Five phases, whether it is a substation or a software rollout.
Durations below are typical, not promises. The schedule is set by the longest-lead item, and we name that item in phase one rather than discovering it in phase four.
Discovery & feasibility
We establish what is actually true: available capacity and its cost, site facts, budget and schedule reality — or, on the technology side, an inventory of the systems and data you already have and who touches them. This phase exists to kill bad projects cheaply. If the capacity is not there or the economics do not close, you hear it here.
- Feasibility memo, go / no-go
- Named longest-lead item
- Order-of-magnitude budget
- Risk register
Definition & design
One-lines, equipment specifications and a construction scope somebody can bid against — or solution architecture, a ranked use-case register and an integration map. Everything is written down, because a specification held in someone's head cannot be reviewed, quoted against, or handed to a contractor.
- One-line and equipment schedule
- Written specifications
- Scope of work for bidding
- Solution architecture
Procurement & selection
RFQs go to vendors who can actually build the thing. Bids are leveled on a like-for-like basis so you are comparing the same scope, not the same number. Long-lead items are released first — usually before design is finished, which is deliberate and explained below.
- Bid tabulation
- Award recommendation
- Purchase orders released
- Delivery schedule
Deployment & construction
Contractor and vendor oversight, submittal and drawing review, factory test witness — or configuration, data migration and a live pilot with real users. This is the longest phase and the one where absent oversight costs the most, because every substitution and every missed submittal gets discovered at the end instead of the middle.
- Reviewed submittals
- Factory test reports
- Site progress reports
- Migrated data, pilot results
Commissioning & handover
Energization or go-live against a checklist somebody signs. As-built documentation, operator and staff training, and a written support plan naming who to call for what. A project is not finished when it works; it is finished when the people who own it can run it without us.
- Signed commissioning checklist
- As-built documentation
- Training delivered
- Written support plan
The transformer sets the date, not the crew
Procurement of the main power transformer starts before design is finished. That looks reckless until you plot it: the equipment is in the factory for most of the project, and every week you wait to release it is a week added to energization.
Release the transformer in week 6 and it arrives with a month to spare. Release it when construction drawings are complete in week 16 and the same unit lands after the crew has demobilized — the site sits finished and dark, waiting on one piece of steel and copper.
Three things, or the schedule slips
One decision-maker
Someone who can approve an award and mean it. Committee procurement is how a forty-week lead time becomes fifty.
Access to the facts
Utility correspondence, site surveys, existing drawings, your actual invoices and inventory — including the parts that are embarrassing.
A week-one release
Authority to start the long-lead item as soon as the one-line is fixed, rather than after the last drawing is stamped.
Start with phase one.
Two weeks, a written memo, and an honest answer about whether the rest is worth doing.
