It takes more than just technical skills to be successful with commissioning. There are six essential skill sets required if you want to become a commissioning leader and lead your project to commissioning success. If you want to learn about what those six skill sets are, then keep on listening. Hello, everyone. Do you ever wonder why some projects are successful during commissioning, but others really struggle at the end? It takes more than just technical skills to be successful with commissioning, and that’s what we’re going to go through today: the six essential skill sets that make you a commissioning leader in this new era of commissioning and the complex projects we’re working on. If you’re not already a member of the Industrial Commissioning Association, be sure to join. You get access to the ICA Global Commissioning Standard and many other helpful resources to help you with commissioning at icxa.net/join and become a member there. As we go through the presentation, if you have any questions, put them in the chat below, and I’ll get them all answered at the end of this discussion to ensure we address all your commissioning questions and set you up for success during commissioning. It’s no surprise that the construction industry is broken.
The construction industry has struggled for decades, with nine out of ten projects late and over budget. It’s not a new problem; it’s been around for a while. But how can we fix this? How can we improve outcomes on projects? It starts with commissioning. You’ve heard all the horror stories of projects ending up years late and billions of dollars over budget, partially because there’s no structured process to complete projects at the end. You can start projects creatively and execute projects, but the most important part is to complete them. Many projects might seem to be progressing fine, but when it gets to the end, during that complex transition from construction to commissioning, things start to fall apart. Commissioning isn’t just about testing; there’s much more to commissioning than testing. Commissioning is really about leading, and that’s where many projects struggle—by setting commissioning up for success right at the beginning of projects. You are the ones the industry has been waiting for: the commissioning leaders who can lead projects to success. I believe strongly that commissioning folks are the only ones in the construction industry who are going to be able to fix the broken construction industry. It’s unfortunate because commissioning is minimized and not taken seriously on projects, but strong leadership from commissioning is required to guide projects to success. Unfortunately, it’s not going to be the construction groups that fix the broken construction industry; it’s been like this for a long time, and they’ve tried for decades without improving productivity on projects. It’s not the engineering groups either, because they’re involved early in projects and often don’t have that connection with the end of projects—there’s a disconnect over a few years. Unfortunately, it’s not the project managers either.
Project managers are trained in initiating projects with charters, budgets, and estimates, and monitoring projects, but they aren’t equipped with the skills to finish projects in a structured manner, which is commissioning. Honestly, it’s not any of these groups’ fault; commissioning is just complex. It’s a complex part of projects to pull everything together, and they need our help. Everyone on this call, everyone watching this video, you’re the ones the industry has been waiting for to lead projects to success, and these groups are depending on us to do that. Commissioning folks are really the grand master conductors; they oversee all aspects of projects from design to construction to commissioning to testing to procurement, ensuring everything comes together in the end. You need that conductor monitoring and guiding all pieces of the project to be successful. Commissioning folks are the conductors that project teams rely on to ensure all instruments, every piece, are playing in harmony to provide a finished, quality product. Commissioning is the missing leadership function on projects. It’s not going to be technology or some new project management function that leads projects to success; it’s going to be people. We need people to be the leaders to guide projects to success, and commissioning is that leadership function that pulls everything together for successful projects.
My goal with the Industrial Commissioning Association is to create the new global standard for how we manage and approach commissioning on projects. We’ve done that by releasing the ICA Global Commissioning Standard, which is your map to show how the conductor performs on projects to pull everything together. My next goal is to raise a generation of new commissioning leaders. Our wise commissioning experts are retiring in large numbers, taking their expertise with them, so we need a new generation of commissioning leaders to fill that void and lead projects to success. There are many projects to build in the next few decades, and we need expert commissioning leadership to guide them. My goal is to turn projects into success stories, not case studies of failure. With nine out of ten projects late and over budget, we’re far from that. We need to turn these failure stories into success stories, and commissioning leadership is the method to do that. When you think of project failure, it’s not because of design errors or significant construction errors and delays; it’s the lack of a commissioning-first mindset even before design or construction starts.
That lack of mindset to start with the end in mind and have a commissioning-first mindset helps guide the design and construction groups to success in the end. That’s what’s missing on projects: the commissioning-first mindset at the beginning. There’s always a plan for engineering design—better engineering design teams are doing great—and there’s always a plan for construction, guaranteed. But there’s rarely a plan on how to make all this work in the end from the beginning. When planning engineering and construction, we need to plan how to finish the project with a robust commissioning process as well if we want all three phases to come together successfully. Professor Ben Flyvbjerg has written a book called How Big Things Get Done, and if you haven’t read it, you should. It’s a great book that discusses how nine out of ten projects are late and over budget and the causes, which stem from poor planning at the beginning. That’s why commissioning leadership needs to be involved from the start to lead projects to success. Commissioning is not just the end of a project; it’s the leadership function projects are missing. You’re not just commissioning professionals; you’re project finishers, the reliability enablers, the leaders to lead everyone on projects in all phases to success. You are the industry leaders, even if the rest of the industry doesn’t believe that. Commissioning folks are the only ones who can see the full picture. Design folks focus on design, construction folks focus on construction, and we need them to do that. But we also need the commissioning leader to guide all of this to success. Commissioning folks are the only ones who can pull projects across the finish line to make them successful, and we’re going to talk about the skills you need to do that so you can lead the way on projects.
It’s always important, and I keep reiterating this in any presentation, that you must start with the end in mind. This means you need to lead backwards; a commissioning-first approach is required, starting at the end of the project for your in-service date and working backwards from there. When approaching projects with this mindset, technical skills aren’t enough. You need more than technical skills to lead all aspects of projects. There are many pieces of the puzzle that come together on a project; every person’s role is important to project success. These pieces are scattered for the duration of the project but need to come together and fit appropriately for a proper configuration at the end. That’s commissioning’s role: to ensure all pieces of the puzzle come together for a successful project. Commissioning folks are the leaders who make that happen.
The first skill set to have is strategic thinking. Commissioning folks need to understand the big picture—the entire project lifecycle from the beginning, during FEED processes, through design and construction, and how all pieces come together in the end. Commissioning folks have that overarching view to ensure all pieces fit together. It’s important that they are involved from day one to shape contracts, define scopes of work, establish project and commissioning strategies, and determine how design, construction, and commissioning will come together successfully. Commissioning strategy and planning are critically important to include at the beginning to guide the team to success. Commissioning folks are the grand masters of the chessboard; they see all the pieces, the ways to move each piece toward success, where the pitfalls are, and oversee the entire project and all players to ensure the right moves are made for success. Without that grand master overseeing all aspects, the project can easily fall into traps, running into major problems and delays because there’s no one ensuring all pieces fit together.
The next skill set is communication and influencing. Communication is important for all aspects of life, and commissioning is no different. We need to speak on projects so others listen, understand, and have the influence and persuasion needed to help all project participants understand what success looks like during commissioning. Commissioning folks need to translate technical ideas to management, project owners, and non-technical teams, requiring various levels of discussion—from individuals in the field to project managers and executives. Communications to each group need to be tailored so they listen and understand. The complexity of commissioning requires adapting our communication depending on the audience. Commissioning folks need to influence decisions and manage unrealistic expectations on projects. Much of commissioning is managing expectations; everyone has an understanding of what the project might look like to them, and some are realistic while others are not. It’s a process of managing those expectations so everyone is aligned in the end. Your voice matters in how we communicate and discuss these complex topics. We need to use our voice to help others understand and come to a common agreement. Commissioning folks need to be bold leaders who step up and lead the team to success with a new approach, not just following the way it’s always been done, but taking charge despite challenges. Commissioning folks are those bold leaders who point the vision and guide the team to a successful project. Without them, everyone goes in their own direction, gets lost, and we don’t know what we get in the end. It takes bold commissioning leaders to lead projects to success.
The third skill set is leadership and team alignment. This is challenging on large projects with thousands of people involved. We don’t just manage the work; we need to lead and inspire people who want to accomplish great things. That’s the only way great things are accomplished, and projects are no different. We need bold leaders to guide projects to success despite challenges. There are project management functions like coordinating internal and external cross-functional teams, but we also need to be leaders in the industry. Building trust is important across all trades, vendors, contractors, clients, and groups involved. It’s a huge communication role to coordinate, build trust, and be a strong leader. You’ve heard the expression, “If you want to go fast, go alone,” but the projects we work on require many people. If you want to go far, we need to go together as a team, and commissioning folks are the leaders to guide these large teams to success. Using the puzzle analogy, everyone has their piece of the project, and the only way it fits together is when commissioning folks guide the team to ensure it all fits. Commissioning folks are the leaders everyone relies on to show how it comes together.
The fourth important skill set is risk management and foresight, something commissioning folks excel at because we’re involved at the end of projects. We’ve seen successes, failures, what works, and what doesn’t. It’s almost like commissioning folks can tell the future, seeing problems years in advance during design functions. When involved early, commissioning folks can help groups involved only at the beginning see issues, mitigate risks, and prevent costly delays. Risk management and foresight are critical skills in addition to technical skills. It’s about proactively identifying risks before they become delays, not reactively waiting for problems and firefighting. Commissioning is about proactively identifying potential risks six months, a year, or two years from now and mitigating them so they don’t occur. It’s about preventing delays and ensuring the smoothest path to the end. All groups depend on commissioning folks to guide them through the most successful path. Commissioning folks own the critical path, not just during testing but from the beginning, guiding people down the critical path and keeping the team focused to prevent failures. Without the chess grand master to guide the team, with large groups, it’s easy for people to veer off and get lost until someone pulls them back at the end. If commissioning folks are only involved at the end, guiding things back in the last 10% of the project, it’s almost impossible to pull everyone back after years of veering off. Commissioning folks prevent problems from occurring in the first place, shaping the future of projects like wizards with a crystal ball, foreseeing issues and keeping projects on path. Having commissioning folks involved early saves money by preventing issues and delays rather than letting them fester into larger, more expensive problems.
The fifth critical skill set is that we can’t reinvent the wheel on every project. Commissioning is a solved problem despite what people think, feeling their project is a unique snowflake. Unless you’re building the James Webb Space Telescope, your project is not unique. LNG facilities, power substations, and water treatment facilities exist worldwide; these are solved problems. We need to approach commissioning by following standardized, proven processes that lead to project success. If we reinvent the wheel every project with a random commissioning process, you’ll get random outcomes because there’s no standard process. There’s no reason to reinvent a new project process for commissioning every time. Follow and build repeatable systems using templates, checklists, and workflows that have worked for others. This is a critical skill set of commissioning folks: defining and standardizing processes to guide the team to success. The easiest thing is to get a copy of the ICA Global Commissioning Standard, your guide to proven processes used for decades, showing how to complete projects in a standardized manner. There’s no need to figure this out on your own. All resources are in the members’ area of the Industrial Commissioning Association. Get a copy of the standard and implement it on your projects for the best path to success. Increasing the maturity of your commissioning processes increases consistency and results by following that proven process rather than reinventing the wheel. Imagine buying IKEA furniture without instructions—just a bag of screws and wooden pieces dumped on the floor. For simple things, you might figure it out, but for complex builds, a proven map makes it easier and quicker to know which screw goes where, ensuring a chair that works rather than one with three legs.
The sixth important skill set commissioning folks need to ensure success is to approach every project as a lesson. We’re good at gathering lessons learned, but often they get filed and forgotten, never applied to the next project. Commissioning folks need to understand that every project is a lesson and focus on continuous improvement so the next projects get better. This isn’t done well in the industry; the construction industry hasn’t increased productivity or success rates over decades. We’re not learning our lessons or building on continuous improvement; we’re stuck with the way it’s always been done. It’s important to capture lessons learned and apply them to the next projects. Commissioning folks need to be involved at the beginning to bring lessons from the end of previous projects to the start of the next, creating feedback loops to flow lessons learned back to the beginning. We need to turn past project mistakes into playbooks for the next projects to avoid those mistakes. Failure isn’t the end; there are many challenges on projects, but they fuel learning for the next projects. Contribute to the commissioning community, like the Industrial Commissioning Association, to help everyone learn from past failures so they don’t repeat them. That’s a main goal of the ICA Global Commissioning Standard: to pack lessons learned into a single document so you don’t make the same expensive mistakes made for decades. You have the playbook to avoid mistakes and apply lessons learned. Using the puzzle analogy, continuous improvement makes it easier and more efficient to build the puzzle next time with feedback loops, avoiding past failures and learning from others. The members’ area of the association is a central knowledge base where others can learn from mistakes so they don’t have to make them.
It’s clear that no one is planning for commissioning early enough on projects. There’s a stigma that commissioning is at the end, and it’s a real problem that commissioning isn’t involved at the beginning. I see this online all the time; everyone says commissioning folks need to be involved earlier, and they’ve been saying this for decades, but nobody’s listening. You were right all along to know that commissioning isn’t planned early enough, and it’s hurting projects. There’s a stigma that commissioning is an expense, not an ability to save time and money, because it’s viewed as just testing rather than a leadership function to lead projects to success. The commissioning industry is in trouble; there’s more work, more complex projects, and fewer skilled people. As wise commissioning experts retire, there’s nobody to do this work. Without guidance and leadership from commissioning, projects will struggle even more to finish on time and budget with successful outcomes. When it comes to commissioning, you don’t need to know everything; projects are complex with many moving parts and expert disciplines. But as a commissioning leader, you need a system and a community to lead projects to success. That’s the goal of the Industrial Commissioning Association: to set you up as that leader with tools, guidance, expertise, and community support so you can lead projects to success, providing the leadership the construction industry badly needs. This is bigger than any one of us; the construction industry is huge, and it will take more than one person to lead it to success. This is the movement we’re creating at the Industrial Commissioning Association—not just a job, but a mission for all commissioning experts, everyone on this call, to fix the broken construction industry and deliver projects successfully. This is the leadership initiative the association is undertaking to build and support the commissioning community so we can collectively make an impact and help the struggling construction industry understand the importance of commissioning, working collaboratively to lead projects to success.
It’s a choice we make. We can take the path that’s always been traveled, continuing with the way it’s always been done, struggling on projects, and in ten years, nothing will have changed—projects still late and over budget, commissioning minimized. Or we can take the path less traveled, be the leaders, step up, and help the construction industry improve project performance. We have many projects to build, and the commissioning community are the only folks who can lead projects to success because commissioning is complex. We need to be the leaders to step up, fight challenges, resistance, and lack of respect or understanding for commissioning, and guide projects to success. It’s the only way projects will succeed; it won’t come from other groups—only from commissioning, the leadership community to lead projects to success and show everyone what success during commissioning looks like.
What happens if we don’t do this? If we continue with the way it’s always been done, with projects late and over budget, we won’t deliver the future we need. It will always result in cowboy commissioning, a scramble at the end, and late, over-budget projects without commissioning leadership stepping up. We cannot continue letting projects struggle like this. The commissioning community, collectively, as individuals and as an industry, needs to be the leaders to avoid cowboy commissioning and wrangling at the end. It starts now with the commissioning community to lead projects to success. I encourage you to be that leader and make a difference in the industry. If we don’t, we have much infrastructure to develop for climate initiatives, sustainability, electrification, and new technology systems like AI. The construction industry is expected to double in the next 15 years from $13 trillion to $22 trillion, with a massive infrastructure build-out ahead. The construction industry has failed for decades, and we can’t keep pointing fingers. The commissioning industry needs to be the leaders because we can’t have 10, 20, 30, or 40% wasted on projects due to overruns, looking at tens of trillions of dollars in inefficiency. The commissioning community is the only thing that can lead to success; we’re the only ones who understand how this works and can see the big picture. We have to be the leaders and build community projects to success. It’s the only way that has worked; no other way has up till now. We need this new approach with commissioning leadership. Commissioning leaders need to be the leaders the construction industry has been waiting for, despite folks minimizing commissioning. The construction industry has been waiting for this change to approve project efficiency. We are creating leaders to lead and measure what success looks like on projects for improved project outcomes and to be the catalyst to change the world for improved projects to succeed. The construction industry depends on the commissioning industry to lead projects to success.
There are resources to help you along the way to help others understand. We have our line of commissioning courses at icxa.net/courses. If there’s someone on your project who needs to understand commissioning, point them to these courses to understand the commissioning strategy and planning initiatives required. For junior members, direct them to these resources to help them move on and join your team as future leaders. Get those courses to help learn and understand how to lead projects to success. If you don’t already have a copy of the ICA Global Commissioning Standard, go to icxa.net/join to get a copy. It’s your roadmap and guide for construction, engineering, procurement, and project folks to understand what commissioning leaders are up to and why. Check out icxa.net/brochure; this single-page document helps others understand what the standard is about. Sometimes you don’t start the discussion with the nine-document set of the standard; the single-page brochure is a great conversation starter to help others on your project understand what this roadmap looks like to complete projects successfully. Use it as a tool to elevate the performance of commissioning.
Those are the resources; check them out. If you have specific requests or need help from the commissioning community to support your leadership initiatives, email us at info@icxa.net. Our mission at the Industrial Commissioning Association is to help people understand what commissioning looks like and support the leaders in the industry to lead projects to success.
Q: Hey, Peter, how you doing? Good to see you. Hope the term “grand master” is so true.
A: Absolutely, that image of the chess grand master moving all the pieces in the right direction—without that grand master overseeing all aspects of the projects, each piece is going in its own direction, maybe the right direction or not, but everyone’s doing their own thing. You only find out at the end if the pieces were moved correctly to be successful. You need that grand master to move all pieces in a coordinated manner and ensure they’re headed in the right direction for a successful finish.
Q: Happy to be part of this session, happy to meet everyone. Hi, Alex, how are you doing? A: I’m sure you found the session helpful. If you have any questions, shoot them in the chat; we’ll be sure to get them answered.
Q: Hey, Zach, good to see you. Always appreciate your support. A: Glad you could make it and join. We should be in touch; I’ll reach out about some of the other things we’re working on in the Western Canada initiative to help everyone understand commissioning. Good to see you.
Q: The commissioning grand master needs to be appointed prior to capital investment to avoid costs or failure.
A: This is a key point for sure. Only having commissioning involved at the end misses all the planning and coordination required at the beginning. The reason we start projects is to finish them; we don’t start projects just to do design or bolt pumps to the ground. We start projects to deliver successful systems, and who’s responsible for that? The commissioning group. It seems obvious to include those responsible for finishing the project at the beginning. That’s the only way to guide projects to a successful finish. When commissioning is treated as just testing at the end, things fall apart because they were never planned properly. The project teams that succeed have commissioning involved before contracts are awarded, before financial decisions are made, to ensure the project’s viability and that everyone is working toward a successful finish.
Q: Skilled project management must be had on a commissioning job.
A: Absolutely, most of those six skills we discussed are project management-related but different from typical project management aspects. If you go to the Project Management Institute for a PMP, everything is related to starting projects—charters, staffing plans, budgets, and estimates. I have my PMP and went through the process, but I was wholly unprepared to finish projects. There’s a structured project management approach to commissioning not taught anywhere in project management literature. It’s great that project management professionals get their PMP, but they’re missing the critical function of finishing projects. It’s scary because I was the same way; I got my PMP, excited and proud, ready to tackle projects, but realized I was unprepared to finish because commissioning is complex, and nobody explained it through my training. That’s the case for many; it’s trial by fire, likely with one or two failed projects before learning what commissioning is about. That’s the gap our commissioning courses fill: the commissioning strategy and planning aspects required from a project management perspective for success. There’s a huge gap in the industry for project management professionals, not their fault, but because they’re not trained with the processes to finish projects. Commissioning folks are the only ones who can guide projects to success.
Q: How can we better incorporate commissioning into the procurement process? This would greatly reduce time as some suppliers do in-house testing.
A: Procurement from two aspects: first, during EPC contract procurement, even before construction or design contracts are awarded, commissioning needs to be involved to ensure EPC contracts include commissioning aspects. In the presentation from the week before, we discussed the eight clauses to include in EPC contracts for project success, spelled out in the ICA Global Commissioning Standard, showing how to put EPC contracts together for success. Second, equipment procurement: as construction folks buy equipment, what’s required for off-site testing, factory acceptance testing, and integrated factory acceptance testing (both hardware and software) are critical to include in contracts. When not included, and everyone realizes the right testing wasn’t done, nobody wants to pay for that change order. Nine times out of ten, the decision is to skip testing and do it on-site, deferring all risk to on-site testing. Issues that could have been caught in the factory are missed, causing expensive delays on-site, far more costly than the change order. Follow the ICA Global Commissioning Standard to ensure commissioning inputs in contracts are appropriately included to avoid those situations.
Q: Great information, Paul, so glad to see this effort, and it’s greatly needed in our industry.
A: Absolutely, we’re encouraging people to get involved. Stay tuned to our newsletters and weekly updates; we’ve got great initiatives coming up as we build the community, leadership, and board members. We have ideas for technical subcommittees on specific policy or technology, which the industry needs because it hasn’t happened for decades. The commissioning group is the only one that can make an impact and change the industry, and we need to do that collectively.
Q: Commissioning is quite painful. Keeping patience and upkeep is a great skill. Systems that drive the entire process help. How can such systems be developed to redeem the pain and avoid missing something?
A: Commissioning can be painful if there’s no process and it’s only thought of as testing at the end; it’s a brutal, painful process, and you question your decisions, trying to keep your head above water. The damage is done because early opportunities to guide a successful commissioning process were missed. The best advice is to follow the ICA Global Commissioning Standard, outlining the process from project concept, what’s required for commissioning strategy, division of responsibility, and inputs into contracts. It’s the first and only standard defining early commissioning involvement. Everyone says commissioning folks need to be involved early, but until the standard, no document defined what that was. Get a copy of the standard; it defines your project commissioning plan, execution plan, and inputs to systematize your project for a smooth transition from area-based construction to systems-based completion. That’s how you make commissioning less painful. If you focus on the 80% of the commissioning process that takes place before on-site commissioning starts, the last 20% is quite easy and can be boring if done properly because everything executes as planned. Skipping that 80% makes commissioning painful. Eliminate the pain, follow the standard, and have some of the best days on projects when things work smoothly because you did the upfront effort.
Q: PMP and commissioning are totally different.
A: I agree, they can complement each other. PMP is a great way to start a project, but the PMP literature doesn’t show how to complete one. Search the PMBOK for “commissioning,” and you won’t find it—shocking and disappointing. PMP is more generic, looking at project management holistically, not just construction, but for software, production, or accounting. Still, it’s surprising there’s no mention of commissioning, a huge aspect of construction project management. It’s misleading to think PMP will fully help in construction because it misses the key aspect of completing projects during commissioning. Our course lineup fills that gap, helping everyone understand there’s more to project management than the literature. You need to know how to finish projects, which our commissioning course series covers. If you have your PMP, that’s a great start, but you also need to know how to finish projects.
Q: Mostly, the commissioning management team is engaged in EPC projects in the middle or just before the commissioning phase when almost everything related to commissioning is decided. How are these six skill sets integrated in such a scenario?
A: You’re correct; that’s typical in the industry—commissioning folks are engaged in the middle of construction, which is too late because everything related to the EPC is decided. They’ve decided long-lead equipment procurement, construction sequence, and large labor workforces. Then commissioning comes along, saying, “This isn’t right, it doesn’t line up, we need this in a different sequence,” making changes. No wonder construction folks are upset; they’ve been productive for a year or two. If the sequence for construction completions and what’s needed at each milestone is defined in the contract from the beginning, that’s the information construction folks need to plan successfully. They need the full picture, the plan for what construction looks like, and then there are no disputes later because it was given upfront. They can plan successfully without change. Nobody likes change on projects; it means more time and cost. It’s fair to give construction folks that information in contracts. Everyone says, “We don’t know enough about the project, we don’t know all the design details.” If you don’t know what you’re building, you shouldn’t be awarding a construction contract. You know what systems are on your project—a chemical dosing system, an auxiliary power system—and the order and sequence they need to be completed. You can put that in contracts despite what everyone says. With upfront planning, you can plan this in EPC contracts and give everyone the full picture to avoid the scenario you’re describing. All six skill sets are about being proactively involved before contracts are awarded to plan and align for success before the pen hits the paper. That’s the only way to avoid disputes and ensure construction and commissioning are aligned—when defined in contracts. If it’s not in contracts, it will never happen; it will always cause a dispute later if you try to change something not in the contract. That’s why commissioning folks need to be involved earlier to plan properly.
Q: Value stagnation and erosion is certain whenever projects forget commissioning requirements early in project framing rather than delaying until during construction.
A: Exactly, if you figure that out during construction, making changes to the construction sequence to align with commissioning will always cause disputes. Construction is a large moving machine; it doesn’t turn on a dime. You need to plan these things well in advance. Construction needs to know how commissioning will take place at the end to plan successfully. If you plan that out a few months before commissioning, you’ll have disputes and chaos, which most projects do.
Q: Thanks again, so informative, and great to be part of the ICXA community. Is there any reference for the cost percentage allocation in project capital cost?
A: The typical number you hear is 5% or a little less, a high-level guideline. We’d like to establish baseline numbers for costing commissioning for labor resources, workflows, and timelines. We haven’t done that yet, but maybe in the future. If anyone wants to work on a technical subcommittee to build these resources, that would be great to help people cost out commissioning on their projects with agreed-upon numbers.
Q: Issue with factory testing as the vendor is frequently late, and the contractor has a very limited time to test and witness.
A: The supply chain on projects is a huge problem; there are delays, and nobody can agree on hitting contract delivery dates for supply items. It’s a challenge. Even with limited time to test and witness, skipping it will cause more problems later. If vendors are challenged with meeting obligations they signed in contracts, that’s a good reason to select another vendor. If they can’t do what they said, they can’t be relied on for the next project. That’s part of the continuous lessons learned process: if vendor A fails to deliver, they don’t get work next time. Money talks; that’s the only way to punish poor-performing vendors—by not awarding them future work. There are incredible systems being developed to monitor supply chain initiatives in real-time to ensure underperformers aren’t awarded work. That’s the only way they’ll improve—when it hits their pocketbook. If they can’t meet obligations, they can’t be awarded contracts. There are many good vendors that can hit their dates and meet obligations; they need to get more work, and we need to stop giving work to underperformers. Even if the vendor is late, skipping testing won’t help; we need to take the time to find issues early in the factory rather than on-site, where they take twice as long and are twice as expensive. It’s a time and money-saving effort to do testing in the factory.
Q: Getting stakeholders to make decisions in a partnership during commissioning poses a challenge. What would be the best step or steps to take in the beginning?
A: This comes from project leadership, the initiative the Industrial Commissioning Association is undertaking to help project leadership understand the importance of commissioning. If stakeholders aren’t listening to experts on how to achieve success, it’s tough to guide projects to success. It’s a process of ensuring commissioning folks are involved early to have these conversations and an education perspective to help project leaders understand how this works and why commissioning needs to be involved earlier. It’s challenging, but that’s the initiative we’re undertaking as a commissioning community: to fix the broken construction industry and help people understand the value of commissioning leadership. Baby steps, but we’ll get there over time.
Q: What will be the best strategy to avoid delaying delivery of equipment packaged projects on-site? How can commissioning practitioners at the construction phase cope with rapid technological advancement?
A: Two questions, related to the previous answer: we can’t award contracts to underperforming vendors; that’s the only way they learn—hit them in the pocketbook. That’s part of lessons learned and continuous improvement. It’s unfortunate to experience that on one project, but on the next, they can’t get work because they’ve demonstrated they’re incapable. You can’t award them work, regardless of low prices, if they won’t meet obligations; they’ll contribute to project failure. Commissioning folks need to be involved early to ensure those lessons learned prevent those folks from being involved. For rapid technological advancement, in the next five years, technology will increase rapidly with AI, and anything seen to date is nothing compared to what’s coming. The construction industry has been slow to adopt new technologies, but that’s going to change. Those stuck using spreadsheets or old technology will get left behind quickly as new systems rapidly improve productivity. Project groups embracing these technologies will go far ahead of those stuck in old ways. In a five-year project, technology might change multiple times, and if you’re stuck with old methods for the next project, those teams are in for a rude awakening. I’m excited; it’s going to be great to impact change with technological advances. Commissioning will push these advantages to leverage new technologies because other groups won’t want to and will get left behind quickly.
Q: How should we capture defects in the factory and claim back man-hours spent by vendor representatives to close factory defects?
A: The best suggestion is don’t let it leave the factory with defects. That’s the challenge; there’s a push to deliver, but with defects, it’s tough once it’s left. There’s a site acceptance test, and the vendor would be on-site for startup, but anything not meeting requirements is challenging. Rather than a reactive process to claim man-hours back, a proactive process is to find issues earlier in the factory before equipment leaves. Put in contracts that equipment can only ship once all stakeholders sign off that it can be released for shipment—contractor, purchaser, and engineer must agree it passed everything in the factory. If you let things leave uncontrolled, issues arrive on-site. That’s the best method: a gate in contracts that equipment cannot ship until all stakeholders approve.
Q: Does ICXA have a list of skills or suggested learning topics for a group of junior engineers who want to learn and practice commissioning?
A: Yes, go to our course lineup at icxa.net/courses. Everything you need as a junior engineer or anyone learning commissioning is there. Seven modules walk through the entire process defined in the ICA Global Commissioning Standard. Check it out; it’s what everyone needs to know to complete projects. Prices are reasonable for the depth of knowledge and expertise—a decade’s worth. It’s the fastest way to get up to speed on what’s required for commissioning.
Lots of great questions today. I appreciate everyone’s involvement and discussions. We do this every week; next week, I’ll have another presentation lined up. Watch your email for the notice; we’ll be live-streaming on LinkedIn and YouTube. Once again, appreciate everyone joining and continuing the mission and vision to work collectively as a commissioning community. Get involved in the community; go to the members’ area of the Industrial Commissioning Association, join a technical subcommittee, and work together to help the struggling construction industry understand how to finish projects. Great to see everyone today, and I hope to see you next time. Have a good day. Thanks for listening. To become a member of the Industrial Commissioning Association, visit icxa.net. Members get access to commissioning standards, procurement specifications, commissioning training and certification, plus many more specialized resources to help with commissioning your industrial plant, process, and energy systems. Visit icxa.net for more information.
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