How to plan an equipment installation from delivery to handover
Plan an equipment installation on a Gantt chart: foundations and utilities, the delivery wait, rigging, install, FAT and SAT, commissioning and handover, with the dependencies that decide the date.
Most of an equipment installation schedule is waiting on someone else. This guide shows how to put the vendor's build, your site work, the acceptance tests and the handover on one timeline, so you can see what sets the date.
The short version
- Put the vendor's build and your site work on one timeline and make rigging depend on both.
- Treat concrete cure as a waiting task between the pour and the ready milestone.
- Schedule the factory acceptance test before shipping and the site acceptance test after commissioning.
- Let training overlap commissioning with a start-to-start link and a lag.
- A schedule shows when the work is meant to happen; it does not make an installation safe or accepted.
Two schedules, one rigging day
An installation plan has two sources of delay that do not talk to each other. The vendor is building, testing and shipping the machine, and your contractor is pouring, curing and running utilities. The day the machine can be lifted into place is the later of the two, and it is rarely obvious which that will be. Putting both streams on one timeline with the lifting task depending on both makes the answer visible, and shows how much slack the other stream has.
Order matters more than detail. Start from the end: handover to operations depends on an acceptance test, which depends on commissioning, which depends on mechanical completion, which depends on the connections and wiring, and these depend on the machine being in position. Then add what that position depends on: the delivery, the foundations and the utilities. Each of these is a task with a length and a clear thing it waits for. The acceptance tests are tasks too, one at the vendor before shipping and one on site after commissioning.
Two kinds of time are easy to leave out. Concrete cure is not work, but the machine cannot be placed on it until it has finished. Training is work, but it does not have to wait for commissioning to end; it can start when the machine is stable enough to teach on. A timeline schedules the work. It does not make an installation safe, correct or accepted: method statements, permits, isolation and sign-offs come from your site rules and contract.
The example below builds the equipment installation template in stages. For the process side, with the decisions and sign-offs drawn out, see /templates/equipment-commissioning-process and /templates/equipment-qualification-process. For a general method, see /guides/gantt-chart-dependencies.
An equipment installation, built in stages
Nineteen tasks in four phases. Durations are illustrative; set your own. Open the spreadsheet panel to see the rows behind each stage.
Foundations and utilities on site
"Approve vendor drawings and place order" (3 working days) comes first. "Pour foundations" (5) and "Cure foundations" (8) run in sequence while "Run utilities to the pad" (10) runs beside them. "Foundations and utilities ready" is a milestone that waits for both.
The vendor's build and the delivery wait
"Vendor builds the equipment" takes 25 working days from the order. "Factory acceptance test at vendor" (3), "Ship and deliver to site" (5) and "Receive and inspect delivery" (2) follow it. "Rig equipment into position" (3) waits for the delivery inspection and for the ready milestone.
Install and connect in two streams
"Level, anchor and grout" (3 days) is followed by "Connect power, air and process piping" (7) and "Wire controls and network" (5), which run together. The "Mechanical completion" milestone waits for both, so the piping sets its date.
Commissioning, acceptance and handover
"Commission and tune" takes 8 working days. "Train operators and maintenance staff" (3) starts 3 days into it. "Site acceptance test" (3) follows commissioning, and the "Handover to operations" milestone waits for the test and the training. Illustrative total: 62 working days.
How it works
Start from handover and list what it needs
Write the handover milestone, then the acceptance test, commissioning and mechanical completion that precede it. This gives you the spine of the plan before you add the site detail.
Add the vendor's stream
Add the build, the factory acceptance test, shipping and delivery inspection as separate tasks. Take the build length from the vendor's quote, and ask whether it starts at the order or at the approved drawings.
Add the site's stream
Add the foundation design, the pour, the cure and the utilities. Make the cure a task of its own, and make a Ready milestone that waits for the cure and the utilities.
Join the two streams at rigging
Make the rigging task depend on the delivery inspection and the Ready milestone. Switch on the critical path in the View menu to see which stream sets the date, and how much slack the other has.
Overlap what can overlap
Run the power and piping next to the controls wiring, and start training with a start-to-start link, for example 16SS+3. Check that the overlap matches how your crews and the machine work.
Add owners, share and export
Put the contractor, vendor and site engineer in People and the permit or test reference in the notes. Share the chart with them and export a PDF for the project file.
Mistakes to avoid
Planning only the site work
A plan that starts at the pour looks short and then stalls on delivery. Include the vendor's build and shipping as tasks, even if you do not control them, so you see what the date depends on.
Forgetting that cure is time, not work
Machines cannot be set on foundations that have not cured. Keep the cure as a task, with a length from the concrete specification, between the pour and the ready milestone.
Treating FAT and SAT as one test
The factory test happens before shipping, the site test after commissioning, and they check different things. Schedule both, and take their content from your contract.
Treating the plan as permission
A task marked done is not a sign-off. Isolation, permits and acceptance come from your site procedures. Put references to them in the task notes.
Open the equipment installation Gantt chart
Open the equipment installation template, change the vendor lead time and the cure to yours and see the rigging date move.
Related guides
Frequently asked questions
How do I show that the vendor's delivery date is fixed?
Give the shipping or delivery task a fixed Start. If the tasks before it cannot finish in time, the chart flags the conflict and names the earliest allowed date. If the dates fit, there is a gap before the task.
Can the chart tell me whether the vendor or the site is the bottleneck?
Yes. Switch on the critical path in the View menu. It lights the chain that sets the finish date. If the vendor's tasks are lit, the build is the limit; if the foundations are lit, the site work is.
Can I plan several machines on one chart?
Yes. Group the tasks by machine and link the shared tasks, such as the utilities and the training. For many machines, a separate chart for each keeps the sheet readable.
Where is the process behind the installation?
In the flowchart and SOP templates: the equipment commissioning process at /templates/equipment-commissioning-process, the qualification process at /templates/equipment-qualification-process and the instrument installation SOP at /templates/instrument-installation-and-commissioning-sop.
