Most capital projects still plan execution the same way they plan engineering: forward, from design toward the field. Advanced work packaging (AWP) flips that around. It starts from the plant's startup date and works backward, breaking scope into installable work packages sized for how the work will actually be built, not how it was drawn.
The core idea
AWP treats construction execution as its own planning discipline, not something that falls out automatically once engineering is done. Three package types carry that plan from strategy down to the field:
- CWPs (Construction Work Packages): the overall execution strategy for an area, defining the sequence major systems will be built in.
- EWPs (Engineering Work Packages): engineering deliverables scoped and released to match that construction sequence, not released all at once.
- IWPs (Installation Work Packages): the crew-level packages field teams actually execute, each one sized to roughly a shift or a week of work.
If you've already read about workface planning, IWPs are exactly where the two disciplines meet. See how workface planning fits into AWP for the detail.
Why projects adopt it
The Construction Industry Institute (CII) has tracked AWP adoption for over a decade, and its research consistently points to the same two outcomes: lower total installed cost and less field rework. Both come from the same root cause: most rework and downtime trace back to a crew discovering, in the field, that something wasn't actually ready: a missing permit, a material still in transit, an engineering deliverable that hadn't been issued yet.
AWP's premise is that these problems are cheap to catch on paper and expensive to catch in the field. Sequencing engineering and procurement releases to match a construction-driven plan, instead of releasing everything a discipline finishes all at once, means a work package doesn't reach a crew until it's actually ready to execute.
AWP vs. traditional work packaging
| Traditional | Advanced work packaging | |
|---|---|---|
| Planning direction | Forward, from design | Backward, from startup date |
| Package sizing | By engineering discipline | By installable scope, crew-sized |
| Constraint clearance | Discovered in the field | Verified before release |
| Engineering release | Batched by discipline | Sequenced to construction need |
Where AWPBI fits
openAWP runs the constraint-free release process described above end to end: sequencing packages, tracking constraints, and handing off field-ready work. If you're standing up an AWP program from scratch or fixing one that's stalled, that's also exactly what our AWP consulting team does.
Ready to see it on your project? Book a demo or explore openAWP directly.