Capital projects must do more than finish. They must work.
ICxA is the professional body for outcome governance. We set the standards for proving a completed asset can perform, and we assess and certify against them.
8.5%
Of 16,000+ major projects studied, the share delivered on time and on budget. Only 0.5% were on time, on budget, and delivered the promised benefits.
Flyvbjerg & Gardner, How Big Things Get Done (2023). Oxford Global Projects database.
65%
Of industrial megaprojects fail against their business objectives — averaging 30% over cost, 30% over schedule, and roughly half of planned first-year production.
Merrow, Industrial Megaprojects, Independent Project Analysis. Study of 318 global megaprojects.
3 in 4
Of the 20 points where Commissioning and start-up most often break down, three-quarters occur during construction — before Commissioning has begun. Projects celebrate at construction completion. By then the damage is done.
CII Research Team 333, Managing Transitions between Construction Completion, Pre-Commissioning, Commissioning, and Startup (SP333-1, 2017), Construction Industry Institute.
Where it actually goes wrong
Every capital project has the same moment. The schedule tightens, and the test programme is what gives. Loops get witnessed on paper instead of in the field. A pre-startup review is folded into the punch list. Someone in operations says the plant is not ready to take it, and is overruled — reasonably, because the date is contractual and the concern is a judgment, not a record.
The asset reaches substantial completion. It runs. Then in year two or year three the pattern surfaces: the unit never reaches nameplate, an interlock nobody tested trips a train, operators are still working from vendor manuals, and the maintenance budget absorbs work that should have closed before handover.
Nothing in the completion certificate was false. The certificate simply never asked whether the asset could perform.
What ICxA does
Standards
Published standards defining the evidence required to prove an asset is ready to operate — across Outcome Assurance, Operational Readiness, and Commissioning.
Independent assessment and grading
ICxA assesses projects and organisations against those standards and issues a graded result, so that readiness can be compared, reported, and relied on.
Certification
Certification of individual practitioners against the standards, and accreditation of the providers who train them.
Who it is for
Owners and operators
You inherit the asset and the consequences. ICxA standards define what you should require before you accept it.
Lenders, insurers, and investors
Completion is not performance. ICxA gives you an independent, comparable read on whether an asset will operate as underwritten.
Practitioners
Commissioning, Operational Readiness, and Outcome Assurance professionals who want a recognised standard of competence and a route to lead.
Who stands behind it
The ICxA standards are written, chaired, and reviewed by practitioners accountable for delivery on major capital programmes.
Heinz Inabnit
Vice President, Commissioning & Completions, Americas
WSG Energy Services
Ed Reynolds
Vice President, Completions, Commissioning & Start-Up, Americas
Kent
Darren Sangster, PMP
Commissioning & Start-Up Program Manager
Px Group
James Tuller
Project Leader, System Completion
LEAN Communications
Kevin Stuart
Affiliation to follow
Tony Manning
Affiliation to follow
Corporate members of ICxA
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