My last blog in this series on Engineering Document Management in capital projects discussed a best practice deployment of OpenText™ Extended ECM for Engineering. In this blog I am going to discuss how the Master Document Register works and how it keeps projects within scope, to the highest quality and on time.
The Master Document Register (MDR), also known as Master Document List (MDL), is a complete list of documents to be delivered across all disciplines throughout all phases of a capital project. For each of these document deliverables the MDR holds metadata (attributes) such as document number, DCC code, discipline and type which can also be provided from the owner/operator, contractor, vendor or supplier. The MDR holds the information for review and approval in a RACI like matrix and as a result, the MDR is essentially a very large spreadsheet with thousands of line items and many columns.
The MDR is subject to permanent change throughout a capital project. In the early phases of a project the MDR is taken from a template or a similar project that was executed in the past which is then adjusted to the purpose of the new capital project and the objects to be built.
During this phase, the MDR (or parts of it) is the subject of negotiation between the EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction), the owner/operator and any suppliers and vendors. The owner/operator may need to have additional special purpose certificates or SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) for the project that the vendor is not responsible for and therefore the EPC may require additional metadata. Once the MDR is signed by the parties it becomes part of the contract and at this point in time it becomes the list of contractually agreed document deliverables.
The Engineering Document Management System allows the exportation of the MDR from the Master Document Workspace to a spreadsheet for offline use. Of course, it also allows the import of adjusted offline MDRs back into the Master Document Workspace.
As a result, managing the MDR in an engineering capital project gives you the ability to control project completeness and due dates for all document deliverables regardless of whether you are required to send documents out or are expecting to receive inbound documents from contractors. With the MDR you can keep your project in time, in scope and of the highest quality.
OpenText Professional Services have years of experience in Engineering Document Management in capital projects, please contact us if you would like to speak to an expert with regards to your project.
Author: Jens Friehmelt – Jens is a Senior Manager in OpenText Professional Services EMEA leading an international team which combines multiple OpenText technologies to serve customers with best practice solutions for Engineering, Construction and Maintenance processes.
