A European process-equipment buyer engaged us after a fabricator in Gujarat had slipped an ASME Section VIII Division 1 pressure vessel by eleven weeks. Progress reports were arriving weekly and were uniformly optimistic; none of them reconciled with the vessel’s actual state on the shop floor.
Findings on first visit
Our expeditor attended the works within four days of instruction. The shell courses were rolled and longitudinal seams complete, but the dished ends had not been ordered — the sub-supplier’s purchase order was still unreleased pending a commercial dispute the fabricator had not disclosed. Separately, the welding procedure qualification record on file did not cover the impact-test requirement for the specified design temperature.
What we did
- Rebuilt the schedule from observed shop status rather than reported percentages, and identified the dished ends as the binding constraint.
- Escalated the unreleased sub-order to the client the same day, allowing them to intervene commercially while there was still float.
- Raised a non-conformance on the WPQR and required requalification before production welding continued — avoiding a rejection at hydrotest, when rework would have cost a further eight to ten weeks.
- Placed a resident inspector at the works for the remainder of fabrication, reporting against a milestone list agreed with the client.
Outcome
The vessel shipped six weeks after our first visit, against a fabricator forecast of fourteen. The requalified procedure produced compliant impact results, and the final documentation package was reviewed and accepted without open punch items.
The pattern is a familiar one: schedule slippage is usually a symptom, and the underlying cause is visible on site long before it appears in a progress report.