HamishMcTavish:
When I see "DEP" I automatically think of, for example, Shell (The Hague)...a rather sophisticated company with some fairly stringent but very well thought out DEPs, possibly the best I have ever seen. There are other high-end companies with similar standards out there. My experience is that it is commonplace, particular on the beginning of a large project, for those folks to begin with the company Standards and go through an exercise of toning them down (or, far less often, beefing them up) to be project-specific. The result typically takes the form of a cover sheet and a few pages of superseding notes attached to the front end of the Standard indicating where exceptions have been taken and where changes are to be made, otherwise leaving the original Standard unchanged. When done correctly, significant cost and schedule optimizations can be realized.
In recent years, I have seen a trend that major O&G producers are writing their Standards (or DEPs or equivalents) in the form of covering augmentations of the various API and ASME Codes. I would expect that, over time, this trend will render the "fit for purpose" optimization process either much easier or obsolete altogether. What prevents that from happening, of course, is a counter-acting trend on the part of suppliers at the end of the supply chain, who more and more are taking the approach that says, to paraphrase: "We take general exception to all of your Specifications. You can have our Vendor Standard design - take it or leave it or pay us another quarter million and wait a few more months.". Then the engineering time ends up being wasted on investigating whether or not that's "good enough". The results are:
(1) A dissatisfied Owner who is quite unhappy with the Engineer that the specifications are not being met;
(2) Dissatisfied Suppliers who are unhappy with the Engineer for trying to enforce the specifications to the extent possible;
(3) A dissatisfied Engineer who gets caught as the middle-man in the ensuing urination contest, with the Owner and Suppliers alike placing all of the blame for cost, schedule and technical compromises directly on the Engineer's shoulders.
Ya gotta love this business!
Regards,
SNORGY.