FI ELD OF I NVENTION

[00001] The present invention generally relates to the field of the project process optimization, process, quality, standards, compliance, project workflow technology, project management technology, and more particularly to a project quality and compliance achievement method and system, comprising one or more compliance-templates, wherein said compliance-templates are based on standards, norms, quality assurance, construction, and/or other documents appropriate for claimed herein method of operation.

BACKGROUND

[00002] Various scientific papers based on the research, like for example "Project Management: Challenges & Lessons Learned" BUEC 663 by Dr. Joseph Doucet et alia, say that quality, cost and schedule are the ones which pose the challenge for the project management. The same work says, quote "It is also important to note that wherever the project is taking place, all project and field engineers need to be professionally qualified and familiar with the local standards and codes. Some things change by nation, others change by province, and yet other standards change depending on municipality or county. In order for engineering to be as accurate as possible from the start, professional qualification and familiarity with local codes and standards is essential" unquote

[00003] Thus, each project deliverable item must comply with construction consistency and quality which comes from the project's specifications, codes, and standards. Therefore, this is where the project's first problem, the quality assurance comes from. For the subject skilled person, it is obvious that the project's quality is very tightly related with professional skill of the project engineers. So, as the [00002] citation says there are "project and field engineers" who must be professionally qualified. The problem is, that it is almost near impossible to train all of them involved in the project execution, especially for the big projects, and complete each their work-on-hand compliant with all applicable specifications, codes, and standards. Professionals in each field gain their experience and skill for many years how to perform a multitude activities. Thus, for any engineer, project manager and each other professional, skill acquisition is a long process and gaining it is costly and time consuming. It is also apparent that large projects generally expand outside of a single field into other branches, outside of a single person's fields of principal competency. Thus, more competency a project requires, the more skills are required too. Besides, flood of the standards, regulations, and new technology achievement, makes it near impossible to utilize all the required knowledge because most of us unfortunately have limited capability and time in this matter. Therefore, some organizations provide training programs for their employees' professional skill enhancement however, the whole effort is inefficient or otherwise costly if repeated frequently. It is also worth to be mention here, that the adequately trained engineers are vulnerable to poaching by competitors and when it happens, they takeout with them valuable skill acquired by years working for the organization.

[00004] The Project Management Institute (PM I) training papers says that 80% of the project management problems are the "people issues" and whatever flavor a project is, the right people for the right time and the right job is the key for the project's success. However, it is also apparent that such request is difficult, expensive, and mostly near impossible.

[00005] There is flood of the project management software, like for example Microsoft Project, which are aimed to improve project managers' ability to control project and its tasks. However, even the best trained project manager and quality control department are not able to tell for each, and everyone field engineer, how to complete his/her task successfully. The tacit knowledge exchange between field engineers while doing work-on-hand, as the most project management system suggest, consumes project's execution time considerably because at least two engineers must be involved in such process thus, at least two working processes are delayed or even stopped. The more such tacit knowledge exchange cases on the project's field, the more execution time is delayed and wasted. Project's execution efficiency improves only if the project's execution time is spent for the project execution and not for the tacit knowledge exchange, "ad hoc" communication and similar event.

[00006] There are five generally recognized project's phases: 1. Project conception and initiation, 2. Project definition and planning, 3. Project launch or execution, 4. Project performance and control, and 5. Project close. The third and fourth phase, consume a lot of the project's time for the project execution and quality control, in most cases they are the most time consuming too, because the engineers number they require. Thus, counting on the tacit knowledge exchange, "ad-hoc" communication and similar events, especially while doing big projects, is rather not the best option, as some project management inventions suggest.

[00007] The conclusion from the above is that the construction, the quality assurance, and compliance control system and methods have enormous influence on the project's quality, cost, and schedule, because they depend on each other entirely. Therefore, improving project's quality, may impose additional project's coast and execution time, if not carried out efficiently.

[00008] There are many project management applications, which empower project managers by means of the advanced project control and management, like Microsoft Corporation: Microsoft Project and Groove Virtual Office, Activity Explorer from IBM which take care of the project's activities organizing, registering, and updating. They do their job very well. Therefore, present invention is not to replace any project management system, but rather to support them by means of project engineer's skill and multi-skill empowerment for the benefit of project's construction, quality assurance and standards efficiency raise.

[00009] Possibly all projects must comply with various regulatory documents and such compliance must be demonstrated for customers. Therefore, the personnel involved with a project is presented with the daunting task of ensuring compliance with those regulatory documents. There are many patents concerning project management and regulatory documents compliance confirmation which deal with this problem, they apply various methods for sorting-out this problem. However, most of them apply compliance check method which is based on the evaluation of a compliance after a certain erection work is completed. For example, patent number US2004255265(A1), US2003004763(A1) applies standards compliance check based on the series of development phases and wherein each development phase of the project must be evaluated by one or more predetermined standards. Patent number US6516451(B1) claims creating a report to demonstrate compliance with the selected standards. Patent number WO2008039741(A2) provides a protocol for at least one of identifying, characterizing, and meeting a standard using at least one control and testing after a certain work has been completed. In other words, those patents and many others, compliance check method are based on the evaluation of the completed work. Therefore, those methods provide post-work execution compliance check.

[00010] Thus, a project's regulatory documents compliance with external and internal standards check becomes a daunting and very costly task, as we mentioned before, especially if project's regulatory document's compliance is not achieved because erection is not carried out in a right way and/or by right people. Many times, the external standards, and protocols, do not readily match internal project management systems, and due to inadequately skilled professionals' deficiency and other reasons, mentioned before, regulatory documents compliance of a project become insufficient. Besides, adequately skilled professionals create regulatory documents which, must be interpreted by the adequately skilled professionals before applying them. Unfortunately, due to many reasons which some of them we have mentioned before, not all project engineers are able to interpret and apply them due to regulatory documents complexity. In general, the prior art's, of the regulatory documents access and interpretation during work-on-hand, especially by project field engineers, is inefficient due to considerable time and knowledge required for interpretation of such documents, multiplied by multitude of a project engineers. Also, the more people interpret regulatory documents, the more problems are expected, especially while doing big projects requiring big number of adequately trained professionals.

[00011] Therefore, present invention overcomes prior art limitations by providing method and system for separation of the project regulatory documents interpretation and their application process. Consequently, interpretation is carried out by limited number of adequately skilled professionals, and their work result, expressed by means of substantive information, is applied by multitude of a project engineers, using ready to go sequence of activities required to be carried out for regulatory documents compliance confirmation or requesting.

[00012] Unlike most of the prior art systems present invention provides a method and system for creation of a project quality and compliance embodiment (claim 1) using compliance-templates (claim 1) comprising plurality of an item-template instances (claim 2) all based and invoked by the project- related regulatory documents (claim 1), using method from claim 1, and attached with invoked by the project's regulatory document: item-templates (claim 3) comprising; activities (claim 4); and certificates (claim 5). Wherein the item-template description match the one which invokes it and resides in the project's regulatory document. Such naming system maintains reference for a real-world project quality and compliance embodiment creator convenience, who selects required item- template, makes its copy, and renames it to match a real-world project's deliverable-item embodiment or any part of it as may be required. Besides, each item-template instance number and sequence depends on an item-template activity type and number invoked by the regulatory documents, and project phases number and type during which said activities are most appropriate to be carried out and completed.

[00013] Present invention's item-template instance activities sequence, which we mentioned before, are carefully digested from the regulatory document, and sequence of a work to do commands are created to be carried out by a project's engineer. Such method eliminates considerable number of errors and time-consuming delays related with project's regulatory documents interpretation during work-on-hand. It also limits considerably number of high skilled professionals required to be employed for project's work completion. Because, substantive information adequate with each work-on-hand is digested from the regulatory documents and work-on-hand context related: paragraphs; and guidance; are attached or linked with item-template, and their activities, certificates, and other elements invoked by the regulatory documents, for project's field and other engineers during work- on-hand and in real-time access, execution update, and guidance.

SUMMARY

[00014] In conclusion, present invention removes, or at least lowers, a knowledge barrier which is created by the regulatory documents and is imposed on multitude project engineers and therefore, creates opportunity and ability to reemploy each engineer for much wider variety of skills if compared to those they would be able to serve without the present invention. [00015] According to aspects of the present invention is a method and system with a software for the project quality and compliance achievement creation, using compliance-templates, and wherein said compliance-templates are based on a variety of regulatory documents, and wherein compliance- templates are defined with series of item-template instances comprising: item-templates; with sequence of activities; and certificates; all based and attached or linked with invoking them paragraphs and substantive guidance which is adequately digested from the project's regulatory documents for real-time and during work-on-hand access and use. The item-template with their activities and certificates are attached to the relevant project execution phases and work context and are available for the intuitional access and completion and/or compliance confirmation in real-time and during work-on-hand.