Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance for any project starts very early in the process. The first step is to establish the goals and values for the project, which will hold the weight of the rest of the project management and engineering process through all decision-making.

Some of the questions that will be answered at this stage are:

• What will establish a successful project?
• What order do these priorities fall: Cost, Reliability, Schedule?
• What is the targeted life span for the finished project, system, etc?
• What is more important upfront cost or life cycle cost?

With these questions answered - even before the preliminary budget is developed - the project team can deliver a project that everyone can be happy with in the end.

Project Documentation Review

In order to ensure that project requirements are being met, we review:

• RFPs
• RFP submittals
• Design specifications

We can more easily help you to your successful project completion if we are engaged in the process early.

Design Review

We work as an independent reviewer to help you ensure that your proposed design will meet all the RFP requirements, and that your project will be successful upon completion.

• Design review:
  • Does the design meet the scope requirements?
  • Is the proposed design adequate?
  • Does the proposed design meet the company objectives for quality, uptime, short and long term economics, etc?
• Review the project documentation from the beginning to end
  • RFP review (Are you saying what you want to say?)
  • Review submittals (Are they telling you what you think they are?)
  • Design (Are they giving you what they said they would?)
  • Construction (Is it meeting the design?)
  • Testing /Commissioning (Will the finished process meet the initial goals?)
• The entire process is not only about double checking all the finer details, but it's about looking ahead to make sure that the final design will meet all the original goals - or the reason the project got underway.

Project Management

Project Management - and JMK Engineering's role - starts after the stakeholder goals have been developed. With these goals and project values in place, a project execution plan can be developed, acting as a baseline for the project. This plan will include: schedules, costs, and other metrics that will be measured throughout the project.

If you have internal processes that are used for reporting project process, these will be included in the execution plan. If not, we will be happy to provide suggestions that are in line with the size of your project.

Design and Integration

The Design and Integration of the project is where most of the work, time, and costs lie. Decisions made during this stage of the process will not only affect the capital cost of the project, but typically - and more importantly - the operational cost of the project. JMK Engineering can provide a full support through in-house talent and strategic partners for a wide variety of project sizes and types. On a larger project, we would recommend looking at the large multinational engineering companies. In these cases, we will provide owners engineering support where we will interface with the main design team on a day-to-day basis, and provide integration support for any areas that are not covered in the prime contract.

With this model, you will get the best value for the project by leveraging the capacity of a large company, while still maintaining control of the outcome and project success that you would have with a smaller company.

Our 5 Stage Process

JMK Engineering employs a five stage process for all our projects, with the last two phases being construction support and commissioning.

The first three phases are specifically targeted around the project design and integration into the existing systems and business processes.

Commissioning

When the project areas up to this point have been properly executed, commissioning is the easiest part of the project.

When you engage JMK Engineering to assist with the commissioning of the final project, we will review the project goals and requirements mapped out in the initial project design, review the engineering design documentation, and design a test procedure that will test that all goals have been reached.

We work closely with management and operations to test the normal and foreseeable abnormal operations of the installation. The goal of commissioning is not only to ensure that the system works as intended, but to try and break the system with foreseeable configurations to ensure that the system behaves in a predictable, and repeatable manner. If one of these abnormal situations happen during production, we can make sure you have the least amount of down time as possible.

Ensuring the system operates as intended

Testing is ensuring that part of the process works. It comes first and includes a lot of preliminary steps, from testing individual parts of the system in isolation to commissioning the system as a whole.

When the previous project areas have been executed properly, commissioning is the easiest part of the project.

For JMK Engineering, commissioning is:

developing tests and procedures to try and break the process within normal and out-of-normal procedures.

When the system breaks in “normal” tests, fixes must be made. For the out-of-normal failures, more has to be determined with the following questions:

• Is this is a true out-of-normal failure? If so, this should be noted but no changes made.
• Is there is a possibility that this is a possible configuration? If so, this can be addressed.

We provide commissioning services in:

• Defining the scope for commissioning
• Reviewing checkout and testing procedures
• Developing commissioning plan and proper documentation
• Witnessing the commissioning process on-site to ensure that it is executed in a predictable manner

Let's Talk

Not sure what you need, schedule a 30 min with Jeff to discuss your project and lets see if we can help.

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Newsletter

If you aren't ready to talk shop, you may be interested in our newsletter. One of the added features is that you can hit reply to any of the weekly newsletter we send out and it will land directly into Jeff's inbox. There you can ask any questions you want and he will get right back to you.

Power System Study

A power system study is a great tool for any facility.

They are used throughout the design process to model the design and ensure that there are no abnormal situations that can be remedied during the design process.

In an operational plant, a power system study is a tool that you use to develop and improve your electrical safety program, serve as an input to your energy management system, and assist capital projects find areas of the plant that can be used for expansion activities. It can also be removed based on plant operation reduction or successful demand management or energy efficiency project.

JMK Engineering believes that every facility and business benefits from a current power system model. These are much more valuable than the minimum of a single line diagram that the NEC and CEC requires you have current for your facility. A power system model will serve as a tool for your capital projects group, electrical safety program, and operations group.

We work with companies to:

• Help develop an accurate model
• Run the necessary studies to develop a power system study report for various means.

The power system study report can serve as an input to:

• your electrical safety program (Arc Flash Analysis)
• help with power quality issues (Load Flow Analysis, transient motor starting)
• incident investigation (Arc Flash Analysis, Protection Coordination)

A Power System study is not a one time activity

These studies are not completed only once. They must be updated periodically when there are changes made to the system. Per the requirements of CSA Z462 and NFPA 70E, this means changes will occur at least every five years.

Who Benefits from the Power System study

The power system study report is not just a binder that sits in the engineer's office, it can be leveraged as a useful tool of many different activities within the organization including:

• Management
• Operations
• Maintenance
• Capital Projects

Management

With the power system study completed, management can use the incident energy report to complete a risk analysis and labels for all the equipment in the plant identifying arc flash and shock hazard boundaries throughout the plant. You will be able to integrate the report into the existing electrical safety program, or use it as the first step in developing the electrical safety program at the facility.

Operations

The protection coordination and load flow reports can help operations identify areas within the plant that are at a higher risk of outage, and determine methods to mitigate this risk to acceptable levels based on business objectives.

Maintenance

The maintenance group can use the short circuit and load flow reports to inform where preventative maintenance budgets can be focused. The report will identify the areas that of the plant that need to be replaced based on the short circuit levels, or areas of the plant that are could be subject to higher currents based on operating voltages identified in the load flow.

Capital Projects

Finally, a current and accurate power system study is a critical input for any capital project. Most capital projects within any facility will have an impact on the power system. Knowing what areas of the power system can accommodate a new load will help design a better capital cost.

For example, it is better to know that the area of the plant slated for expansion doesn't need a new feed from the utility because there is spare capacity on the system, rather than making an assumption.