Typically, when we talk to document controllers, engineers, directors of engineering groups, executives – they tell us that there’s a lack of alignment. After investigating we find that there is no enforced work flow. There is no automated workflow. More than that, the manual work flow’s not optimized for oil and gas EPC, so people are wondering what to do, when is it due, from whom is it due, what does complete look like, how do we report on it, simple things like that.

We also hear that contractors and partners and engineers are working outside the system, if there is a system. That circumvents the work flows designed to keep documents moving and progressing, which is even more important if your project bills based on engineering progress.

Another thing we’re hearing is that teams are working from old document revisions. These team members waste valuable time updating out of date documents because there’s not a central place to quickly find the latest REV. We’re also hearing it’s impossible to make and manage SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound). We’re not really going to talk about the obtainable or realistic, but we can talk about the specific, measurable and time bound portions of that. You can’t make SMART tasks when you don’t have a quality document control system or use dumb systems like file folders, spreadsheets and emails.

How does ProjecTools address those things? It gets your engineers and your document controllers working on the same system. It enforces and automates optimized oil and gas and engineering workflows. It’s a single place to quickly find the latest revision of documents, and it’ll enforce your standard numbering. These are all key components to aligning document control and engineering.

You want everybody speaking the same language and working in the same system and agreeing to a workflow and working within that workflow. It’s a pretty simple concept that is surprisingly difficult to put into practice if you have the wrong tools for the job. Fortunately, ProjecTools application and methods will help you.

Watch the video above to see how ProjecTools will help align document control and engineering teams.