Project Close Out

[CTW]

I'm curious what others are doing when closing out a project.

What documents are kept?
Are the docs paper copies or electronic?
Do you have a specific filing system?
Any other useful information would be appreciated.

I'm trying to develop a company standard for closing out a project.

 

[IRstuff]

It varies and is highly dependent on your ability to store "stuff."

Ideally, everything that can be converted to electronic media should be, to save space and to make it easier to find things later:

> Analyses
> Reports
> Drawings
> Notes
> Some means of finding all that stuff later, e.g., a detailed catalog

One other important thing is some back annotation of hrs spent/billed vs bid and analysis of variances. This is actually somewhat more important than some of the engineering docs, because accurate bidding is crucial to a profitable business.

TTFN

 

[MadMango]

We convert all electronic files to PDF, and scan all hard copies. Our products require models and drawings, and these are copied to CD. Everything is archived to CDs (usually takes 2-3) and they are kept on location for 3yrs, then stored off-site.

[green]"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."[/green]
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[PSE]

We have a server with a portion designated for projects. We keep basically everything there with the exceptions of drawings and code. A project folder has subfolders based upon the current state of development. (prototype, beta, pre-production etc.) The server is backed up daily. Naturally, our preferred format for information is electronic. One thing I would like to see is for the server to have an index so that "similar" projects can be referenced to current project plans and that each project to have a summary document showing actual vs predicted costs, what went right and what when wrong during the project.

Regards,

 

[DRC1]

Mad Mango - Do you keep eltronic files in both native and PDF version or do you only keep the PDF version? How much effort is required to scan from hard to PDF? Do you do it in house or have a service? What hardware and software do you use? We are looking at these issues now and wold be interested to learn more about how you are doing this. Thanks

 

[IRstuff]

You should and must have both. The PDF so that you can quickly see what's in the drawing and the actual native file so that you can reuse the design.

The downside is that you, therefore, must also keep a copy of the particular version of software used to create the drawing. Otherwise, you run the risk of not having a compatible program for opening the drawing later.

Ditto the hardware and OS platform used by the program. There's likewise no guarantee that the latest and greatest computer and OS will still run the old programs.

Additionally, you need to maintain scrupulous records and instrunctions on the installation and environment. AND you need to verify that you can indeed recreate every little bit of the environment in which the drawing was created.

We went through an incredibly painful exercise in porting UG to Pro/E a while back. Definitely not fun.

TTFN

 

[PatrickMorton]

The problems mentioned here with regard to the large amount of legacy data to be maintained and the respective version dependancy of the software are industry problems that are currently being addressed by several engineering software companies. The entire move in the industry is towards a more data centric process as oppossed to the document centric approach mentioned previously.
Some of the software out there is actually removing the version dependancy and allowing users to access the information in a more intuitive format. The information is captured during the design phase and presented to the owner/operators in milestone data handovers for progress verification and earned value payments. With this approach, some owner/operators are finding that the commissioning and data handovers are going much more smoothly and some EPCs are finding the closeout to be quicker and easier.