PowerGen 2011 conference edition.

If you have some thoughts on the article, please let me know at PGHessler@ConstrBiz.com. Also, for more ideas on this,  and related subjects, visit www.ConstrBiz.com.