Reliability and disruption-coping in district heating construction projects

|| Organisation: Siers Infraconsult;
MSc. thesis
Student: Wilco Jonker Jan 2023

The expectation is that the demand for district heating networks will increase as the shift towards sustainable heating systems takes place in the coming years. However, integrating these large inflexible pipelines in a crowded subsurface poses unique coordination challenges. It is therefore important to scale up the implementation reliably and to train new professionals. This study assesses how project teams cope with disruptions using the high-reliability organising framework. Seven reliability-enhancing and five reliability-reducing types of activities were identified in the study. For the types of activities that reduce reliability, practical measures have been established to enhance the reliability of project organisations.

To scale up city district heating construction projects, processes need to be developed and reliable. Currently teams largely rely on experience and improvisation, making them skilled in troubleshooting, but less efficient in planning and anticipating disruptions. This thesis has explored anticipation and containment through the lens of HRO

Heat network construction phase, crew at work - photo at the Courtesy of Wilco Jonker