Mike: Good morning, afternoon, and evening. My name is Mike Kilburn. I’m the VP of Regional Governance for North America for ICXA. I’m joined today by Ed Reynolds, the VP of Completions, Commissioning, and Start Up for Kent, for our Commissioning Conversation with Leaders series.
It’s great to have you here, Ed. Why don’t you give us a little background on yourself and Kent, if you don’t mind?
Ed: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Mike. Great to be on.
As you said, I’m our VP for Completions, Commissioning, and Start Up for Kent in the Americas. It is a bit of a tongue twister, so CCS for short.
I’ve been with the organization since 2011. I started with a previous version of Kent called Kentz back in Canada and worked in the oil sands for some time. Then I worked in the office for a number of years.
After that, I joined Kentech, which is also a previous company of Kent, and went to Kazakhstan for a number of years. I worked on the FGP project there for TCO. Then I returned just over three and a half years ago back to North America to lead the VP role for Kent commissioning.
So, yeah, it’s been a long history with the organization.
Mike: That’s amazing. Like I said, quite a journey, but a good journey.
Just a quick housekeeping item for the people listening. If you have any questions for Ed or myself, we won’t be answering them during this, but please feel free to reach out to us on LinkedIn and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
With that being said, let’s jump into some of these questions. Ed, Kent describes commissioning as the point where projects become reality. From your perspective, why is it important for companies that live and breathe commissioning to engage with professional organizations such as ICxA?
Ed: You’re right, Mike. I think commissioning is definitely where projects become reality. You’ve already designed, engineered, and constructed. So when commissioning is involved in the execution phase, you’re really starting to see the project come alive.
I think for an organization like ICxA, it’s important because it builds a platform for companies like Kent and peers in the industry to share lessons learned, challenges, experiences, and practices. That ultimately supports the development of commissioning as a profession. From a Kent perspective, engagement is important because it allows us to contribute what we’ve learned from executing major projects around the globe, but also gives us an opportunity to listen and understand where the profession is going.
ICxA provides that platform. I think it’s also worth noting that engagement before adoption is a really healthy thing. You can develop the standards and the frameworks, but ultimately they need to stand up in real-world execution. Those synergies exist in the relationship between Kent and ICxA.
Mike: That’s awesome. Like you say, standardizing and getting that feedback to make sure things are done the same way, or updated to make sure everything is done correctly, is great.
Kent has built a significant global reputation in that CCS world. What do you hope Kent can contribute to the broader commissioning profession through its relationship with ICxA?
Ed: Mike, I think similar to the previous point, it is that practical experience. Kent has worked on a lot of major projects across the globe, across different geographies and industries.
It is an opportunity to share those lessons and help bridge the gap between the theoretical side of commissioning and what is actually happening out in the field. I think that is really where the main benefits for contribution are.
Mike: That’s great. To your first point, in regard to when projects become reality, Kent strongly advocates bringing commissioning expertise or experts into projects during concept, pre-FEED, and FEED, rather than waiting until construction is nearing completion. What difference does early commissioning involvement make to safety, cost, schedule, and ultimately startup performance?
Ed: I’m passionate about this response, or this question in general. I believe it is definitely cheaper to solve a commissioning problem early than it is late, and that comes through prevention at a later stage. If commissioning gets involved at pre-FEED or FEED, you can really influence systemization, testing requirements, turnover strategy, and the sequencing of systems for handover.
If you wait and don’t have that influence at the start, and you wait until construction is nearly complete to involve commissioning, a lot of those opportunities for decisions have been lost. Then it is either too late or really expensive to make those changes.
Commissioning shouldn’t be something that suddenly appears at the end of a construction schedule. It really should influence the overall design of the facility and how the project is executed entirely. Done properly, that gives you what is most important: safer execution, considerably fewer surprises, and ultimately a much more predictable schedule for startup.
Mike: For sure. I agree 100%. You can streamline that process right from day one to the end. To your point, the cost aspect becomes a lot less because you’re understanding and fixing those problems early in the engineering phase rather than in the construction phase.
So, like you mentioned earlier in your kickoff, you have worked on a lot of major projects in different regions throughout the world and have seen commissioning from both the field and leadership perspectives. What separates projects that transition successfully from construction into operations from those that struggle at that critical stage?
Ed: I think the difference lies in understanding that construction completions and operational readiness are not the same thing. You can report 95% completion for construction and be absolutely nowhere near 95% completion for startup.
Projects that transition well typically understand systemization and have a clear, integrated handover. They know it is systemized in a way that allows the commissioning scope to be received as efficiently as possible. The projects that struggle primarily manage by bulk handover and don’t break things down into something useful for the commissioning organization. That ultimately results in lost opportunities to advance the schedule more efficiently.
If a project is going to be successful, I truly believe you need to do a backward pass on the schedule and work from the operating facility backwards, as opposed to creating a schedule after construction and building it forward. Does that make sense?
Mike: Yeah, I agree 100%. Obviously, as someone in the commissioning world, I understand this and understand the importance of it as well. As commissioning leaders, we often talk about systems, processes, and technology, but successful execution still comes down to the people.
How important are trust, communication, and team culture when a project is under pressure to reach key milestones?
Ed: That’s a good question. I think pressure does not create the culture of a project. It exposes it. When you’re dealing with a stressful environment and milestones are under pressure, you start to see cracks in the culture. You start to see people hiding problems. You start to see people debating who owns what and showing a lack of accountability.
Stronger teams will surface problems sooner and work collaboratively to get them resolved. One of my philosophies is that it is better to know bad news quickly than good news late. Given the significance of where commissioning sits, and the many interfaces it has with construction, engineering, operations, and vendors, if that culture isn’t there, it is very difficult. That comes with trust and communication. Technology and processes matter enormously, but at the end of the day, it is people who have to make the tough decisions.
Mike: Yeah, 100%. From that team, you want to have someone who is willing to give you the bad news early so you can work on it instead of waiting until the last minute.
Kind of in the same vein as people, Kent’s commissioning offering includes technician competency verification and training programs. How important is having a consistent, industry-recognized approach to competency as commissioning becomes more established as a profession?
Ed: This is a space that I’m actually pretty passionate about, given the experience I’ve had on a number of projects where competency was a key focus for ourselves and our client. Greater consistency around competency is important as commissioning develops as a profession. You can have a job title and 20 years of experience, but that doesn’t specifically demonstrate competency in that particular role.
For me, competency is a combination of knowledge, experience, and demonstrated capability. There needs to be a better way of verifying that competency. I think greater industry alignment around how we define it and demonstrate those competencies has considerable value in commissioning.
Mike: I agree. As most know, ICxA does offer the certification portion of the platform, which is good. You have the academic portion of it along with the work history and experience that tie into it, which helps.
For someone entering commissioning today, there are more formal career paths and professional certifications available than many of us knew and worked on earlier in our careers. What value do you see in organizations such as ICxA helping define those pathways for commissioning professionals?
Ed: Personally speaking, and I think you can probably relate, a lot of us entered the industry when there wasn’t a clear career path.
You came in through a discipline, whether electrical, mechanical, instrumentation, or something else, and you found yourself on a commissioning team. Your experience was gained through real-life project execution and good mentors.
There is an opportunity to build on some of the work that has been done to create clearer career pathways. If you come in as a technician and want to progress into a lead tech, supervisor, specialist, or ultimately a leadership role, it is great to see organizations like ICxA help provide that structure. Ultimately, commissioning is an applied profession, so the two go hand in hand. It is great to see that structure, but real-world experience executing projects in the field is also a massive contributor.
Mike: For sure. I agree with that. You began your career, like most of us, close to the tools and progressed into a commissioning leadership role. What lessons from your time in the field still influence the way you lead teams today?
Ed: Thinking back to the days when I was in the field and executing, probably the biggest lesson is respecting the knowledge that comes from the field. At the end of the day, it is the technician out there executing the work. They have visibility into some of the issues that leadership might not be seeing.
There is a tendency, when you’re not out in the field and you’re in a leadership role, to rely heavily on data, dashboards, and reporting tools, and not really take into consideration what is happening in the real world. The farther I’ve moved away from the tools in the organization, the more I’ve found it is important to stay connected with what is actually happening. Listen first to the teams.
This is a message I relate to our organization on the project management side as well: listen to what’s happening, use the data, but don’t rely on it solely. Use that combination to make the right decisions.
Mike: For sure. To your point, the data is one part, but the field sometimes tells the true story. You have to listen to them as well and take both of those inputs together to figure out the true story.
Kent is investing in digital commissioning, commissionability, data-driven planning, and AI-enabled tools. Where do you see technology generally improving commissioning, and where will human judgment always remain essential?
Heinz: This is a fascinating space to be in for commissioning. Those in the industry have seen, over the last number of years, a massive transition to digitalization and data. How do we get that data, and what do we do with it?
From a digitalization perspective, we’ve been transitioning out of spreadsheets and paper and into digital formats. Whether it is reporting, where you’re seeing tools like Power BI as the front-end reporting tool for completions data, or transitions from hard-copy work packs to tablet form, it has been interesting to see. But we are now very clearly in another step change in technology and innovation in the commissioning space.
AI adoption is something everybody is talking about right now. Previously, the digitalization movement was very good at telling you what happened today. I think AI is going to be really good at telling you what needs to happen tomorrow and in future days of a project life cycle. That is really interesting to see. At Kent, we’re heavily investing in that future and what it looks like.
You can look at procedure development, documentation interrogation, systemization review, and readiness analysis. I think AI is going to play a significant role in all of those aspects. But we need to be very careful around the boundaries of AI and the human interface. While it is fascinating and exciting to see the change and innovation that will happen over the next number of years with AI, we need to recognize it as a tool, not an owner.
At the end of the day, there needs to be a human element of accountability. I’m fearful that we could lose the aspect of responsibility, where an individual actually owns what has been developed, guided, or referenced by AI. If something happens on a project and AI supported that, responsibility and accountability still need to sit with the leader and owner, not with AI. I don’t think it is fair to point the finger at technology. We still need to hold that responsibility.
Mike: I agree 100%. Like you say, it is another tool you carry in your toolbox, not something you should rely on 100%. You still need that trust-but-verify aspect, where the human is still involved, supporting and reviewing it. To your point, at the end, good and bad, you have to take the results of it.
Across the Americas, Kent is supporting increasingly complex energy infrastructure, from LNG to conventional to emerging energy transition projects. Looking ahead five to ten years, what do you think will change most about the way commissioning is planned, led, and executed?
Ed: Definitely. If you look at Moore’s Law in relation to technology advancements, I feel like the next five to ten years are going to have a considerable jump in how we execute projects. I feel like there are four aspects. We are going to execute quicker. Everything will be more digital. We will be more predictive and less reactive. Ultimately, the commissioning space will be more professionalized.
When I reference speed, urgency, and being quicker, I think there are opportunities to reduce the scheduled timeline around project deliverables. That is where AI is going to have heavy involvement, just reducing the administrative hours currently being relied upon by SMEs to build out deliverables. We can use SMEs to focus on verifying quality. That labor-intensive and time-consuming aspect can see increased productivity and efficiency, and a reduced schedule when it comes to planning.
Obviously, everything is shifting to digital. It is just an easier way to access the data, and it will all be in one place. From a predictability perspective, and as referenced before, AI can make that data smart. I really feel like there is space in planning where we can have live planning of an execution schedule, where we track progress on a daily basis, interpret that, take all the data coming in from the project, and find opportunities we may not have found before to improve the schedule timeline. I think that is definitely something we are going to see.
When I talk about professionalizing, we’ve talked about competency verification. I think competency standards are growing and providing better career pathways for people coming into the industry. There will also be greater recognition of commissioning as a discipline. Depending on geography, industry, and client, it varies. I think getting better recognition and understanding of what commissioning does and how it contributes to a project is going to improve.
Mike: For sure. To your point, the more commissioning gets involved and is seen as a leader within projects, instead of just another thing that gets added on, the more that speaks to the credibility of the profession. ICxA is supporting that with help from companies like Kent, so that’s great.
I’m going to hit you with a couple of lightning round, quick one-answer questions here.
One word that describes a great commissioning team.
Ed: Trust
Mike: That’s good. You have to trust the person beside you. The most underrated skill in commissioning?
Ed: In commissioning, and I think in organizations, communication. Bad communication can destroy a project or a team. Good communication can really change the dynamic of an organization and a project.
Mike: For sure. Even to your previous points, it is communication in general. Having the foresight to bring information forward, whether it is good or bad, and having open lines with everybody.
Here’s another one: technology or experience, which matters most when the pressure is on?
Ed: I am always going to lean toward experience, though I think in this day and age it can be enabled by technology. There are enough resources there to really bolster experience, but fundamentally I think experience.
Mike: I agree with that. Experience kind of takes it, but it is being supported by technology. What’s one lesson every commissioning leader learns eventually?
Ed: Trust what is coming from the field. Don’t ignore it.
Mike: I like that one. What advice would you give your younger self starting out in the field?
Ed: Listen, stay curious, and probably be more patient.
Mike: That’s good. I think we can all learn from listening, especially when you talk about experience and mentorship. The people who have been there know or have seen a lot of it.
You have to digest what they put forward too, because sometimes it is a little jaded based on their experience. But patience goes a long way too. I’ve seen a lot of people who have been around for a long time, and people who are just getting in, and their patience is short with some people.
Ed: Even in the capacity of being patient around knowing that things are actually not that bad. Projects go up and down. There are moments of stress and you’re under pressure, but having the patience to get through it and understand that you will get to the other side matters.
Mike: That’s good. We’re getting to the end here, and I am conscious of your time. I have two more questions for you.
The first one should be quick. Finish this sentence: great commissioning starts with…
Ed: Great people
Mike: There we go. That’s good. I like that one.
I’ll do a closing question here and then we’ll wrap it up. After more than two decades in the industry and working on major projects around the world, what still excites you most about commissioning and developing the people who will lead the profession next?
Ed: While I’m not as close to the ground as I used to be, I still get excited about a project finally coming to startup. A lot of the projects we’ve worked on over the last number of years at Kent have been major projects with huge teams over two-, three-, or four-year durations. Finally getting to the point where all your hard work has been realized definitely excites me.
Since moving out of more of a field role and into more of a leadership role, my focus has been on people development. I’ve always advocated for personal and career development. It is something I’m really passionate about. When I see someone put their hand up for an opportunity, or I see them investing in themselves, and they need support, I will always be there for that.
That excites me: taking my own journey and being able to use that experience and knowledge to help someone else at the start of their career path. That is really what fulfills me.
Mike: For sure. To your point, that startup window, when you’re starting to get to that point, is the most exciting part of the project. I do agree with your point around mentorship of people who are willing to come and reach out to you.
I think it takes a special person to see someone like yourself, maybe in the position you hold, and be willing to take that chance and say, “I’m going to reach out to you and ask a question.” From our standpoint, when someone does that, you have to give them the time. When we were in their situation, we knew it wasn’t easy to reach out to somebody at an executive level, because the perception is they don’t have time for people in the field.
But making that time makes your team stronger.
Ed: I am a product of having mentors, support, believing in myself, being given those opportunities, and seeing the career path in front of me. I’m personally very appreciative of those opportunities I was given. Anything I can do to help, I’m passionate about.
Mike: With that being said, I’d like to thank you for your time. For all the listeners who had questions, please reach out to either myself or Ed on LinkedIn. If you want to know anything about ICxA, please go to icxa.net.
Cheers, and have a great day, everyone.
Ed: Thank you, everyone. Thanks, Mike.
Mike: Take care.
Visit icxa.net for more information.