Mantra for Process Excellence

Shubham VyasEngineer servicesAlstom T&D India

PMI NATIONAL CONFERENCE 2014 - HYDERABAD

CAUSES OF DELAY IN ERECTION OF POWER TRANSFORMERS & REACTORS

Theme - Mantra for Process Excellence

Abstract - Electricity is the backbone of every growing economy, Lack of electricity is one of the major

barriers of developing countries. Supplying electricity 24 hrs to each and every town & village is one of the

major targets of all political parties to attract voters. Transformer can be defined as heart of any

switchyard which regulates flow of electricity in entire sub-station and geographical area as blood. As we

all know time is money and quality, the critical factors need to be identify which causes such delay. These

delay causes decreases of customer’s faith & increasing stress of overall manufacturing team.

Keywords – Delay, Delay elements, Erection, Power transformer.

Introduction – As per report from Central Electricity Authority, the annual Load Generation Balance

Report (LGBR) [1] for year 2013 -14. In the financial year 2012-13, the total energy availability

increased by 6.2 % over the previous year and the peak met increased by 6.1%, the shortage conditions

prevailed in the Country both in terms of energy and peaking availability as given in table 1. (MU-million

unit)

  Energy (MU) Peak (MU)

Requirement 998114 135453

Availability 911209 123294

Shortage 86905 12159

(%) 8.7 9

Table 1 Energy availability & shortage.

The energy requirement registered a growth of 6.5% during the year against the projected growth of 5.1%

and Peak demand registered a growth of 4.2% against the projected growth of 7.7%. The studies carried

out for anticipated power supply position for the year. 2013-14, indicate that there would be energy

shortage of 6.7 % and peak shortage of 2.3 %. It means that erection & commissioning of a power

transformer at scheduled time is very important to full fill needs.

Chan and Kumaraswamy [5] (1997) Similarly a research was conducted to find delay causes in Hong

Kong construction projects and he found five major factors: delay – (a) poor risk of management and

supervision (b) Unfocused site condition. (c) Slow decision making. (d) Client - initiated variation. (e)

Work variance.

Ogunlana [4] in 1996 at Thailand, Bangkok, and His analysis that there are three major categories of

delay in project construction (a) Problems of shortages or inadequacies in the industry infrastructure. (b)

Problems caused by clients and consultants. (c) Problems caused by contractor

incompetence/inadequacy.

S. Sen & R K Tyagi [2] (2102) - As per report from Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL), maximum

2.36 % transformers are failed of 220 KV rating & 1.86 % transformers are failed of 400 KV rating, Table

2. These failures itself give a brief idea about delay in supply of electricity.

Voltage 765KV 400KV 220KV 132KV

population 100 305 34 12

Failure 1 52 5 3

Rate 0.30% 1.86% 2.36% 1.80%

Table 2- Rate of failure of power transformer

A per standard CBIP transformer manual total 24 days required for erection, testing & commission of

400KV transformer.

Fig -1 Peak Demand v/s Availability Fig -2 Energy required v/s Availability

Need of this research - The main aim of this study is to find out, what are the causes of delay in

erection and how to avoid this? As we all know cost, time & scope is interlinked, increasing erection time

leads to increasing overhead cost, production loss, loosing customer faith, etc. from our calculation we

found that approx. Rs 500KINR get waste due to delay.

Research methodology - After approval of L2 scheduled & FQP (field quality plan) by customer we

depute our engineer for starting erection activity at site and now the practice activity starts. Our engineer

submits daily progress report (DPR) from site and using this DPR we monitor progress of work and

calculate whether we are working as per schedule or not.

Calculation – Three Point estimating methods was adopted for analysis.

Average estimation time to complete = 19 days

Variance = 5 days

As per formula work must complete in = 19 + 5

1 SD = 24 days, 2 SD = 29 days, 3 SD = 34 days

As per collected data 60 % of sites got delayed due to various regions, average over head charges for

site is Rs 500KINR per site, That is total Rs 4.5MINR (9 x 500000) is used due to delay. Table 3

Estimated V/s Real erection time for 400KV power transformer

Sl

No.

Customer

Site

OptimisticMost

likelyPessimistic

Real

timeAverage St Deviation

Variance

(O) (M) (P) (R) (O+4M+P)/6 SD=(P-O)/6 Sq. of SD

1 A 12 14 18 26 14.333 1.000 1.000

2 B 12 15 30 29 17.000 3.000 9.000

3 C 12 15 18 23 15.000 1.000 1.000

4 D 15 18 20 19 17.833 0.833 0.694

5 E 15 18 21 23 18.000 1.000 1.000

6 F 14 18 20 26 17.667 1.000 1.000

7 G 12 15 18 22 15.000 1.000 1.000

8 H 20 23 30 28 23.667 1.667 2.770

9 I 25 30 35 42 30.000 1.667 2.770

10 J 15 22 25 32 21.333 1.667 2.770

11 K 14 18 20 26 17.667 1.000 1.000

12 L 18 22 25 23 21.833 1.167 1.365

13 M 20 22 25 33 22.167 0.833 0.693

14 N 14 18 21 26 17.833 1.167 1.364

15 O 14 18 20 23 17.667 1.000 1.000

Sum 401 287.000 19.00 28.444

Sq. root of Sum of Variance 5.3

Table 3- Estimated V/s Real erection time for 400KV power transformer

Fig -3 Estimated V/s real time for erection

Stages of erection – Erection activity can be divided into four stages.

Data analysis – From the analysis of DPR of each & every site engineer we have found some common

causes of delay. These delay elements are divided into 5 categories –

1. Internal –

1.1 Material stolen from site.

1.2 Poor storage area.

1.3 Slow payment process or cash flow.

1.4 Lack of communication to every level.

1.5 Poor management skill.

1.6 Slow decision making.

1.7 Safety.

2. External –

2.1 Site condition.

2.2 External causes (stick, accident, natural causes etc).

3. Planning –

3.1 Too short estimated time.

3.2 Lack of recourses.

3.3 Rescheduling

4. Contractor or vendor –

4.1 Rework.

4.2 Scope of work not defined completely or disputes or customer interfere.

4.3 Lack of skilled manpower.

4.4 Poor management skill.

4.5 Daily target.

5. Transportation & Packaging -

5.1 Transit damage

Some Examples are given which defined causes of delay, photographs taken at customer’s site.

Fig 4. Transit damage Fig 5. Poor storage area [3]

Fig 6. Poor site condition [3] Fig 7. External causes

Impact of delay – It can be categories into two parts.

Some common impacts are –

a) Overall project cost increases.

b) Delay in ROI.

c) Increasing man-hours at site (decreasing safety of individuals).

d) Delay in production.

e) Decreasing customer’s faith & trust.

f) Decreasing customer satisfaction level.

g) Increases stress to overall team.

h) Increasing market competition.

i) Overrun of every thing (vehicle, machine, per day expanses etc.)

j) Decreasing brand image or decreasing reputation of org.

Benefits to avoid delay –

a) Enhancing customers trust.

b) Saving time & money.

c) Can provide training to customer for maintenance of product.

d) Implementation of new techniques & technology in saved time.

e) Vendor can purchase new tools & tackles for site.

f) Increasing safety awareness among site engineer’s for implementing at site to avoid accident,

near miss, fall from height, excavation, LOTO and first aid training etc.

g) Planning for future projects.

Result and Conclusion – The study was aimed to find the causes of delay, total eighteen delay

elements are identified. These delay elements are further categorized into five groups. If we can provide

proper storage area to avoid damage of material, avoiding rework activities at site and one more thing

proper security at site to avoid material stolen. If we can control these three delay elements at site, then

we must say we can save around 40% of delay time and around 200 KINR per site.

From the study we have concluded that erection of power transformer at scheduled time is very important

for the benefit of both customer & vendor. We recommend to all site engineers to set a daily target and

review it at the end of the day, we also advice to all site engineers to prepare lesson learned document at

end of every phase of erection.

We recommend to all customers, to provide a separate concrete building for material storage and provide

at least four workers and one supervisor for monitoring incoming & outgoing materials, we also

recommend to vendors to take full time to complete per day given task to avoid re work activity.

Reference –

[1] Load Generation Balance Report 2013-14 Report published by Central Electricity Authority (ministry of

energygovt. of India)

[2] S.Sen, R K Tyagi & Gunjan Agrawal, failure analysis of power transformers- few case studies, CBIP

5th International Conference Delhi, (2102), S6/8.

[3] S. Vyas Causes of delay in project construction In developing countries, IJCMS, Volume IV Issue 2(1),

May 2013.

[4] Ogunlana,S O K. Promkuntong, V. Jearkjirm, Construction delays in a fast growing economy,

Comparing Thailand with other economies. International journal of project Management Vol. 14-1 (1996),

P. 37-45

[5] Chan DW, Kumaraswamy MM. A comparative study of causes of time overruns in Hong Kong

construction projects. Int J Project Manage 1997;15(1):55–63