TIMELINE / OPERATIONS
How a material handling project runs, from enquiry to commissioning
The seven stages of a material handling project — enquiry, study, design, supply, assembly, commissioning, support — what happens in each, what the plant provides, who does what, and where projects lose time.
Part of the guide: How to specify a bulk material conveying system
Material handling projects lose time in the gaps between stages rather than inside them: between the enquiry and the data it needed, between the drawing and the structure it assumed, between the delivery and the shutdown that could not move. This note sets out the seven stages we work through, what each one needs from the plant, and what it hands to the next. It puts no weeks against them; that depends on the scope, and is agreed at the start.
What happens at each stage?
Enquiry
The plant describes the problem, the material, the rate and the site. The items on the pre-enquiry checklist are what make this stage short. Out of it come an agreed scope and a list of what is still unknown.
Study
Where the unknowns are large, a feasibility study closes them: material testing, a site survey, option comparison, a design basis and an indicative budget. Where they are small, this stage folds into design.
Design
Basic design fixes the arrangement — the general arrangement, the equipment list, the load list for the structural check, the power list for the electrical scope, and the long-lead items to order first. Detailed design then produces the fabrication drawings, the control philosophy and the interface drawings the other contractors build to.
Supply
Fabrication of structure and chutes, procurement of belts, drives, idlers and instruments, inspection before dispatch, and the spares for commissioning and the first running period. The plant provides delivery dates, access constraints and any site rules for paint, packing and lifting.
Assembly
Site preparation and foundations, then the structure, the mechanical equipment, the electrical installation and the instruments, in that order, inside the access and shutdown windows the plant has fixed. The plant provides permits, isolation, lifting access and a point of contact who can decide.
Commissioning
Cold commissioning checks every device without material — rotation, switches, interlocks, alignment. Hot commissioning runs material and adjusts tracking, cleaners, seals and feeders. A performance run confirms the duty; training and the documentation — as-built drawings, manuals, spares list — close the stage.
Support
Spares, planned inspections and the first maintenance interval, when the settling-in of belts, idlers and seals is checked and the maintenance plan is adjusted to what the line actually does rather than what was assumed.
Who does what?
- The plant
- Owns the problem, the data and the site: material samples, the duty, survey information, drawings of existing structures, permits, shutdown windows, isolation, and the decisions only the plant can make.
- Greening
- Engineers the handling system: the design basis, the arrangement, the equipment, the load and power lists, the interface definitions, the supply and the commissioning of what it supplies. Being based in Somain shapes how the site stages run; the note on working with a nearby engineer explains what that changes in practice.
- The structural engineer
- Checks existing steel against the load list and designs new steel or strengthening. Appointed by the plant unless the scope says otherwise.
- The electrical contractor
- Supplies and installs power, motor control and cabling to the power list and the interface drawings, and integrates the control philosophy with the plant's own system.
- Safety
- The plant's safety function reviews the arrangement, the guarding, the access and the isolation at design and again before hot commissioning, so that compliance is designed in rather than inspected for.
Where do projects lose time?
- Missing material data — every stage after the enquiry waits on a density or a moisture range that a simple test could have supplied at the start.
- Unagreed interfaces — who supplies the chute flange, the cable tray, the foundation bolts; each one discovered on site costs a delivery.
- Structural checks done late — strengthening discovered after the order lands in the installation window.
- Permits and approvals — planning, environmental, lifting and hot-work permits have their own clocks, which start only when they are applied for.
- Shutdown windows — the line can only be cut over when the process stops; a missed window means waiting for the next one.
- Access — a route the equipment cannot physically take into the building is found on delivery day unless someone walked it earlier.
- Late changes — a rate or a material changed after basic design reopens every list downstream of it.
The stages are the same whether the project is a new line or a retrofit; only their weight changes. The specification guide covers what the enquiry and the design have to fix, and our installation and maintenance service covers the site stages, from assembly through commissioning to support.
QUESTIONS WE HEAR
What is the difference between cold and hot commissioning?
Cold commissioning is done without material: motors are bump-tested for rotation, every switch and interlock is tripped and proven, alignment and tension are set, and the sequence is run empty. Hot commissioning introduces material, first at a low rate, and adjusts tracking, cleaners, skirt seals and feeders under load. The performance run comes only after both.
When should the shutdown window be fixed?
As early as the plant's production planning allows, and certainly before supply starts, because delivery, site preparation and the long-lead items are scheduled backwards from it. A window fixed late becomes the constraint everything else bends around; a window fixed early is a date the project is built to meet.
Can supply start before detailed design is finished?
Long-lead items — drives, belts, special components — are often ordered from basic design, once the interfaces they depend on are frozen. Fabrication of structure and chutes waits for detailed drawings. The risk is ordering something that a late change then makes wrong, which is why the design basis is closed before the first order is placed.
Who writes the operating and maintenance documentation?
The supplier of each piece of equipment provides its manual and spares list; the system engineer assembles them with the as-built drawings, the control description and the commissioning records into one set. The plant then adds its own procedures. Documentation handed over as a box of loose manuals is the most common gap at the end of a project.