APQP4Wind is now cooperating with TIM Wind

A common ground for documentation

In late 2019, a close group of OEMs and utilities started working on a project to create a common ground for documentation and reference designation requirements between wind turbine manufacturers and operators and agree on further developing standards for the global wind industry.

The project was named TIM Wind - Technical Information Management for the Wind Industry, and its goal is to improve the digital thread to improve transparency and reduce the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCoE).

The ambition of TIM Wind is to align the methods for technical information structure and management by creating a clear and unambiguous interpretation of the existing standards and developing new standards that can be applied in the wind industry.

Currently, TIM Wind has three workstreams that are developing guidelines based on: IEC 61355, which focuses on documentation classification and designation of documents (DCC); ISO/IEC 81346-10, which focuses on references designation systems for wind power plants; and content requirements for which documentation OEMs must pass on to customers based on, e.g., the Machinery Directive.

Philipp Degenhardt, Head of Physical Integration at Vattenfall and a member of the TIM Wind steering committee, expresses that the standardization that TIM Wind will offer can simplify the interaction between the different stakeholders in the supply chain and help transform data into valuable insight:

When all major global wind turbine manufacturers and operators have adopted the TIM Wind guidelines, the full potential of TIM Wind will be achieved. The manufacturer will then meet the same documentation requirements from all major operators and avoids having to follow a different set of documentation protocols with every wind turbine order.

Similarly, the operator can expect the same documentation package with the same overall content, regardless of the wind turbine brand. Furthermore, the administrative cost is expected to reduce significantly for both groups, and the cost-saving potential for the operator will even extend across the entire life cycle with significant efficiency gains in operation and maintenance.

Cooperating with APQP4Wind

In 2022, the TIM Wind group started looking for an organization that could act as a host for the project and contacted the APQP4Wind Secretariat.

The APQP4Wind organization and representatives of the TIM Wind group met in Hamburg during WindEnergy 2022 to sign a paper that officially initiated cooperation between the two parties.

About the collaboration between TIM Wind and APQP4Wind, Offshore Research Manager at Siemens Gamesa and a member of TIM Wind’s steering committee since the project’s beginning in 2019, Per Hessellund Lauritsen, says:

Upon completion, the documents created in the TIM Wind workstreams will be available to the global wind sector through a new TIM Wind website. TIM Wind’s website and visual identity will be separate from APQP4Wind, and TIM Wind will also have its own governance structure.

The TIM Wind website will be launched in 2023 along with the first TIM Wind guideline on DCC, and the APQP4Wind Secretariat will help update and promote the documents.

Working together on industry standardization

Agreeing to cooperate with TIM Wind and deliver support to TIM Wind also made great sense to the APQP4Wind organization. Like TIM Wind, APQP4Wind started as a project in 2014 due to a common wish to simplify and strengthen the entire quality planning and product release process.

Since then, APQP4Wind has become an independent organization and a renowned quality planning method in the global wind industry, with more than 1,270 utility companies, wind turbine manufacturers, and suppliers applying the method globally.

“In 2014, the industry worked together to create the APQP4Wind method, and in 2018, it came together again to create Industry Standards. With TIM Wind, the wind industry has yet again demonstrated its ability to work together on industry standardization processes,” Kim Nedergaard Jacobsen, Chief Executive Officer of APQP4Wind, says and continues:

In early 2022, APQP4Wind became the hosting platform for the industry standardization project, Industry Standards. With the newly initiated cooperation between APQP4Wind and TIM Wind, some of the major projects that aim to standardize the industry are now working together.