Advanced Work Packaging: Past, Present and Future
Published on August 23rd 2016 on the workpackaging.org platform
Ladies and Gentlemen,
For decades, the capital projects industry has evolved mostly "offline". Collaborative research within parties involved have provided a limited basis for knowledge creation in the wide field of project management for industrial capital projects.
With a limited access to a more comprehensive and open literature on the subject of capital project management that has been going on for years, certainly, innovation opportunities have been missed along the way.
The demand for bringing new and young talent to the industry, who can contribute to creating a framework, where people from various backgrounds can participate in the various developments in our industry, has become a necessity.
Advanced Work Packaging (AWP), as other similar themes within the capital projects industry (front-end definition, contracting, safety, materials management, etc.) is another opportunity to revive our industry work practices and bring it up to speed comparing to other industries.
I have launched the workpackaging.org platform about 2 years ago, and within the mission of the Advanced Work Packaging Institute, a U.S. based non-profit educational and research organization, my vision was clear: build a global momentum around AWP, invite experts to pay attention to the subject and ultimately foster connections between minds using what everyone of us knows best: connect to the internet.
It took countless volunteering hours from dedicated people among you, within inside and outside the institute and, today, seeing what it has been accomplished, I can only say that this was worth all the time and efforts.
Today, the workpackaging.org platform has an outreach to hundreds of companies and thousands of experts from various industries across 4 continents. That by itself, represents a source of pride to everybody working on the Institute's mission to reach the ultimate goal of bringing the work packaging theme from the few privileged to everyone interested in the subject.
Over the last year, we have interacted, face to face, but mostly online with thousands of people from around the world, from different cultures and industries; people with genuine interest in the topic.
Many people volunteered their feedback and have helped improve the ww.workpackaging.org platform to enable it to simply be a resource and a useful tool they can rely on to get introduced to AWP, learn about it, study it and then apply it.
An enhanced version of the platform will be launched by the end of this month. We look forward to making this upgraded version available for you and for the industry.
The website, including the live support chat, has been helping hundreds of professionals make decisions about their AWP implementation strategies. We have provided non-biased and objective guidelines on AWP that were used by owners, contractors, consultants and more. The upgraded version will continue to do so with even more resources online for live support. I encourage you to take advantage of this resource.
I am a believer and a pioneer in community and innovative multidisciplinary approaches to improving our industry. That's how I started in this business and that's where I see its future. Accordingly, this site is open to your suggestions and contributions. In fact, your feedback has helped identify the gaps in the current AWP system which paved the way to more research leading to the development the next generation of AWP: S.W.i.P.E™.
S.W.i.P.E™ will be announced in the coming weeks as well.
Again, a special thank you for all the support we've received in the early days of the Institute and along the way.
Thank for your encouragement and please remember that your comments and suggestions can only improve the quality and the effectiveness of what this website has to offer.
Olfa Hamdi Founder The Advanced Work Packaging Institute