Physical, contractual or financial completion confirms that a project has ended. It does not confirm that the asset is ready to produce, be maintained and deliver the promised value.
The gap emerges long before handover
Operability, maintainability, taxonomy, spares, information, capability and processes are often treated as late activities. By then, design decisions are frozen and every correction is more expensive.
Five decisions that should happen early
- Define required performance: capacity, availability, quality, ramp-up and acceptable risk.
- Include operations and maintenance in engineering: access, isolation, removal, inspection and standardization.
- Define asset information: tags, attributes, documents, hierarchies and delivery responsibilities.
- Prepare the organization: roles, hiring, training, procedures and routines.
- Design the transition: systems, tests, handover, acceptance, start-up and stabilization.
The governance question
At each project gate there should be an explicit answer: what evidence shows the asset can be operated and maintained in line with the business case?
CAPEX creates the asset; operational readiness activates the value.