How Design Standardization CSFs Can Impact Project Performance of Capital Projects

Abstract

Standardization is a commonplace idea today; however, capital projects have not been able to achieve high levels of facility design standardization. The Construction Industry Institute (CII) identified 15 standardization critical success factors (CSFs) for capital projects, particularly the upstream, midstream, and mining sector, to help the practitioners achieve higher levels of facility design standardization in capital projects. However, there is a need to better understand the CSFs comprehensively by analyzing data from actual standardized projects. To fill this gap, this study examined CSFs’ degrees of accomplishment, as well as project performance scores for different metrics, and have analyzed a correlation between CSFs’ accomplishment and the project performance of 43 projects. The results show that the more standardization CSFs are accomplished, the better the project performances. This research also identified which CSFs are commonly accomplished and which CSFs are challenging to accomplish by analyzing the degree of accomplishment of each CSF. The results show that Basic Engineering Design Data, Operations and Maintenance, Technology Maturity, and Experience and Capability of Project Team are the CSFs that are more commonly accomplished, whereas Constructability of Standardization and Feasibility Analysis of Standardization are the CSFs that the industry finds difficult to accomplish. The research findings will help the industry to understand better the importance of the CSFs, which will lead them to achieve better project performance for capital projects.