Contractors defined

The New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 stipulates circumstances under which certain excavation contractors, defined as utilities and other undertakers, must give notice of their planned works. Emergency, urgent and some minor works are excluded from this duty. It also requires that contractors keep up-to-date records of the location of their apparatus and make them available, free of charge, for inspection at all reasonable hours. The exemptions applicable to the Act do not affect contractor liability under the HSW Act. 

The EPCM contractor defines only basic parameters and then requires the chosen construction contractor to do a complete design, procure all of the materiel and carry out the site work... 

The vendors are responsible for the Risk assessments of machinery. The reports from these assessments are part of the required documentation to issue a declaration of conformity with the machinery regulations. The contractor defines the documentation on risk assessments to be delivered by the vendors for review and verification. This includes the risk assessments for machinery and assemblies of machinery that are critical from a safety point of view (cf. NORSOK S-005 in Norsk Standard, 1999). 

Lump sum contracts tend to be favoured by companies awarding work (if the scope of work can be well defined) as they provide a clear incentive for the contractor to complete a project on time and within an agreed price. 

Unless some discipline is imposed, engineering personnel, especially where contractors are involved, will define far more alarms than plant operations require. This situation may be addressed by simply setting the alarm hmits to values such that the alarms never occur. However, changes in alarms and alarm hmits are changes from the perspec tive of the Process Safety Management regulations. It is prudent to impose the necessary discipline to avoid an excessive number of alarms. Potential guidelines are as follows ... 

Startup time may be defined as the time span between the end of construction and the beginning of normal operation. Hence it should start when the contractor finishes the whole plant or a specified section of it to enable comparisons to be made with other startup times. It is usual to define normal operation as (1) operations at a certain percentage of design capacity, (2) a specified number of days of continuous operation, or (3) the capabihiy of making products of a specified purity. 

Kerridge has provided an excellent article on the interface betw een the operating company and the contractor to define all requirements in complete and standardized detail. This includes who is responsible for every deliverable. The operating company and contractor must work as a team. An example of one area that needs to be reviewed often with the contractor is the provision of secondary systems as packages, perhaps from a third party. Such systems can easily become orphans. This problem is discussed in the Process Definition section of Chapter 16. 

Establishing overall and specific organizational roles and responsibilities of different functions and disciplines by defining individual roles, responsibilities, accountabilities, and interfaces in the project team with matrix personnel and organizations, and between contractors and subcontractors. 

Contractors and subcontractors are typically required by contract to be responsible for their own workers and should provide a level of oversight to meet all specifications. The primary contractor who is responsible for the worksite typically establishes the minimum requirements, controls access to the worksite, and verifies that subcontractors fulfill their health and safety duties and responsibilities. Wlien these specifications are defined, all contractors and subcontractors should meet or exceed these requirements, as appropriate. This could be based on the nature of the assigned tasks and associated hazards [2]. 

This incident shows the need to define the limits within which contractors can work and to explain these limits to contractors employees. 

In air conditioning circles, the tower normally represents the final heat sink in a turnkey package which would include compressors/condensers, pipework, ducting, fans, pumps, control gear, etc. Where consultants and experienced contractors are concerned, the tower specification is well defined and the purchases based upon economics related to efficiency. 

The services of an outside maintenance contractor are usually on an annual contract basis and should clearly define the work which... 

Once the performance and environmental conditions have been defined, the selection of a suitable material can be made, and this in turn can be followed, if necessary, with the necessary engineering calculations to establish strength requirements. The basic data needed for calculations have to be collected and have to pertain to the specific grade of the selected material. The pertinent information required for making determinations for longevity of the product and obtaining a general concept of the character and behavior of the selected material should be supplied by the manufacturer of the raw material and/or obtained in-house or via a contractor. 

Even the most reliable contractor or subcontractor may not be familiar with the requirements of a laboratory. He bases his bid on standard materials and procedures that he is accustomed to using for general construction. On the other hand, he may also throw in sophisticated and costly extras that are not required. It is for these reasons that everything must be well defined and crosschecked. Specifying materials and components by trade name is recommended. In many cases, of coimse, other brands could be acceptable, but it should be agreed that a switch can not be made without the laboratory operator s knowledge and approval. 

A large organization will have its ovm in-house janitors. For smaller facilities, janitorial services will usually be taken care of by a contractor. The exact work to be done by such a contractor should be spelled out in writing, where no details must be left out. Unfortunately, the degree of cleanliness is hard to define in exact terms. 

Also, electronic SOPs and protocols must be available to staff at all test sites for multisite studies. If the electronic documents are to be available at several sites, the validation phase of the system must include functionality testing at each site. Documentation of system validation needs to be available at each test site as well. Electronic SOPs must have a limited life span when printed to avoid the use of an outdated document. This may be achieved by stamping each SOP hard copy Printout not valid after date xx/xx/xx . This practice helps to ensure that system users will not retain printed SOPs long after the electronic SOP is revised. For company SOPs that are to be followed by an outside contractor who has no access to the electronic system, an alternative stamp may be used on the hard-copy SOPs that will be provided to the contractor that defines the date printed or indicates that the SOP is valid for use in a particular study. Whatever procedure is used, it must be clearly documented in an SOP. 

Communication channels shall be set up between industry and academics. There has been inconsistency with regards to the characterization of foundry solid waste between industry and academics. The former cares about the workability and efficiency of materials in generating products. The latter concentrate on the technical behavior of materials if reused. The way that metal casters define the characteristics of their sands is completely different from what the contractor wants to know. For example, metal casters talk about ground fineness number, whereas contractors want to know fine and clay contents. At the point of reusing their solid waste, metal casters should divert their attention from regulators and customers to researchers, working within a well channeled system. 

Friability tests can be used for various purposes. They are widely used in quality control. Here, samples of produced material are subjected to a more or less arbitrary but well defined stress. The attrition extent is assessed by comparison with a standard value and a decision is reached whether the material meets the standard. Moreover, friability tests are often used for comparison of different materials to select the most attrition-resistant one. This is a usual procedure in the case of catalyst development. For example, Contractor et al. (1989) tested anew developed fluidized bed VPO-catalyst in a submerged-jet attrition test (described below). Furthermore, the specific attrition rate of a material in a certain process can be roughly estimated by friability tests. In this case the stress must be similar to that occurring in the process and the obtained degradation extent must be compared with those of other materials from which the process attrition rate is known. 

Part B information to be defined by the FSA customer once the contract has been awarded to a contractor, e.g. the sample storage conditions to be used, the methods to be used, the IQC procedures to be used, the required measurement limits (e.g. limit of detection (LOD), limit of determination/ quantification (LOQ), and the reporting limits)... 

Part B Information to be defined by the FSA customer once the contract has been awarded - to be agreed with contractor... 

Part A describes the information that is to be provided by potential contractors at the time that the ROAME Bs are completed for submission to the Group. Provision of this information will permit any FSA Analytical Group and customers to make an informed assessment and comparison of the analytical quality of the results that will be obtained from the potential contractors bidding for the project. Previously potential contractors have not been given defined guidance on the analytical quality assurance information required of them and this has made comparison between potential contractors difficult. Part A is supplied to potential contractors at the same time as further information about the project is supplied. 

This section defines the analytical considerations that must be addressed by both the customer and contractor before the exercise commences. Not all aspects may be relevant for all surveys, but each should be considered for relevancy. Agreement will signify a considerable understanding of both the analytical quality required and the significance of the results... 

The FSA customer is to consider and then define the following in consultation with the contractor ... 

As stated earlier, shop-fabricated ASTs are often categorized according to the standards to which the tanks are fabricated, e.g., a UL 142 or UL 2085 tank. That said, however, there are defined categories such as diked tanks, protected tanks, fire-resistant tanks, and insulated tanks. It s critical, then, for the tank buyer or specifier to know precisely what is required or desired given the application, code requirements, and/or owner/operator preferences—and to discuss this with the tank contractor and/or manufacturer. 

The overall project itself requires formally structured planning and control in addition to the validation plans for the computerized operation. To provide this, a project and quality plan from the pharmaceutical manufacturer (or its nominated main contractor) is normally developed as a separate and complimentary document and needs to overview all activities, resources, standards, and procedures required for the project. The plan should define project-execution procedures, quality management procedures, engineering standards, project program, and project organization (with authorities and reporting responsibilities), and reference the project validation plan. There are instances in which the project and quality plan and the project validation plan can be combined into one document. 

Make effective use of contractors—All contractors should be provided with a well-defined scope of work. Their performance against requirements should be monitored frequently. Hire real expertise wherever possible the low bidder may not be fully capable, and true talent is rarely inexpensive. Be on the alert for add- on charges such as administrative fees. Be wary of bait and switch tactics where the A team bids on the job, but only the C team is ever on site. Use a completion-based payment schedule to keep contractors performing fully. 

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