The Contribution of Remote Factory Acceptance Test Towards Project's Schedule, Cost & Quality at Hawiyah Unayzah Gas Reservoir Storage

This paper shares the Project Management Team's experience of conducting a Remote Factory Acceptance Test (Remote-FAT) at the Hawiyah Unayzah Gas Reservoir Storage project instead of the conventional approach of a conventional Factory Acceptance Test (FAT). The paper also highlights the advantages gained from a Remote-FAT, along with the value engineering created. In addition, this paper will present some deficiencies and areas of improvement. This shared experience is from the point of view as a PMT client or customer. At Hawiyah Unayzah Gas Reservoir Storage (HUGRS), the Remote-FAT approach was used with many disciplines, such as mechanical, electrical, pipelines, etc. This paper focuses on the process control system experience only, from 2020 to 2021. Meanwhile the HUGRS project is in progress and is expected to be completed by 2024. Conducting a FAT is one of the main milestones in projects. The conventional method is usually to have individuals physically visit the manufacturer to check and approve shipping the purchased devices/equipment to the project site. Sometimes this practice "FAT" takes place in the same country where the project is being constructed. But in other cases, the manufacturer is not even on the same continent, requiring travel of hundreds or thousands of kilometers. During COVID-19, there were many active projects that needed to conduct FAT activities, but travel was suddenly restricted. Therefore, the only option was to proceed with Remote-FAT. One of these running projects is HUGRS. The Remote-FAT is a virtual inspection check conducted by the client and vendor via online video streaming at the manufacturer location. Multiple cameras are used and located in different views to visualize whatever needs to be seen. In some cases, the Remote-FAT can be conducted through sharing a screen only, such as system graphics and logic test. The client and the vendor verify and conduct the test, following the same steps that they would perform in the conventional FAT. This Remote-FAT had already existed for a couple of years, but many project managers considered it as a fancy tool that did not add value. This evaluation was proven wrong by COVID-19. Remote-FAT has become the most convenient approach recently and adopted around the world. For the past two years, the process control systems engineers at HUGRS conducted many Remote-FATs with different vendors for dissimilar systems. The advantages and disadvantages were recorded as lessons learned — part of PMT practice — and will be shared in the next sections of this paper.