Practice

Operational Readiness

New plant does not become productive plant on handover day. Operational readiness is the engineering discipline that makes sure people, spares, systems, documentation and maintenance strategy are in place before the asset is asked to perform.

The challenge

Capital projects are judged on completion. Operations live with what is handed over.

The most expensive months in an asset's life are usually the first six. Commissioning teams demobilise, the CMMS holds a partial register, spares were never costed against failure modes, and the crews inherit equipment they have never been trained on. Ramp-up stalls — and the loss is booked against operations, not the project.

Aurixs runs operational readiness as a parallel workstream to construction. We build the maintenance and operating capability at the same pace as the steel goes up, so that on handover the asset is not just complete, it is operable.

Faster
Ramp-up to nameplate production
Day one
CMMS populated and functional
Zero
Surprise critical spares gaps

Capabilities

What this practice covers

Readiness assessment & gap analysis

A structured review against readiness elements — organisation, competence, systems, spares, documentation, procedures — with a dated closure plan.

Asset register & hierarchy build

Functional location structure and equipment register built to ISO 14224 principles, loaded and verified in the CMMS.

Maintenance strategy for new assets

Tactics developed from OEM data, failure modes and criticality, rather than defaulting to manufacturer intervals across the board.

Spares provisioning & insurance spares

Initial holdings justified by criticality, lead time and consequence — including the long-lead items that must be ordered before handover.

Documentation & handover dossiers

Technical documentation, drawings, certificates and procedures assembled into a usable operating dossier, not a data dump.

Competence & training readiness

Role definitions, skills matrices and training programmes so the crews are qualified before the asset is live.

How we work

Our approach

Baseline

Establish scope, milestone dates and the readiness elements in play. Assess current state against each and quantify the gap in time and cost.

Build

Develop the register, tactics, spares, procedures and training content in parallel with construction milestones.

Load & verify

Populate the CMMS, verify data against the physical asset, and dry-run the work management process before production begins.

Handover & stabilise

Support the first operating period, close residual gaps and revise tactics against early failure data.

Deliverables

What you receive

Tangible, usable outputs — structured for the systems and people who have to live with them after we leave.

Discuss your scope

Operational readiness plan with phase gates
Readiness assessment scorecard and closure register
Verified asset register and functional hierarchy
CMMS-ready maintenance tactics and job plans
Critical and insurance spares list with justification
Operating and maintenance procedure suite
Training needs analysis and competence matrix
Handover acceptance criteria and sign-off pack

FAQ

Common questions

Ideally at the point the project scope is frozen and equipment selection is under way — roughly 12 to 18 months before first production on a major asset. Starting later is still worthwhile, but the cheapest wins (specification influence, spares lead times, data capture from vendors) are gone once procurement closes.

No. Commissioning proves the asset works. Operational readiness proves the organisation can keep it working. The two run in parallel and share information, particularly around punch lists, vendor documentation and spares.

Then it becomes a stabilisation exercise: verify the register against the physical asset, rebuild the tactics from early failure data, close the documentation and spares gaps, and get the work management process functioning. It costs more than doing it upfront, but it recovers the ramp-up.

Yes. We deliver in the structure your system expects — SAP PM, Maximo, Pragma, or another platform — so the output uploads rather than needing to be rekeyed.

Keep exploring

Ready to talk about operational readiness?

Send us the context — asset type, current pain, and what good would look like. We will respond with a practical view of scope and sequence.

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