Data Center Projects: Standardized Process

Overview

The process has four sequential phases: Prepare, Design, Acquire and Implement. Prepare and Design form the PLAN portion; Acquire and Implement form the BUILD portion. Each phase is made of steps with an owner, a task list, and defined inputs and outputs, and each ends in a milestone: commit to project, purchase order submitted, equipment delivered, and project complete.

What turns an upgrade into a 'project' is a change in power or cooling architecture, the introduction of risk, a need for planning and coordination, or a need to shut down equipment. Three asynchronous activities can be triggered at any point: project change management, product defect correction and process defect correction. Engineered-to-order projects add steps for custom solution design, factory acceptance test and commissioning, which is whole-system testing after installation.

Every step has an owner, a task list (work instructions plus a checklist), inputs that are outputs of earlier steps, and outputs needed downstream. This creates a pull-based flow in which every output feeds a downstream step. The Start-up step comprises five tasks: verify correct assembly, verify operating mode, third-party device configuration, basic software configuration and basic operator training.

The paper stresses explicit responsibility assignment. A responsibility checklist assigns every process step to the user, the primary equipment vendor or a third party, or marks it not needed. The text makes no quantitative performance claim; its value is in writing down in advance who owns each step and where each output goes.

Key points

1. Four phases: Prepare and Design form PLAN; Acquire and Implement form BUILD.
2. Milestones: commit to project, purchase order submitted, equipment delivered, project complete.
3. A change in power or cooling architecture, risk, need for planning/coordination or equipment shutdown elevates an upgrade to a 'project'.
4. Three asynchronous activities: project change management, product defect correction, process defect correction.
5. Engineered-to-order projects add custom solution design, factory acceptance test and commissioning.
6. Start-up has five tasks: verify assembly, verify operating mode, third-party device configuration, basic software configuration, basic operator training.
7. Every step has an owner, task list, inputs from earlier outputs and outputs for downstream steps.
8. A responsibility checklist assigns each step to user, primary vendor, third party or not needed.

Using it in design

• Model the project workspace as phases, steps and milestones (Prepare, Design, Acquire, Implement), tying each deliverable to an owner and to the downstream step that consumes it.
• Add a responsibility matrix (user / vendor / third party / not needed) and block milestone sign-off while any step is unassigned.
• Auto-insert factory acceptance test and commissioning tasks when the design contains engineered-to-order equipment.
• Keep a change log and defect register available at every phase and export a start-up checklist from the design's equipment list.

Who should read it

Project managers running data centre builds and teams defining a design workflow.

Publication details

Authors

Neil Rasmussen; Suzanne Niles

Publisher

Schneider Electric

Year

2011

Document number

WP 140

Document language

English

Source type

Manufacturer

Access

Free to read

Licence

Copyright retained; citation only — the publisher’s terms apply to the original document

Citation