Operational readiness
The process of preparing the organisation that will own an asset, and the people who will run it, to take it over and operate it from the day it is handed across.
Operational readiness covers the appointment, preparation and training of operating and maintenance staff, the securing of regulatory approvals, the establishment of maintenance regimes and spares, and the transfer of the information needed to run the asset. It runs in parallel with construction rather than after it, because most of it cannot be done once the delivery organisation has left.
It is a discipline in its own right in the process industries, where a plant that cannot be operated safely on day one is an immediate and visible failure. It is markedly less mature in building and infrastructure delivery, where the equivalent failure is slower and easier to absorb.
Sources
FIDIC Conditions of Contract, 2017 edition, Sub-Clauses 10.1 and 10.3 on taking over. ISO 19650-3, information management during the operational phase of assets.
Belongs to
Handover & Transition
Argued in full
Handover is where the cost lands, and the Gulf is now taking delivery