An Installation Work Package is a discrete portion of constraint-free construction work that one foreman and one crew execute in a 7 to 10 day window. It is dissected from a single Construction Work Package and is made of the drawings and the materials that scope needs, and nothing else.
The Package Sits One Level Below the Schedule the Owner Reads
The Level 3 schedule is built from work packages. Each CWP is a single activity in it, sequenced by the path of construction and linked to the EWP and PWP that feed it. IWPs live one level down, at Level 4, as hammocked activities inside their CWP, and they appear in the 4 week lookahead organized by CWA and craft. An IWP is never an activity in the Level 3 schedule. Keeping it out protects the Level 3 schedule from the churn of daily field planning, and it keeps the lookahead honest about what a crew can start next week.
It Comes from a CWP Sized for One General Foreman
The size of an IWP follows from the size of its parent. A CWP is one general foreman's work, about three crews of eight for 6 to 8 weeks, which puts it in the range of 7,000 to 12,000 hours. It is a single discipline inside a single CWA, bounded by coordinates in the 3D model, and it is the downstream product of one EWP and one PWP, as the package hierarchy sets out. All material is associated to a CWP before the field needs it. The workface planner then cuts that scope into IWPs a foreman can open on a Monday and close within two weeks, each carrying its drawings at the latest IFC revision, its material reserved and issued, and every constraint cleared before release.
The Size Is a Control, So an Open Package Is a Signal
A package scoped for 7 to 10 days that is still open after three weeks is telling the superintendent something. A constraint escaped the system, or the scope was larger than one crew could carry, or the crew was moved. Whatever the cause, craft is being paid at field rates while the package waits, and the lookahead is carrying a commitment that is no longer real. That is why IWP aging is the governing metric of workface planning, and why packages are kept small enough that the signal arrives within days.
Where the Work Is Executed Does Not Change the Package
An IWP may be executed at the project site or at an offsite fabrication, assembly or module yard. The module yard is treated as an extension of the site, with the same packaging requirements, so modules are planned and progressed by IWP using piece marks for steel and spool numbers for pipe. The same register, the same constraint categories and the same 7 to 10 day rule apply at both locations, which is what lets a project compare productivity between the yard and the site without translating anything.
AWPBI's workface planning service builds IWPs this way, and when openAWP holds the register, the IWP history and the constraint record stay with the client together with the software when the engagement ends.