Most new plants do not fail at first ore. They limp. The crushers turn, the concentrate ships, and the operating team spends year one discovering everything that should have been built before handover: the maintenance plans that do not exist, the spares that were never ordered, the statutory register nobody started. By then the checklist that would have caught it is a post-mortem document.
This page is that checklist, published in full. It is the 27-checkpoint operational readiness instrument HolisticAM scores paid engagements against, organised into nine readiness streams, with one addition that most published checklists leave out: the date each checkpoint must be complete, counted back from first ore. A checklist without dates is a wish list.
Use it three ways: read it as a reference, score your own project against it in about five minutes, or hand it to whoever owns readiness on your project and ask which items are already overdue.
Quick Links
- What should an operational readiness checklist include?
- Why most readiness checklists fail their projects
- The clock: four horizons before first ore
- The checklist: nine streams, 27 checkpoints
- The three checkpoints you cannot retrofit
- How to use the checklist
- What the checklist looks like when it is done
- Frequently asked questions
What should an operational readiness checklist include?
A complete operational readiness checklist covers nine streams (organisation, people, operating model, asset management, systems, supply chain, HSE and regulatory, finance, and stakeholders), with each checkpoint carrying a completion date counted back from first ore. A checklist that only covers maintenance and spares will pass a project that cannot legally or commercially operate on day one.
Why most readiness checklists fail their projects
Three failure patterns show up again and again.
The checklist is too narrow. Maintenance readiness is one stream of nine. A project can have every PM loaded in the CMMS and still be unable to operate, because the statutory position holders are not appointed or the operating approvals were never separated from the construction approvals.
The checklist has no clock. Terry McNulty’s survey of 41 processing plant start-ups, first presented to SME in 1998 and updated in 2024, showed that well-prepared plants on proven flowsheets reach nameplate within about a year, while poorly prepared projects can take years, or never get there without fresh capital. The difference is not effort at commissioning. It is preparation that started early enough. NASA’s Systems Engineering Handbook makes the same point from the cost side: design decisions commit about 75% of life-cycle cost while only about 15% has been spent. A readiness item deferred past its window is not late. It is compounding.
The checklist gets ticked, not verified. Process-safety practice draws the same line: the CCPS operational readiness element exists to confirm that what was built matches what was designed. Evidence, not intent. On every project HolisticAM has assessed, the evidence has sat below the intent. Teams believe the asset register is built; the walkdown keeps finding equipment the register has never heard of.
The clock: four horizons before first ore
Every checkpoint below carries a complete-by date. Four horizons do most of the work:
| Horizon | What must be done by then |
|---|---|
| 24 months before first ore | The decisions that get written into contracts: readiness leadership, operating model, data standards in EPC and OEM purchase orders |
| 18 months | The structures: org design, recruitment sequencing, criticality, asset register, spares analysis, readiness budget |
| 12 months | The build: maintenance plans, work management design, statutory registers, operating budget, materials catalogue |
| 6 months | The proof: CMMS loaded and tested, statutory appointments confirmed, grievance mechanism operating |
If your project is 12 months from first ore and the 24-month items are not done, you do not have a schedule problem. You have a scope-of-recovery problem, and the choice of who delivers that recovery matters more than usual.
The checklist: nine streams, 27 checkpoints
Each checkpoint is stated as a condition you can verify, with the horizon it must be complete by. As you read, watch for three of the 27 that cannot be recovered at any price once their window closes. One sits in stream 5. They get their own section after the list.
Stream 1: Organisational readiness
| # | Checkpoint | Complete by |
|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | An operational readiness lead is named, and the readiness team is resourced against the project schedule | 24 months |
| 1.2 | There is a costed operational readiness plan with its own budget and schedule, tracked like any other project scope | 18 months |
| 1.3 | Readiness review gates are defined, each with a named approver | 12 months |
Readiness that lives in the project manager’s spare time is not resourced. It is deferred.
Stream 2: People and capability
| # | Checkpoint | Complete by |
|---|---|---|
| 2.1 | The operations and maintenance organisation structure is drawn to position level, with position descriptions written | 18 months |
| 2.2 | The recruitment plan is sequenced against construction and commissioning milestones, not a generic start date | 18 months |
| 2.3 | Key technical appointments (maintenance manager, reliability engineer, planner) are made or have confirmed start dates | 12 months |
The maintenance manager who starts at commissioning inherits decisions they should have made.
Stream 3: Operating model and processes
| # | Checkpoint | Complete by |
|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | The steady-state operating model is defined and approved: what your team does, what contractors do | 24 months |
| 3.2 | The work management process is designed end to end, from notification to close-out, with a RACI behind it | 18 months |
| 3.3 | The production ramp-up curve is defined and the assumptions behind it are written down | 12 months |
A ramp-up curve without written assumptions cannot be defended when the board asks why month four missed it.
Stream 4: Asset management and maintenance readiness
| # | Checkpoint | Complete by |
|---|---|---|
| 4.1 | Criticality assessment is complete for all major equipment | 18 months |
| 4.2 | FMECA or RCM has been applied to the critical assets | 18 months |
| 4.3 | Preventive maintenance plans are built from design and OEM data, covering critical and major equipment | 12 months |
This is the stream most checklists start and stop at. It is one of nine, which is the whole of maintenance readiness vs operational readiness.
Stream 5: Systems and technology
| # | Checkpoint | Complete by |
|---|---|---|
| 5.1 | The asset register is built from design drawings and equipment lists, covering all major equipment | 18 months |
| 5.2 | Vendor data requirements (data books, manuals, spares lists) are written into the EPC and OEM purchase orders | 24 months |
| 5.3 | Maintenance plans are loaded into the CMMS and tested, with work orders generating correctly | 6 months |
Checkpoint 5.2 is the one that cannot be recovered. Once the purchase orders are executed without data requirements, the data arrives late, wrong, or priced as a variation.
Stream 6: Supply chain and logistics
| # | Checkpoint | Complete by |
|---|---|---|
| 6.1 | Critical spares have been analysed using a method you could defend, rather than taken from a vendor list | 18 months |
| 6.2 | Insurance and long-lead spares are identified and ordered against their lead times | 12 months |
| 6.3 | The materials catalogue is built, cleansed and loaded, with descriptions written to a standard | 12 months |
A vendor’s recommended spares list is a sales document. Analysis is what makes it defensible.
Stream 7: HSE, risk and regulatory compliance
| # | Checkpoint | Complete by |
|---|---|---|
| 7.1 | Statutory registers are established and populated: pressure, lifting, electrical and fixed plant | 12 months |
| 7.2 | Operating approvals, as distinct from construction approvals, are identified and tracked with status and dates | 12 months |
| 7.3 | Statutory position holders are appointed and confirmed before the first work is done | 6 months |
Construction approvals do not authorise operation. Projects discover this at the worst possible time.
Stream 8: Finance, commercial and working capital
| # | Checkpoint | Complete by |
|---|---|---|
| 8.1 | The year-one operating budget is built bottom-up from the maintenance plan, rather than scaled from a benchmark | 12 months |
| 8.2 | Operating contracts have been assessed as fit for the design intent of the asset | 18 months |
| 8.3 | The asset is established in the financial system, with general ledger and cost centres aligned to the asset register | 12 months |
A budget scaled from someone else’s benchmark funds someone else’s plant.
Stream 9: Stakeholder and community readiness
| # | Checkpoint | Complete by |
|---|---|---|
| 9.1 | A stakeholder register and engagement plan are live and being worked | 18 months |
| 9.2 | Social licence and community permitting conditions are confirmed, with a commitments register in place | 18 months |
| 9.3 | A grievance mechanism is operating and will run through construction into operations | 6 months |
The plant that runs at nameplate and loses its social licence still stops.
The three checkpoints you cannot retrofit
Most missed checkpoints cost money to recover. Three cost the chance to recover at all, because they must be written into contracts before those contracts are executed:
- The asset hierarchy standard (feeds 5.1). Decided before the register is built, or rebuilt from scratch after handover.
- The equipment tagging convention. Agreed before the EPC starts producing drawings, or reconciled tag by tag, forever.
- Vendor data requirements in EPC and OEM purchase orders (5.2). Contracted up front, or purchased back later at the contractor’s price.
This is why the answer to when operational readiness should start is 24 to 30 months before first ore, and why operational readiness consultants earn their keep earliest, when the influence curve is still high.
How to use the checklist
- Score every checkpoint honestly, today. Not “in progress”. Evidence you could show an auditor, or not done. The gap between intent and evidence is the finding.
- Put your first ore date against the horizons. Every checkpoint whose window has passed is not a to-do item. It is schedule exposure, and it belongs on the risk register.
- Name an owner per stream. Nine streams, nine names. A checklist owned by “the project” is owned by nobody.
- Re-score on a drumbeat. Quarterly beyond 18 months out, monthly inside 12.
- Verify the top gaps against evidence. For the streams that score worst, stop asking “is it done” and start asking “show me”. That is the difference between a self-score and an assessment.
Steps 1 and 2 take about five minutes with the free readiness scorecard. It runs this exact checklist, bands your result against your first ore date, and shows your weakest streams on screen.
What the checklist looks like when it is done
On a recent iron-ore plant, working from the design drawings while construction ran, HolisticAM built 353 planned routine tasks across 23 asset lines as nine SAP-ready deliverable types, in a 12-week pre-commissioning programme delivered CMMS-ready. That is checkpoint 5.3 passed with evidence: work orders generating correctly before first ore, not month six.
Planned routine tasks built across 23 asset lines in a 12-week pre-commissioning programme, delivered CMMS-ready before first ore rather than discovered in year one.
HolisticAM publishes this checklist because it is the instrument we assess against, not a marketing summary of one. The self-score is free. The Operational Readiness Diagnostic goes further: 69 criteria scored against documents seen and systems tested, weighted to your asset base, with a gap register and closure roadmap.
Score your project against this checklist
Reading a checklist tells you what good looks like. Scoring it tells you where you stand. The free readiness scorecard takes about five minutes, runs these 27 checkpoints against your first ore date, and shows your score, band and weakest streams immediately. No email required to see the result.
Frequently asked questions
Is there an operational readiness checklist template I can download?
The checklist above is the template: 27 checkpoints, nine streams, four horizons, free to use. If you want it scored rather than copied, the readiness scorecard runs the same checkpoints in about five minutes and bands the result against your first ore date, with an optional board pack.
Who should own the operational readiness checklist on a project?
A named operational readiness lead, resourced against the project schedule. That is checkpoint 1.1 for a reason. Each of the nine streams then needs its own named owner. Readiness owned collectively is readiness nobody closes: everyone assumes someone else has the gap.
How is this different for a brownfield expansion or a restart?
The streams hold; the emphasis moves. An expansion inherits live statutory registers and an operating CMMS, so streams 5 and 7 become integration work rather than builds. Stream 3 gets harder, because the ramp-up must not drag down the running plant. A restart looks like greenfield with worse data. The horizons still count back from first production.
What does a failed checkpoint actually cost?
It depends on which one. A late materials catalogue costs expediting fees and stock-outs. A missed vendor-data checkpoint (5.2) costs rebuilding the maintenance data from scratch after handover, at your cost rather than the contractor’s. The pattern across McNulty’s plant survey is consistent: preparation gaps surface as years of underperformance, not weeks.
Can I run this checklist without a consultant?
Yes. That is what it is published for. Score it, date it, assign owners, re-score on a drumbeat. Where a specialist earns their place is verification against evidence and closure of the gaps you can no longer reach internally, which is what our operational readiness service does.
When should operational readiness start on a mining project?
Twenty-four to thirty months before first ore. The three checkpoints that cannot be retrofitted (the asset hierarchy standard, the equipment tagging convention, and vendor data requirements in the EPC and OEM purchase orders) all have to be written into contracts before those contracts are executed, which puts the practical start date well before construction.