Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1388570
July 2021 / 25 becomes greater, as shown in Figure 2. While this isn't a glamorous component of the project, it's vital. Amer- ican engineer W. Edwards Deming put it best when he said, "If you can't describe what you're doing as a pro- cess, you don't know what you're doing." The goal of the detailed design is to make the project so clear that suppliers have zero doubt as to what's required, which ultimately makes the supplier respon- sible for proper execution. In one project, the detailed design was so precise that the bidder wrote, "The description of work in the 'Electrical Scope of Work' provided to us for bidding purposes was so detailed and in-depth that we can't add further description to it." That same supplier indicated that the instructions were so clear that their bid contained almost zero fudge factor (margin for error). The detailed design also allows the project manager to have a clear understanding of what needs to be done and what needs to be managed. For example, many years ago, a confectionery plant implemented a project where the detailed design very clearly stated that the plant needed a water-cooled compressor. However, the compressor supplier that won the job decided to supply the plant with an air-cooled compressor, which of the improvement process to be outsourced as the plant desires. For instance, let's say that a project has a 2-year ROI payback. In the world of compressed-air projects, outsourcing the detailed design and project management steps typically costs between 1 and 3 months of the total project ROI. If that's the case, delay- ing work for 3 to 4 months to do the work in-house actually costs the company money, as shown in Figure 1, and the company also assumes both the performance and installation risk. With this in mind, plants that don't have the time, inclination, or internal expertise shouldn't hesitate to outsource any or all aspects of a compressed-air improvement project. Detailed design Detailed design is nothing more than taking the action plan from the audit and putting it into a format that allows suppliers and contractors to bid and execute the project on time and on budget. A detailed design's pri- mary components are the scope of work, which details installation specifications, and the scope of supply, which details equipment specifications. For simple projects, the detailed design may be minimal, but as projects grow in complexity, the value of a detailed design FIGURE 2 This is an example of an electrical detailed design for a plant's compressed-air system. This detailed design drawing created clear instructions for an automation supplier.