We’ve been hard at work at putting together the ICA Global Commissioning Standard, and we’ve got some information to share with you to help you use this information so that you can use it to help yourself and help projects. Since commissioning is not often well understood on projects, that was the intention of us writing the standard—to help people understand this complex aspect of projects for commissioning so that we can successfully complete projects.
This is the first of a five-part series on the ICA Global Commissioning Standard. Today, we’re going to go through the first two chapters of the standard, ICA 001 and ICA 002. Be sure to join each of the five sessions that we go through here—today being the first, but then next week and each subsequent week at the same time, we’ll be going through the next parts of the standard so that we go through all nine parts of the standard.
One thing to keep in mind is we’re focusing on commissioning today. We’re not going to talk about testing. Sometimes, or very often, those two topics get mixed up—people hear the term “commissioning” and they think that means testing, but that’s not what we’re talking about today. We’re not talking about testing; we’re talking about commissioning. So, if you’re unclear on what the distinction is between those two, then this is definitely something for you to check out so you can understand the difference between commissioning and testing.
So, let’s get started. This is the first of a five-part series for our workshop series on the commissioning standard. Today, being the 26th, we’re going through the first two parts of the standard: ICA 001, “Phases of the Commissioning Process,” and ICA 002, “Terminology.” Then, this time next week, we’re also going to go through the next part on March 5th. That’s going to go through ICA 003 and ICA 004—three being “Roles and Responsibilities” and four being “Commissioning Strategy and Planning.” The following week, on March 12th, we’re going to go through “Commissioning Engineering, Manufacturing, and Construction Completions.” Part four is on March 19th, ICA 006, to go through “On-Site Testing,” and then part five on March 26th to round out the five-part series here. We’ll cover ICA 007, ICA 008, and ICA 009, which are related to “Handover, In-Service, and Closeout,” “Safety and Risk Management,” and “Lessons Learned and Continuous Improvement.” So, definitely check out all five parts of our workshop series here so you can learn and understand the ICA Global Commissioning Standard and how you can use it to help you and help your projects succeed.
You’re on this presentation because you’re the commissioning pioneers—the leaders that are going to lead projects to success. All projects start out as chaos at the beginning, right? But it’s the commissioning leaders, such as yourselves, that are going to step up and bring projects into a standardized process or a structured process to go through to complete and actually achieve the end goal of projects. A lot of people on projects don’t understand commissioning, and that’s the reason that a lot of projects are late and over budget. In fact, nine out of ten projects are late and over budget because commissioning is not well understood. So, I’m pleased to see you here on this presentation because you’re the true leaders in the industry that are going to lead projects to success. It’s not the design groups, it’s not the construction groups, it’s not the project management groups—it’s the commissioning leaders that need to be involved early in the project to plan for success and plan for a successful completion of projects. You’re my people here to help projects succeed with this complex phase of projects.
Why was the ICA Global Commissioning Standard created? There are other commissioning standards that are out there, right? So, we’re going to talk about the evolution of commissioning standards and how we got to this point in time. We’re going to talk about how the ICA Commissioning Standard was developed, and we’re going to talk about what’s in the standard and how you can use it to help you and your projects succeed.
There’s been an evolution of commissioning standards over the years. There have been building commissioning standards that have been out there for decades. This would be your ASHRAE commissioning standards or documents from BCxA, CSA, NEBB, or CC. These are great standards, and they’re largely for building commissioning—your HVAC systems, systems that aren’t very complex. They’re pretty standard systems; they exist everywhere, low complexity. Great standards if those are the systems that you’re working on, but not necessarily sufficient if you’re working on more complex systems.
Then, a few years ago—maybe over ten years ago—there’s been some development of some additional standards. These would be your entry-level commissioning processes for process systems or energy commissioning standards for maybe a moderate level of complexity. This would be your API RP 1 FSC or IEC 62337. Now, these are good entry-level documents that give you a bit of a taste of what commissioning is, but if you really dig into some of these standards, they’re incomplete, and they don’t cover all of the commissioning process. So, they’re still applicable for maybe moderate complexity systems, and you can get by with some of these systems, but they don’t necessarily cover all aspects of commissioning.
Because of that, what a lot of the large companies have done is have to develop their own internal company processes. The big companies like BP, Shell, Siemens, or National Grid in the UK have gone even further to develop their own company proprietary commissioning processes and standards internal to their companies. These are some of the market leaders—the best out there in their commissioning processes to manage the most complex projects—and they’ve got really good standards and processes internal for commissioning. The problem is they’re internal and they’re proprietary, right? And they’re not available to everyone on projects to help them understand commissioning.
So, that’s what really led to our development of the ICA Global Commissioning Standard. We’ve modeled it after the best commissioning standards that are out there for the most complex projects and developed a nine-part series of documents that define the end-to-end process for the most complex systems and what’s the structured process to go through for commissioning of projects. The ICA Global Commissioning Standard is publicly available—anybody can get access to it—and our goal is to get this information in the hands of as many people as possible so that we can help everyone on projects understand how to complete commissioning. That’s kind of the evolution of the commissioning standards, say, over the last several decades, and what’s got us to this point to develop the ICA Global Commissioning Standard.
What’s really been missing in some of the past standards is the definition of early commissioning involvement. If you talk to any commissioning person that’s ever worked on a project, every single one of them will always tell you that commissioning needs to be involved early in projects. But none of those commissioning standards that I mentioned up until now has defined what early commissioning involvement even is. A lot of the standards that are out there talk about construction completions and commissioning workflows on-site, but they’re missing everything before construction completion that takes place during project concept, during project FEED phases, and detailed design phases. I think that’s why there’s a bit of a bad reputation or bad understanding of commissioning on projects—because everybody sees these standards, and it only talks about testing at the end. But the ICA Global Commissioning Standard is the first standard that’s available to everybody that actually defines what takes place during early commissioning involvement.
So, what that is, is your commissioning strategy—how are you actually going to contain the chaos and pull the project together for completion? This is your commissioning strategy that’s defined early in projects, during project concept or during FEED stages, and this is an important aspect of the commissioning process. Also, the contractual implementation of the commissioning process—so when we’re putting together our design contracts and our construction contracts, there’s critical aspects that need to go into those contracts so that we can start with the end in mind and define right up front in contracts how the project is going to be finished during commissioning. These are the early aspects that need to be defined by commissioning folks early in projects so that contracts are written in a way that commissioning folks are able to get what’s needed from design folks and from construction folks for a smooth completion of commissioning at the end.
Another very important aspect is the digitalization of the commissioning process. This has never really been covered in any of the standards, but projects are so complex that manual methods of spreadsheets just don’t cut it anymore. The data integrity needs to exist from design phases to asset management systems, demanding a digital process through commissioning to have that digital thread through all aspects of the project. So, digitalization is an important aspect of the commissioning process. Really, I’ve heard it declared, and I agree, that 2025 is the year we need to declare the end of manual, old, outdated processes using paper and spreadsheets—they just don’t work anymore. Some of the AI systems that exist out there—we need to be leveraging tools for commissioning so that we can successfully deliver projects.
What I’ve never seen in any of the other standards is the definition of the commissioning engineering phase. This needs to be taking place in conjunction with detailed design, and if you’re not taking advantage of what’s defined in the standard and performing your commissioning engineering early in projects, then you’re missing a good portion of the commissioning process. A lot of people will focus on just what takes place on-site—the testing they can touch and feel and see—but if you’re skipping the commissioning engineering process, then you’ve missed 80% of the commissioning process that needs to take place on-site so that your on-site testing is successful.
How many people would agree—or have worked on projects and would agree—that commissioning is not well understood by all project groups? There’s maybe a few commissioning experts on the project that have the knowledge or the experience and understand the commissioning process, but by far, most people on projects—especially early in projects—don’t really or truly understand what commissioning is all about. The commissioning process is really a project management process rather than a testing process at the end of projects, and the commissioning process needs to be enacted early in projects to structure the project in a way with those project management processes to set it up for success later at the end of projects. When commissioning is viewed only as testing at the end, then you’re missing all the project management aspects that are required to set commissioning up for success.
A critical aspect of the commissioning process—really the fundamental idea here—is how to structure your projects to transition from area-based construction to systems-based completion. Of course, every construction group is going to optimize their construction activities, and that absolutely needs to happen—to optimize by lead times for long-lead materials, to optimize for large workforces—and the construction groups, we need to allow them to exercise their expertise to optimize construction sequences. But at a certain point, about 60 or 70% complete construction, it’s critical that we’ve defined precisely how that area-based construction is going to transition to systems-based completion. If you’re not planning this early in projects, then there’s no chance that transition from construction to commissioning is going to go smoothly. This is really the essence of the ICA Global Commissioning Standard—to provide this structure in how this transition takes place and how on-site testing is going to take place for a smooth transition from construction to completion, so we can complete projects.
The ICA Global Commissioning Standard is available to everyone. We want to get this information in the hands of as many people as possible. So, if you haven’t already, log into the members’ area of the Industrial Commissioning Association, download the standard, get all nine documents that make up the standard, check it out, read it, share it with people on projects—get it in the hands of as many people as possible so that we can help everyone understand this misunderstood aspect of projects.
How Was the ICA Global Commissioning Standard Developed?
We’ve put together a worldwide team of commissioning experts over the last six months. The goal was really to gather the collective wisdom of everyone in the commissioning industry from all different types of industries. So, we wanted to pack as many lessons learned as we can into the Global Commissioning Standard—all of the best practices in how you complete projects—so that you don’t have to make these same expensive mistakes that projects have already made in the past.
The ICA Global Commissioning Standard has input from every complex industry that we could gather to put together this worldwide team of commissioning experts: from the oil and gas industry, from the power industry—including generation and transmission power projects—from renewable energy, whether that be solar, wind, biogas—all of the new and amazing renewable energy projects that are out there—water and wastewater treatment (the ICA Commissioning Standard definitely applies there as well because we’ve got all the input from that industry in there as well), chemical manufacturing—really any and all complex industrial plant processes or energy systems that would be more than, say, just a typical HVAC system. Anything with electrical, mechanical, and automation equipment that needs to be systematized, integrated together, and function as one comprehensive system at the end of the project.
This was a fairly significant effort—about six months of development—to produce the standard, review it with our global team of experts, go through several iterations, prepare all the illustrations and figures that are in there, and publish the document. We were very pleased to get this document out to the world and get it in everyone’s hands several weeks ago, and now it’s available for you to check out. This is by far the most comprehensive commissioning standard that’s available in any industry, and it’s available to everyone. So, definitely go check it out, get your hands on it, and understand what the commissioning process is all about, and share it with others on your project so they can understand as well.
Exploring ICA 001 and ICA 002
We’re going to go through the two documents here: ICA 001, “The Phases of Commissioning,” and then ICA 002 as well. We’ll start with the first one here. The purpose of ICA 001 is it defines the phases of the commissioning process. On the right here is a figure from the first section of the standard, and we’ll go through this in a little bit more detail on a subsequent page, but what it’s defining here is right from the start of projects right to the end and handover to operations, and what this transition looks like through different phases of the project as we transition from design to construction to commissioning.
The objectives of the document are to provide that structured framework that’s needed for commissioning that’s established very early in projects for a strong completion of projects in the end. We’ve established this standard so that we can maybe, over the years, ensure some consistency or get a standardized approach to commissioning, with a focus on quality in commissioning. Because commissioning has been a very disjointed industry—because all of the big companies have had to develop their own internal commissioning processes—everybody uses different terminology, and everybody does it slightly differently, right? It makes it very challenging for people to move from one project to the other because there’s been no standardized approach for commissioning. Now that there’s a standard available, people have the opportunity, when they’re writing contracts for the projects, to use this standard, use it as a guide, and be able to write better contracts with standardized terminology so that—fingers crossed—over the years, we can get to some sort of standardized process for commissioning. Since every other industry has standardized on their processes, commissioning needs to do the same as well, and now we finally have a tool to be able to do that.
We’re going to go through all of the commissioning phases in the handover model there, starting with the concept and FEED phase and what takes place during those early aspects of projects: procurement and manufacturing phase, what takes place for construction completions, for our construction completion phase, static commissioning phase, our dynamic commissioning phase, right through to introduction of power loads and process fluids for startup and performance verification, and into trial operation. Our ultimate goal is system handover on time and on budget to our plant operators and plant owner.
This is Figure 1 of ICA 001 for the commissioning phases and handover model. This is kind of the kingpin figure of what’s defined in the standard, and you can see it starts here on the left through the project concept phase, through all the different phases of projects, and goes through to operations at the end of the project. We’ll go through each of these in a little bit of detail.
The first things that need to be happening at the beginning of projects is our commissioning strategy planning. This is made up of our project commissioning plan and our division of responsibility matrix. These two documents are the fundamental core documents that define what’s going to go into our contracts for construction and for design activities and what that handover from construction to commissioning is going to look like for a smooth handover from one group to the other. This commissioning strategy planning for our PCP and our DO—all take place before our construction contract is even awarded. These are critical activities to make sure that the right aspects are included in that construction contract so that the commissioning folks get what they need from construction groups at the end of the project—so there’s no surprises, and everybody has a clear vision of what success looks like during commissioning.
Then, during commissioning engineering, we’ll be preparing our commissioning execution plans. This is a fairly significant document—it’s a large document; it can be written as one single document, more likely it’s broken out in referencing several sub-documents that go into our commissioning execution planning. This is taking place a little bit into our detailed design phase, at the point in time where enough of the design is complete where we have tagged equipment lists and details to start planning, preparing for the specifics of commissioning—in exactly what are our commissioning checklists, what are our commissioning procedures—all the documentation that’s prepared in advance so that we’re ready for on-site testing later.
All of these documents—there’s a template available for each one of these in the Industrial Commissioning Association members’ area. There’s, I don’t know, tens of different documents—maybe 40, 50 different document templates—that you can download for your PCP, for your DO, for your commissioning execution plans, and you can download those templates. We’re making this—we’re trying to make this as easy as possible for you—so that you’ve got a system here, a commissioning kit that you can download and apply to your projects right away.
Moving into the construction phase, as some of the detailed design is being completed and we’re moving into construction, we’re going through the equipment procurement phase. This is where our first physical testing is starting to take place off-site—for factory acceptance testing and integrated factory acceptance testing. This can sometimes be overlooked because this can be viewed maybe more as a procurement function, but how equipment is tested in the factory is fundamental to how well your testing is going to go on-site—particularly for integrated factory acceptance testing. If you’re working with complex control and protection systems, then these need to be fully tested—both hardware and software—in the factory to make sure that these systems work before they are shipped to site. A lot of projects will try and do that integration later in the project, and that usually causes a lot of delays because you’ve pushed a lot of risk to later in your project. But complex control and protection systems need to be fully checked out—hardware and software—in the factory before their shipping releases before equipment is shipped to site.
Construction will proceed—the construction folks, like I mentioned earlier, they’ll focus on optimizing their construction workflows, and we need to allow them to do that because construction is certainly a big aspect of projects and involves a lot of expensive equipment and lots of large labor workforces. We need to allow them to optimize all of that to proceed with their installation activities. Then, at a point of about 60 or 70% complete, the transition needs to take place by system for the transition from area-based construction to systems-based completion. This is moving into the construction completions phase. This is where our first set of checklists are undertaken—these are our A-inspection test records—to verify correct installation. These are checklists done by the construction groups and quality groups to verify correct installation as part of construction completions—any activities that are required for flushing or mega testing, point-to-point testing, any of the smaller testing activities that are part of the installation sequence—those are included in our AITs as well as we’re leading up to construction completion.
So, CC is a critical milestone because this is the completion of installation activities, and this is the handover point from construction groups to commissioning groups. This needs to be very clearly defined in what constitutes our construction completion activities, what constitutes a construction completion milestone, and how are we moving into static commissioning. So, once construction completion is achieved, we proceed with static commissioning. This is where our B-ITR check sheets are performed—this would be our functional and performance testing at an equipment level to verify installation of individual equipment items before we move into system-level testing or dynamic commissioning. Dynamic commissioning would be functioning the systems as a system—a group of equipment to perform a specific function—to achieve our milestone RFSU—ready for startup.
So, at RFSU, we’re moving into our startup phase—introduction of process fluids, introduction of loads to the systems—where we can start to actually operate the system in its intended function and start verifying that the system is meeting performance verification requirements. This is where performance verification can take place for optimizing the system, verifying that the system meets the original intended design intent, and preparing for long-term operations. Contracts may define a trial operating period—maybe a 30-day period of time where the system has to operate uninterrupted before being placed in service. So, at system handover, this is the point in time where systems are handed over—either as individual systems or as a full, complete plant process—from the commissioning team to the operations team.
This is a bit of an overview of the commissioning phases and handover model. Definitely check out the standard because it goes through it in a lot more detail, and there’s several document pages that are attached that define all these milestones and all the activities that take place—all the specifics of what takes place before construction completion and after construction completion. So, definitely check out the standard, get your hands on that as well.
Early in projects, it’s very important that we’re defining our commissioning strategy—it’s vital to the project success. A lot of projects skip this because commissioning is often thought of as just testing at the end, and they think, “Well, why do we want a bunch of folks testing our systems at the beginning of the projects if we haven’t even really started?” But the commissioning strategy will make or break the success of your project, and it must align with the engineering and procurement and construction activities. The only way to plan projects for success is to holistically plan all aspects together—for engineering, for construction, and for commissioning—so that you have a holistic plan for project success. If you’re only planning design and only planning construction and you think you’re going to put your commissioning strategy together later at the end of the project, then I don’t see how anyone would think that would ever work. If you’re only planning two-thirds of your project, you’ll never get to the end successfully because you don’t have a clear view of what success even looks like on your project.
So, with your commissioning strategy early in projects, this is going to mitigate risk, prevent delays, and allow that smooth transition from construction to commissioning later in projects. Some of the important commissioning milestones you’ll find in the standard are that your project commissioning plan is developed—this is a critical element as an input to your project execution plan. Your PCP is really your strategy and how you’re going to finish your project, and that’s really the point of why we build these projects—is to finish them, right? So, your PCP needs to be defined early in projects. Construction completion—your CC—when that’s achieved, that’s a critical milestone, and there’ll be several of those milestones because there’s several systems that are handed over from construction to commissioning to operations. So, each of your construction completion milestones need to be defined. RFDC—ready for dynamic commissioning—this is another important milestone as we move into more system-level testing. Ready for startup—RFSU—as we introduce process fluids for the first time or high loads in power systems. Completion of trial operation and then system handover and final acceptance.
This is the sequence kind of drawn out here. Without a systems-based approach—if you just took no systems-based approach, if you didn’t define that in your commissioning strategy earlier in projects—then what that would mean is you’d have to complete construction of all of the project, and then you’d move through static commissioning of all the project, and you’d have each sequenced phase here, right? Not an optimal way to complete projects because we need to take a systems-based approach and define the multiple systems and how they’re going to be handed over from construction to commissioning. When you do that, that’s going to allow sections of the project to be completed and staged over a period of time through the various commissioning workflows. It allows commissioning to start earlier so that we can get in and start working with one of the completed systems while other aspects of the project are still under construction. So, it’s going to look like a series of construction completions, and each of those systems at various stages of completion through our commissioning workflows with a systems-based approach.
Moving on to the next standard document, ICA 002—this is our terminology document. Wouldn’t it be nice if everybody was speaking the same language on projects and using the same terminology? That’s never been possible because there’s never been a standard for people to rely on in how they’re going to speak about the project. With people coming from past experiences on past projects, everybody’s speaking with different terminology—even though they’re trying to speak about the same things, it gets very confusing on projects. So, now, for the first time, there’s a standard that exists on the terminology to be used.
We’ve put together this standardized terminology, and the intent really is to use this as a guide when you’re writing your contracts for projects. This can be the standardized approach—this can be the terminology that’s included in contracts that can standardize on the industry language to use. Now, in ICA 002, we’ve created three sections of the vocabulary. There’s the essential commissioning terminology—this is the terminology that is required to define the commissioning process. We’ve also included some supplementary commissioning terminology—these would be nice-to-have terms but don’t necessarily define steps or stages of the commissioning process. We’ve also got a section in there for legacy terminology. So, there’s been some terms that have been used in commissioning over the last several decades, but they’ve caused, I think, more confusion than they’ve actually helped.
For example, one of the terms is “pre-commissioning.” Everybody would think or know they understand what pre-commissioning means, but when I ask ten people on a project what it means, I get ten different answers. I think for that reason, it’s been very confusing for people to understand and agree on what is actually taking place during, before construction completion, what is taking place after construction completion, what is taking place during dynamic commissioning. The commissioning standard does not use the term “pre-commissioning”—we’ve dropped that completely.
Another term, actually—believe it or not—is the term “commissioning” itself. The term “commissioning” itself has created a lot of confusion because the term “commissioning” itself doesn’t really mean anything—it needs a qualifier, right? When people use the term “commissioning,” are they referring to testing? Are they referring to the commissioning process? Are they referring to the phase of testing after dynamic, after static commissioning, and before startup of the project? I hear the term “commissioning” used on projects, and I can see that people are not talking about the same thing. So, the term “commissioning” on its own isn’t actually very helpful either.
So, definitely check out the standardized terminology document and start using it on your project so that we can improve some of the project communication and make sure that everyone understands what we’re talking about—within the commissioning groups as well as others on projects that maybe aren’t as familiar with commissioning—to help them understand from design groups and construction groups. So, everybody’s at least speaking the same language and understanding of commissioning.
Definitely check it out—all the terminology is defined in there for the acronyms that are used. So, if you see a term like “SH,” what does that actually mean? For all of the stages during the commissioning model, everything’s defined in there, and you can get access to all that in ICA 002. I’ve defined kind of how it’s broken up there for supplementary terms, legacy terms, standardized terms, and discussed some of the examples of the legacy terms that are no longer used. Another one, actually, is “mechanical completion.” Now, that term has been used in the industry for decades—it’s ingrained in everyone’s use of projects, probably—but it’s actually outdated because there’s more to completing construction than just the mechanical systems, right? It’s a legacy term, but what about electrical completion? What about controls and automation completion? So, a better term—and where the industry needs to migrate towards—is “construction completion.” Instead of “MC,” use the term “CC”—construction complete—because it technically is more correct to indicate completion of all aspects of construction.
A lot of the common commissioning acronyms are all defined in there as well. When you see terms like “FAT” or “IFAT,” “PSSR”—everything’s defined in the commissioning terminology document—so you can make sure that you learn and understand all the acronyms because there definitely seems to be a lot of acronyms on projects. If you don’t understand the acronyms, then it’s hard to know what other people are talking about, right?
Becoming a Commissioning Leader
Really, using these standards as a tool can really help you on projects—and it’s more about who you want to become as a commissioning leader. If you really want to be the individual that’s on the tools and doing the testing, that’s one thing—but if you really want to engage in projects and step up and be a leader to lead projects to completion, then this standard is a great tool to help you do that. You can get this standard and start applying it to your projects right away. So, if you aspire to be an industry leader and if you aspire to lead your projects to success, then the first two documents we’ve covered here—for ICA 001 and ICA 002—they give you that structured process in how to complete your projects so that you can truly step into that role as a commissioning leader and be the leader to complete your projects for on-time and on-budget completion.
If you do want to pursue this even further—you want to get there faster to be an industry leader—we do have our complimentary training programs that teach how to implement the ICA Commissioning Standard on your projects. We start with our intermediate commissioning program that gives you the fundamentals of how to transition through all stages of commissioning, and then our advanced commissioning process program, which really takes it to the next level and shows you all the advanced planning strategies, all the contractual implementation, and all the digitalization of the commissioning process to really excel at commissioning. Then, for those that are really at the top of their game and are part of the elite 1% of commissioning professionals, we will be offering a CXM certification program in the future—requiring company sponsorship—for the true commissioning leaders in the industry that are working on the most complex projects.
You really can transform your project role and become a true commissioning leader when you get this standard with our courses—so that you can really change projects and change people’s lives to help projects succeed with commissioning and completion at the end of projects.
If you haven’t already, you can download the ICA Commissioning Standard—you can get it in the members’ area of the Industrial Commissioning Association. These standards will really transform your project commissioning outcomes once you start applying these projects right from the beginning and planning your contracts and planning your commissioning workflows. Everything you need is in this standard, and it’s not like there’s a second way or a third way or some other way to complete projects—this is the method for systems-based completion. This is the best practices on how to complete your projects, and this is the standard to follow that is applicable to the most complex projects that are out there today.
Definitely get a copy of the standard—you can train your teams on how to implement ICA-compliant commissioning processes. Everybody’s welcome to join the Industrial Commissioning Association—there’s no cost to join. You can join at www.ica.net/join, and that’ll take you to the page there where you can sign up, get access to the members’ area, get access to the standard and the commissioning community. There’s over 3,200 members of the Industrial Commissioning Association, so definitely get signed up in there and get access to all the resources that are in there—all the standard documents, the document templates, systematization guidelines. We’re working on a contractual implementation guideline as well as a digitalization guide—so that you can apply the standard to your projects using these best practices.
Here’s another helpful resource—if you’re explaining this standard to somebody, they don’t necessarily want to get nine documents to start that discussion—but if you go to ica.net/brochure, you can get a copy of this single-page kind of cheat sheet that shows people what the commissioning standard is all about, why it matters, and how it can help people on projects. So, get a copy of this PDF—it could be helpful if you’re discussing with others on projects about the ICA Global Commissioning Standard and how it can help on projects. For example, if you’re going to talk to your project manager, this would be a great single-page document to give them as a guide and show them what this is all about before you dig into the details of the standard. So, definitely check that out—ica.net/brochure—and you can get a copy of that right there.
Our next part of our five-part workshop session is on March 5th, so definitely sign up as a member of the Industrial Commissioning Association so you don’t miss the alerts to join our next session. You can also get access to the standard in there, of course, and definitely want to see you on March 5th. The next session, this time next week—same time on Wednesday—we’ll go through ICA 003 and ICA 004, that is on “Commissioning Roles and Responsibilities” and “Commissioning Strategy and Planning,” as we get into more details of the commissioning standard and all five aspects of our workshop live series there. I definitely hope to see you there and check it out.
“No understanding of the stage gate aspect.” I know—it’s without that stage gate approach, then the lines between construction and commissioning get very blurry. When you’re starting commissioning of half-completed systems during construction, then that always leads to delays—there’s never any time saved, and it becomes very expensive at the end of the project.
“The sooner the commissioning team gets involved, the sooner the project will be closed out.” That’s absolutely true. Unfortunately, commissioning is sometimes viewed as an expense at the beginning of projects, but in every project I’ve been on, when the commissioning folks are involved earlier, it’s always removed risk, saved time, and saved money. So, it’s always value-added in my mind.
“Does this cover discrete industries versus process industries?” Ah, so the question I can see that you’re getting at is related to testing versus commissioning. So, this commissioning process that we’ve defined here defines all industries—this is the commissioning process to follow, whether you’re working on oil and gas systems, power project systems—this is the method for systems-based completion. What you may be looking for is a specific testing aspect for different industries, right? Sure, there’s always a unique set of valves, pipes, pumps, motors, transformers—whatever—and you need to test all that stuff. But regardless of how that equipment is configured—you’ve got pipes, pumps, transformers—whatever the design drawings show in that configuration—the process to go through for commissioning of all that equipment is identical. You’ll have specific test requirements, of course, for your specific transformer or your specific chemical dosing system, but the commissioning process is identical. So, don’t get mixed up between commissioning and testing—the commissioning process we’re talking about here does apply to all complex industries.
“Is SAT included?” Yep—so site acceptance testing is part of the commissioning process, for sure. That would be part of our static commissioning processes—once we’ve achieved construction completion, site acceptance testing would be the complement to our factory acceptance testing. Whatever was tested in the factory and whatever results were achieved there, we want to see that that equipment behaves the same on-site after shipping, after installation—to ensure that there was no damage. Site acceptance testing is the process to do that.
“Finally find time to attend this commissioning training—hello everyone.” Glad to have you here! Yep, this is the first part of five, so glad you could make this one—hope to see you at the next ones.
“Templates for the plan?” Yep—those are all available in the members’ area of the Industrial Commissioning Association. So, you can get a template of the project commissioning plan, the commissioning execution plan—there’s several documents that you can download in there and get access to all those. The documents give you the table of contents, give you the content sections to include, give you some hints of how to write your documents specific to your projects—so you can implement the ICA Global Commissioning Standard.
“Thanks for transmitting all this important information. Can we say that what is being called pre-commissioning is what we at ICA call static commissioning?” That is correct—yep. If you look into ICA 002 and the legacy terminology section, when we’re putting “pre-commissioning” to rest, that’s essentially what it’s being replaced with—is static commissioning—a very specific, discrete stage of the commissioning process that doesn’t get blurred between construction’s pre-commissioning activities or what some of the other vendors call pre-commissioning or what some of the confusion has been on what exactly is pre-commissioning. So, it’s very specifically defined and specifically outlined in the ICA Commissioning Standard—so that there’s no more confusion on the term pre-commissioning.
“Is there an ISO standard in regard to commissioning?” No, there unfortunately is not. Now, that is one thing we’ll probably proceed with—is the ICA Global Commissioning Standard—we’ll get it registered with ISO so that it can be recognized as the de facto standard for commissioning that everyone can refer to. ISO certification will certainly elevate the standard’s importance and allow people to use it and reference it on projects in what this commissioning process looks like.
“Like hot and cold?” Yes—the terms “hot commissioning,” “cold commissioning,” “dry commissioning,” “wet commissioning”—maybe some useful terms, but I’ve never found them to be too helpful on projects. So, we’ve actually retired some of those terminologies as well—when you look in the document, “cold,” “dry,” “wet” aren’t specific stages that we’ve defined in the standard in the commissioning process. The confusion between whether you’re working on an electrical system or mechanical system—usually, you don’t want to do “wet commissioning” of your control and protection systems—water and electricity don’t mix too well. So, we’ve just dropped all those terms to avoid any of those confusions.
“What does ICA stand for?” Maybe ICA is the Industrial Commissioning Association—so when you talk about ICA 001 or ICA 002, ICA is the Industrial Commissioning Association—where you can get the standard, an accredited organization.
“Awards certification?” Yes—so, unfortunately, right now, there is no global authority, global body for commissioning of industrial plant processes, right? There’s lots of building certifications, and you can go get your ASHRAE certification if you’re working on HVAC systems, but there’s no governing body that governs commissioning of more complex systems. So, that’s something we’re working towards to achieve as well—once we get the standard accepted, once it’s ISO certified, then we can work towards putting together a certification body as well—so that we can have individuals certified to the ICA Global Commissioning Standard as well.
“What’s the added value of RFDC—ready for dynamic commissioning?” Yeah—this is maybe one of the lesser important milestones. I can see that the more critical one is commissioning—or construction complete. This one can sometimes get blurred between static commissioning and dynamic commissioning, but when it comes to your digitalization and implementation of your commissioning process in commissioning software, RFDC does become more important—because it is a very specific milestone that needs to be achieved to confirm checklists are complete, there’s no outstanding Type A deficiencies, or any of the Type Bs are tracked and monitored later in the project. So, when you’re implementing in commissioning software, then RFDC is very important to make sure that that gate in the commissioning process is achieved before moving to the next sequence.
“What about completion and commissioning?” So, yeah—that’s all defined in the ICA Global Commissioning Standard—our construction completions is fully defined as well as our commissioning on-site workflows for static and dynamic commissioning. So, definitely get your hands on the standard because it’s all fully defined in what that transition looks like from area-based construction to systems-based completion.
“Currently, we find a lack of strategy for startup process.” Absolutely—and it’s hard on projects, right? If you don’t have an idea of how you’re going to start up your projects or what energization sequences you’re going to follow or what your introduction of process fluids are going to be like, then you’re scrambling at the end of projects—and that needs to be defined during project concept stages or project FEED stages. You need to know how you’re going to start up your project before you go design and build it. If you go design and build your project, but none of that aligns with your startup sequence, then you’re guaranteed delays—very expensive delays. You’ve maybe heard the term—you need to plan projects from right to left, right? Pick your in-service date, and then the first thing to define is your startup sequence. Your startup sequence defines everything earlier in the project and the sequences that are needed to align with commissioning and startup. If you’re not starting with your startup sequence and your energization sequence, then you’re heading for chaos—guaranteed. You need to plan that startup sequence and plan that strategy before you even award any contracts on your project.
“It’s great to see a standard drawing a line between pre-commissioning and commissioning—thanks, Paul—great session.” Absolutely—it’s not well understood—that’s why we’ve developed this standard—to make it well understood. Everything’s in the standard—there’s no ambiguity. Get your hands on the standard and check it out, and you’ll see the distinction between the various stages of commissioning, and you have the tool to write your contract—so that you can enforce these gates, enforce these boundaries, and go through a properly structured commissioning process.
“A very specific advice or skill sets to develop for a PLC programmer/automation engineer who wanted to transition to a commissioning leadership role—any case study to refer on the implementation of ICA Commissioning Standards?” Good—absolutely. So, this standard that we’ve written here—this is how projects are completed. This isn’t like some magical new process that’s a new way to complete projects, right? This is the way to complete projects—so it’s proven, it’s been used on many projects before. This is the way to transition from area-based construction to systems-based completion. So, there’s tons of case studies that can be brought forward and shown how this systems-based completion process is the de facto way to complete projects.
With regards to the first part of your question—any specific advice or skill sets to develop for PLC programmers—so, you’ve got lots of great testing experience, which is super helpful and valuable on projects. The next thing you need is to elevate some of those testing skill sets into a commissioning process—which is as defined in the standard. So, get your hands on the standard and definitely read it—check it out—you’ll understand a lot more about what this commissioning process is all about. If you’re looking for some additional help on learning and understanding commissioning and what this process is, then check out our training courses. You can start with our free beginner courses in the members’ area of the Industrial Commissioning Association, and then, like I mentioned, you can check out the intermediate course or the advanced course if you really want to accelerate your learning and get a handle on this commissioning process as fast as possible.
“ITPs, SOPs?” So, ITPs—inspection test plans—yep, that’s a term that’s sometimes used on projects. Inspection test record is the terminology that we’ve standardized on—being the two types of inspection checklists—the A-check checklists that are used by construction groups before construction complete, and the B-inspection test records used by commissioning groups after construction complete. SOPs are more so an operating term—standard operating procedures—those will get written as part of our operational readiness processes to confirm that plant operators are ready for operation of the new facilities. Certainly, there’s some SOPs that are written and used during our commissioning sequences—particularly in maybe some of the complex power systems where we do need very specific switching procedures developed—so those are definitely developed as well.
“How to get in-line systems since the beginning of the project—let’s say FEED—to align engineering, procurement, and construction?” Yep—so that’s all outlined in the standard of exactly how that works—the documents that need to be defined during early stages of the project—your project commissioning plan and your commissioning execution plan, your division of responsibility matrix—all of these need to be defined before contracts are written and contracts are awarded for any of our design or construction contracts. That’s the method to do that—is to get involved in projects during early project concept phases and FEED phases—so that those processes can take place and align all later stages of the project.
“Assignment of terms and conditions, scope, and responsibility is really important.” Yep—and unfortunately, when we look at a lot of contracts on projects, they’re pretty light on commissioning details, right? Everybody’s excited at the beginning of projects—they want to get contracts awarded, they want to get the project started, and they’re not necessarily thinking about commissioning taking place two or three or four years later, right? They think, “Ah, we’ll figure that out later”—always leads to disaster. The contracts need to not only be used as a tool to start the project, but they need to be used as a tool to finish the project—and it’s the reason that commissioning needs to be involved early—is so that contracts are aligned for a strong finish during commissioning later in projects.
“It’s not clearly for good part of project manager—the commissioning intelligence needs stay integrated in all phases of the project.” Absolutely—yeah, I’ve been involved right from the beginning of multi-billion-dollar projects, and I’ve never been bored as the commissioning manager—there’s always lots going on, right? During project FEED stages to get ready for commissioning at the end of projects—there’s lots to do, there’s lots going on—and that’s exactly the point—is commissioning managers need to be involved early in projects to plan for project success.
“Scope and responsibility—especially between construction team and commissioning team—especially in correcting construction errors.” Yep—and the problem with involving commissioning folks later in projects is if you define this system handover function to the commissioning groups after they’ve already started—well, they’ve already made their plans, they’ve already got their equipment procurement lead times arranged, they’ve already arranged their large workforces to do the work—and if the commissioning folks show up halfway through construction and start talking about, “Well, we need this changed, and we need this system”—of course, they’re going to be upset. They’re getting information that they should have had probably a year or two prior—so they can properly plan their work. So, it’s not fair to construction groups to involve commissioning late in projects—they need a full definition of what their work looks like—including their construction completions and systems-based completions. You can’t give them that information and expect them to just turn on a dime and make changes to align with the commissioning sequence—that’s never going to go well on projects, right? Although that’s what a lot of projects try and do—but you need a full definition of all your system completions in contracts—so that construction groups have full visibility of what success looks like during commissioning.
“Great presentation—unfortunately, most projects here in Alberta give lip service to commissioning, and it becomes an overworked word—time to switch it up.” Agreed—yep, very common on projects and probably a very expensive mistake on projects—as everything’s scrambled at the end to try and finish because it wasn’t properly planned out at the beginning.
“SCADA system commissioning?” Yep—so definitely, that’s one important aspect of the three principal disciplines—mechanical systems, electrical systems, and automation systems—all three of these need to function together for a fully functioning system, right? Too often, we see the controls or the SCADA systems trying to integrate all of those aspects at the end of the project—and that never goes well. Everybody always overestimates the efforts to get the control systems working on projects. The best—the better way to do that—is to do that integration in the factory—with integrated factory acceptance testing—to make sure that your control and protection cubicles, your communication cubicles, your SCADA cubicles—that these things actually function in the factory—both hardware and software—before they’re shipped to site. Now, everybody’s always in a panic, right? And they want to ship the hardware to site so they can start installing it on-site—that rarely ever saves any time on projects. I’ve worked on projects—we’ve gone through all of our integrated factory acceptance testing two years prior to the in-service date—to prove that these systems actually work before they arrive at site—and that makes on-site testing so much easier and reduces so much risk on projects—to know that the equipment being shipped to site actually works. So, then we’re really only just checking for wiring errors and making sure that everything is terminated correctly—because we know all the cubicles work in advance. So, that’s my best advice on SCADA system commissioning—is plan your projects during your project concept and FEED stages—so that integration is done in the factory—so these complex control and protection systems actually function before they get to site.
“What about X inspection—is it under the construction team or the commissioning team?” X inspection sounds like a construction function—I’m not sure exactly what you’re referring to with “X”—but anything being shipped from the factory, arrival at site, confirming site receipt of any of the equipment being shipped to site—that’s all a construction function—as they’re managing the procurement of equipment as it’s being installed.
“What is the standard punch list classification and definitions?” Yep—that’s all fully defined in the standard—get a copy of the standard—all the A-type, B-type, C-type—all fully defined and how that’s managed, how that’s integrated into commissioning software, and how each of the punch classifications are tracked and closed out on projects.
“Will check sheets be standardized for valves, motor, process instruments as part of ISO certifications?” So, your best approach with that is—if you get the right commissioning software—all of these standard check sheets are all pretty much pre-loaded in there. So, you’re right—how you test a valve, how you test a motor—the checklists that are required for these—it hasn’t changed in decades, right? How you test some of the process instruments is the same today as it was largely 30 years ago, right? Unless there’s been some real technological advancements there. So, the check sheets are all the same—and if you get the right commissioning software, they’re all loaded in there—so we don’t need to spend our time writing all these checklists for each project over and over and over, right? That’s been done already—that’s a solved problem—and that already exists. So, I would check out commissioning software that you can get all these checklists already pre-loaded—and you don’t have to spend your time going through there. Whether or not they’re going to be standardized—I don’t know if that’ll ever be the case or if that ever even really needs to be the case—because the checklists exist, they’re out there, they’re in software—and I think that’s the best place to get them.
“What is the difference between commissioning test plan and commissioning test procedure—could be an SOP—who will develop normally?” So, commissioning test plan or procedure—that’s developed by the commissioning team—that’s developed during our commissioning engineering phase as part of our commissioning execution plan—all of those documents for checklists and procedures and plans are all developed as part of our CEP. Now, for an SOP—there’s definitely a set of standard operating procedures and SWP—safe working procedures—that the operations folks will require for ongoing operation and maintenance of the new facilities. The commissioning team can sometimes help with that—because we’ve gone through some of those exercises during our commissioning process—but largely, the SOPs, SWPs would be written by the operations team—so as part of your buildout of your asset management system—all of your SOPs, SWPs, maintenance procedures—is all loaded as part of our work management system—asset management system—that the operations team will use post-project for decades of reliable operation.
“Additionally—are commissioning standardization norms applicable to all fields such as railway and aerospace—could you also discuss SCADA commissioning in the railway sector?” Yep—so, regardless of what SCADA is connected to—if you’re controlling an oil and gas facility, you’re controlling a high-power system, you’re controlling a railway section—that’s the same process, right? It’s the same PLC-based control and protection systems that are managing different aspects of the system—so the steps are very much similar.
So, it’s interesting that you mentioned aerospace—so that’s my background—that’s where I started in my engineering career—was in the aerospace industry—building satellites and rockets for the Canadian Space Agency—and the aerospace industry has the highest standards for quality that need to be achieved—because when you light the rocket and launch the satellite, there is no reset switch—that hardware must work. So, we go through extensive testing on the ground to make sure that the hardware actually functions before launching the satellite into space. Now, when I transitioned to the power industry and our ground-based projects—I did not see the same level of quality and the same attention to detail on our ground-based projects, right? It was too easy to kick the can down the road and delay everything till later in projects—knowing that you could figure it out later—that wasn’t the case in the aerospace industry. So, I was quite surprised—and a little bit disappointed—with the lack of quality attention on projects on the ground—which is what’s kind of led me to pursue a career in commissioning—is to help people understand the importance of quality and the importance of this stuff working in the end—so that we can leverage—or I can take some of my commissioning experience from the aerospace industry into our ground-based projects—and hopefully elevate the quality standards and commissioning standards that exist on our ground-based projects—so we can get to those higher levels of commissioning reliability that we see in the aerospace industry.
So, I would say the aerospace industry is the market leader in the best commissioning processes and best quality standards that you’ll see out there—and all of the other industries that we’re working on need to strive and achieve to reach those same levels. So, the oil and gas industry is fairly well-developed—it’s still not as cutting-edge or leading as the aerospace industry in quality and commissioning processes and standards—but because of the obvious hazards that exist in the oil and gas industry—and the logistical challenges of working off-site—the oil and gas industry has had to develop a lot of these functions and processes for reliable systems in the end. We don’t necessarily see that in some of the other industries—the power industry, in the water or wastewater treatment plant industries—some of these industries are a little bit further behind the aerospace and oil and gas industries—but that’s the ultimate goal—where we need all project industries to get to—is higher levels of quality and higher levels of commissioning—and now everyone has a standard that sets the bar on what commissioning excellence looks like—so get a copy of the standard and definitely apply it to projects.
“What about preservation—who’s responsible?” So, that’s all defined in our commissioning execution plan—there’s a specific document on preservation—that’s a sub-document that exists as part of our commissioning execution plan—so definitely get that template document template that exists in the members’ area of the Industrial Commissioning Association—that’s planned during our commissioning engineering on who’s responsible for preservation and how those processes are going to take place—a lot of the preservation activities would be responsible from construction groups—as they’re completing their construction activities—to maintain integrity of the systems—and that the proper quality levels—cleanliness levels—is all being handed over to the commissioning team—and that’s all defined upfront in our commissioning execution plan.
“Control industrial process and critical infrastructure—locally or at remote location—monitor, gather, and process real-time data—directly interact with devices such as sensors, valves—all of that stuff?” Yep—your control systems are often overlooked on projects—and definitely, you need a focus on how you’re going to stage that for local commissioning and then remote commissioning into control rooms—or even off-site commissioning for centrally located operational facilities—definitely requires some strategic planning upfront to make sure that goes well.
So, that’s a good clarification here—”The safety checks?” Yep—that’s one of the standard documents that we will go through a little bit later in this five-part series—is “Safety and Risk Management”—there are some critical safety processes that need to be followed—for SIMOPs, for HAZOPs, for HASID, HAZID functions—that are all part of your HSSE project safety planning—and we’ll go through that in a later session—to make sure that that is all well understood and planned for—so that work all takes place in a safe manner.
“After account creation, the page takes you to a course page?” Hmmm—I’m not sure about that—if you—once you sign up and get a separate email with your username and password—then it’s as simple as using that username and password to log into the members’ area—and it’s all in there—you’ll see an icon where you can download the standard—and all nine documents are there for you to download—so use that username and password—you can log into the members’ area and get access to everything in there.
Okay—lots of good questions from everybody—I appreciate all the engagement, all the questions—it’s great to see so many leaders in the commissioning industry that are striving for excellence on commissioning and completion of projects. So, that’s the end of today’s session and hope to see you next week, this same time, for part two of our live commissioning workshop series. In the meantime, log into the members’ area, get access to the standard, check out our YouTube channel—and check out the training courses if you’re interested—that way you can get all this commissioning information in your hands and start excelling in your commissioning career—to be able to apply these best practices and lessons learned to your project. Thanks a lot, everyone—and I’ll see you next week!
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