Refuse to have him perform the assignment work until the status exists. He may visit the affiliate for meetings and planning as a business visitor, but implementing procedures and training staff is work. A truthful sequence protects both the technician and the petition.
Separating visiting from working
The affiliate's audit or customer deadline creates pressure to send him early. The line to hold is that a business visitor may attend meetings, observe and plan, but may not perform the productive work the petition describes. A technician who spends three weeks writing the affiliate's task cards before the petition is decided has worked without authorization, and the petition will be read against that fact.
Instead, use premium processing if the affiliate's deadline justifies the charge, and have the affiliate begin the parts of implementation that its own staff can do from the Québec documentation sent electronically. On approval, as a Canadian citizen he presents at a port of entry and begins. If the affiliate's deadline moves the assignment from eighteen months to three years, or adds work at an airline customer's hangar, those are changed facts and should be reviewed before he continues.
The five-year L-1B limit runs from first admission regardless of how the assignment evolves, and any extension will be judged against the original implementation plan.