Offshore Wind Farm (OWF) projects are fast-paced applications with project cost and schedule pressures exerted on their respective contractors, amplifying the importance of sound QMS documents and the associated practices. The OWF industry can score significant gains by adopting best practices developed by other mature energy industries, such as oil & gas and nuclear. Marine oil & gas operations are inherently complex. Soon after its inception, the industry reached the rightful conclusion that the commercial and operational success of marine operations heavily depends on the thoroughness of the planning that precedes the actual operation. The nuclear energy industry controls quality using a cradle-to-grave approach. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers' (ASME) Nuclear Quality Assurance-1 (NQA-1) document covers the entire range of Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QAQC) applications of a major engineering project and is the backbone of many modern QMS documents developed by large turnkey Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Installation (EPCI) contractors. The QMS sets the road map for a project from quality point of view. This paper provides an overview of the value that can be added to OWF projects by implementing solid QMS systems tailored to specific needs of a project, as well as best practices inherited from other matured energy industries. These matured energy industries have a successful track record that OWF industry review and adopt to implement its own industry specific procedures.

Keywords:
contractor, best practice, asme nqa-1, procedure, project management, operation, owf industry, rd offshore symposium, wind energy, strategic planning and management
Subjects:
Strategic Planning and Management, Project management
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2018. The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers
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