The ICA Global Commissioning Standard is now available for download. I had a good chat with my good friend Crawford Weir. Crawford is one of the leading commissioning experts, and we discussed how the ICA Global Commissioning Standard can help you and your projects.
Paul: Crawford, how are you doing today?
Crawford: Alright, well, yeah, it’s a sunny day in Houston, so all is well.
Paul: And cold in winter here in Manitoba, right in the depths of winter here. So, we’ve been working on a commissioning standard for the last little while. It’s been quite a bit of work to put together a commissioning standard. We’ve been working on—why don’t you tell the viewers kind of what we’ve been working on in the last several months?
Crawford: Yeah, certainly, Paul. So, what’s been happening is, you know, Paul and I, and many people here, are very committed commissioning professionals. But we feel there’s not really been a standard for commissioning as such. You know, there’s a lot of documents out there, there’s a lot of books, there’s a lot of literature, but we’re not seeing that standardized. There was a document from quite a number of years ago called API 1 FSC, which was a good entry document—like a Commissioning 101, you might say. So, you could say this is a move on from that. This has spawned over the last four or five years, Paul, with the CPS—the Commissioning Professional Society. We did some seminars and some conferences, trying to bring together commissioning from a ground level up. After that, you know, Paul kept it going, and I managed to be able to help him. We’ve developed this nine-volume process over the last three to six months. It’s gone through a lot of reviews by a lot of SMEs across the industry, taking all their comments, and it was issued this week. It’s free, so I’ll leave it at that, Paul, and we can come back to you for some more on the documents.
Paul: It’s definitely seemed like there’s been a gap in the industry for sure. I don’t think there’s anybody that would disagree that commissioning is very well understood on projects, right? The people that are in commissioning generally understand the process, but construction groups, design groups, project management groups—it’s almost kind of like a black box. It’s not well understood at all. I felt that some of the legacy information out there left some things to be desired. There were gaps in the process; it didn’t fully define the complete commissioning process, particularly at the beginning of projects. Commissioning is often viewed as an end-of-project testing process when it’s really a process that spans the entire duration of projects. So, that’s what prompted us to develop the Industrial Commissioning Association Commissioning Standard—to give that holistic process that spans the entire duration of projects. And yeah, like you mentioned, Crawford, we’ve had a group of about 20 industry experts from all over the world, from various industries—from oil and gas to power industries, to data centers, transportation, manufacturing—all the industry experts, with the intention to collect the commissioning wisdom of the world and compile it into this commissioning document. So, it’s been a great learning experience, great to reach out to a whole bunch of people. So, maybe, Crawford, why does the industry need this commissioning standard? What’s kind of been out there, what gaps does this fill, and why should someone go get this standard for their projects?
Crawford: Things here, Paul, I’d like to touch on is that, as you said, commissioning, for a lot of people, a lot of projects, starts at mechanical completion—which is a terrible term we’ll talk about later because we’re talking about retiring that term. But people don’t see the value of the upfront engineering. In the industry—I’m mainly an oil and gas guy, touched on mining, I’ve touched on renewables, LNG—and I think the feedback was that people think this crack commissioning team just parachutes in when construction’s almost done and works the magic. So, there’s a great deal of work and planning that goes in at the front, from concept development. We talked about that in the standard. I don’t think we should look at this as much as this is aimed at all the commissioning professionals out there—and there’s a lot of them and a lot of talent—but it also needs to talk to the decision-makers, the money people, the project managers, directors. They’ve got to understand it as well. So, it’s not just about providing something for our peers and like-minded folks; we need to, you might say, spread the word to the whole industry at all levels. We’ve got to set the tone here for what commissioning is, what commissioning does, how important it is, and what’s the ultimate value for a flawless startup and stay-up on any project.
Paul: That’s a big part of what we’re up to here—spreading the word. That’s why the standard is free. In today’s age of information, we want to get this information out, use the internet to spread the message, spread the word, and help people understand commissioning. So, there’s no cost to access the standard. Get a copy and check it out, and I’m sure it will certainly help you on projects. So, from your perspective, Crawford, what was one of the reasons or the driving forces that made you one of the contributing members to this groundbreaking standard?
Crawford: Well, you know, you see the hair—the hair is getting gray and I’m getting older. I’ve been in the commissioning industry for a lot of years, on a collection of projects globally, working for a lot of the major companies. I think I’ve seen how it’s done in many places. I’ve agreed and disagreed with how it’s done in many places. I’ve had the barrels, we’ve had the laughter, we’ve had the tears. So, I think when you talk to most people, most people share a common goal about doing the best job they can to bring them online—you know, flawless startup, that type of thing. So, for me to get involved with something like this was to spread the knowledge that I’ve gotten over the years. I’ve had a lot of great teachers over the years—I won’t name them all here, but the people watching, they know me, they know who they are. They’ve been part of my success in commissioning work. So, you want to give something back to the people. Like you said, it’s free. It’s something that projects can bring in. You can use it as a complete suite of how to do your project, you can use it as a template for how to do it, and you can use it in many different ways. It’s not rigid. I think it’s there, and it’ll be evergreen as we go on. There are a lot of people that have not seen this yet—they’ve not read it, they’ve not heard about it—so they will undoubtedly come back with feedback to you, me, and others, maybe better ways and slicker ways of doing it. We’ll definitely update that as we go on. So, the idea is it’s a living document that is going to help projects deliver globally in any industry.
Paul: That’s a big part of it for me too—giving back to the industry, right? There are lots of wise industry experts, and commissioning experts out there, but a lot of them are retiring as well, right? They may be mentoring one or two junior engineers on a project. This is a way that I’ve thought to get this information out there more widespread and in the hands of people that are maybe just starting out in their commissioning career—to see what the phases are, the handover model, and kind of best practices. As projects continue to get more and more complex, it’s definitely a complex process that does require a structured approach—certainly a structured approach to successfully complete today’s mega projects. How would you expect a project team to—they’ve got their hands on this standard—what could they do with it? How would they use it on their projects?
Crawford: Well, if you look at the standard as it stands now, we’re sitting at nine volumes, but you know, we started with six. Through the rigorous review process, it was decided to break it down some more. The idea is it needs to be a simplified version—it needs to be simple to read so people will want to read it. But I think most people reading this who’ve worked in it initially for a year, I don’t think we’re telling anybody anything they don’t already know. I think what we’re doing is packaging it up and maybe sorting out the terminologies. We’re supplying you with the three main roles and responsibilities in ICA 3, we’re looking at on-site testing in 6, and then you go right into the end—we’ve got ICA 9, lessons learned and continuous improvement. So, it’s a really comprehensive process that’s been developed here. For some projects, maybe they’re just missing one of those aspects in their existing setups. So, they go, “Oh, we’ve normally got the safety and risk management module,” but they just look at that one. Maybe it’s one, maybe it’s five, maybe it’s the whole suite. I think that’s the thing about it—it’s standalone or as a complete package. It can really fit and should be able to fit into most companies and most models, whether you’re a small company or one of the existing supermajors. They could definitely take something from it as well.
Paul: There are some updates, maybe on some of the historical or legacy things that have existed in the industry. For example, ICA 002—the concepts are all the same. Like you said, nobody’s going to be too shocked by any of the concepts in there, but there are some terminology updates that are worthwhile to indicate. Some of the terms—for example, “mechanical completion” has existed in the industry forever and it’s pretty ingrained in the industry, but it doesn’t really truly represent that construction completion milestone. So, this is a bit of a refresh to adopt some new terminology going forward, and I think it’s probably where the industry should migrate to eventually. What are your thoughts on dropping some of those legacy terms that may have existed in the industry and are kind of outdated?
Crawford: I think, you know, to want to go forward and improve, and for continuous improvement, I think like all industries, we’re littered with terms that have two or three meanings that confuse people. One of my sort of ones that I cannot—or struggle with writing and it kind of gets on me a little bit—is the word “pre-commissioning.” It’s got so many meanings. Pre-commissioning can mean doing the beach—it’s actually about the part that we traditionally call mechanical completion and dynamic commissioning. Then that also has a different meaning if you work in the offshore subsea industry. A lot of the service companies that provide a lot of what they call pre-commissioning work is like flushing and bolt torquing. So, I think that’s a term that’s got many meanings, and it can be very confusing if you come to a new company or a new project. The first thing you’ve got to do is learn a whole new playbook of terms—it’s probably like going to a new team and learning a new playbook, some new tactics. So, I think the biggest one—and we saw some feedback on some of the LinkedIn posts—was on “mechanical completion.” That seems to be one of the cornerstones of the industry that we’re daring to take a sledgehammer to. But a few years ago, a guy I worked with, a good commissioning manager, I heard him use the term “construction complete,” and I kind of liked that. I thought, “Well, that’s good. It’s construction complete, not mechanically complete, not instrument complete, not electrically complete—it is construction complete,” and then moved it. So, I think this is good. I think some people will find it hard, but with change, there are always people who don’t like change, you know? But I think our reasons for doing that are justified. I think the majority of people get it and support it. People ask, “What are the comments saying?” Well, it’s ingrained in contractual language. It will be in these contracts, but in 10 years, it probably won’t be—just “construction complete.” So, we’ll move forward, we’ll improve, and we’ll hopefully standardize the terminology, and we’ll all be talking the same language—the commissioning language.
Paul: That’s a good point, yeah. The industry isn’t going to standardize overnight, but it’s cool to achieve, right? As the next new contract is written, it can adopt some of these more modern terms and maybe drop some of the legacy ones. One thing I hear from everybody I talk to is, “Wouldn’t it be fantastic if there was a standardized approach to commissioning on all projects?” Because it’s super challenging for people to go from one project to the next because there is no standardization, right? It’s learning a whole new set of terminology, it’s going through a differently structured process. When industry experts are in such high demand, it makes it really challenging for people to move from one project to another because it’s always different on every project. What are your thoughts on that, Crawford, on at least making it easier for the industry to have a common understanding?
Crawford: Well, I think we could talk about projects and commissioning all day. I think if you look at the other functions—project controls, construction, procurement—I think we all fight similar battles over functions. So, I think if we can do something, we can concentrate on the commissioning world as we’re doing now. We can standardize this and get that language there and make projects more viable, simpler, and improve the bottom line as well. I mean, if you look at how we do these projects, you know, we’re going to say, “Fail to plan, and you’re planning to fail.” You do the setup, you can be ready to go, and I think most people would agree with that. So, once we get this started, once project managers, construction managers, and procurement managers understand the basics of our process—what we do—I think that’s been part of the problem. Commissioning can be seen as a bit of a boogeyman: “What do these guys do? When do they show up?” So, I think we need to do a lot of PR as well, which is what some of the corporations you and I were involved with did. It was bringing in mixed groups—not just commissioning people—into seminars: what commissioning is, what it can do. Meet the people—it would make projects simpler. Because at the end of the day, we’re the last guys in line. We start off dark and are the last part before operations. So, we’ve got a foot in operations and the project side of the business. We’ve got a vested interest. To me, it’s about educating the project management, the decision-makers. I’ve had a couple of experiences where I’ve used my APEX process just to explain how it works—the engineering planning phase and then the execution phase. When you talk to people who don’t really understand that, I’ve seen the light bulbs come on. So, these 9 documents leverage a little bit of that as well. Again, it’s just about getting it out there, educating everybody—including myself—and making us better communicators as well as commissioning people, making us better commissioning professionals. So we can communicate better in the early stages of what it needs, in the middle stages to execute, and in the late stages to execute. That’s a big responsibility as well. We can talk about how we’re misunderstood, but obviously, we’ve got to take a step back. This will help us communicate that in a very coherent and succinct way to the other functions.
Paul: This was written with that in mind—as a tool to help everyone on projects understand. So, it’s written in a way that project managers, project sponsors, and executives can take any one of these documents and get a better understanding of what this commissioning process is really all about. Maybe project teams are using this to define their workflows or on-site commissioning, but others may choose to take it and use it as a communication tool to help them explain to others on their project why they’re asking for commissioning involvement early in projects or why they’re asking for commissioning software or those things, for example. So that all people on projects can see the value and importance that commissioning provides to projects.
Crawford: Yeah, so digitalization now is becoming a big part of it, and AI too. These things will start to come in as we progress forward. There’s a big world out there, and I’m seeing more and more traditional commissioning jobs—oil and gas, power plants, mining-type things—but also data centers and gigafactories. It’s really starting to open up, and the commissioning world is spreading across. So, I think in the next five years, there’ll be so many new concepts, so many new industries coming along. A lot of these are startups, and we’re now dealing with startups. I worked for a few companies a few years back, and they don’t have any process for just about anything. They’ve got a process for construction, they’ve got a process for procurement, but no process for commissioning. So, there’s definitely a gap in the industry here where the ICA 9 volumes can be helpful.
Paul: Digitalization is an important topic because projects continue to get more complex. As there’s more technology and more integration, this standard was built with digitalization in mind. This nine-set of documents defines the commissioning process, but we’ll likely also have a companion document that shows people how to digitalize this commissioning process as well as the contractual implementation of this commissioning process. A lot of times, we see that at the beginning of projects, commissioning is kind of an afterthought and not really incorporated into contracts quite correctly. So, some guidance from the front-end development and commissioning strategy is certainly a good aspect to consider on projects. One thing I’ve found in some of the previous or legacy commissioning standards is there’s definitely not much—or if any—explanation of the early commissioning engineering phases that take place very early in projects. Maybe that’s one of the reasons that commissioning is thought to be just testing at the end. But what are your thoughts, Crawford, on the explanation of the critical early aspects of commissioning that are required in projects?
Crawford: As I said earlier, I saw a process that I used, and if you think about it—using the iceberg analogy—everybody sees that 10-20% above the water, which is what I call “commissioning execution.” That’s what we’re talking about: the field staff, the loops, the dynamic tests, the performance tests. But the 80% lies below the water—the early setup, that engineering phase. That’s being involved in concept development, being involved when you’ve decided, “We’re building a rig here,” or “We’re building an FPSO,” or “We’re doing an extension in an existing field,” or “a new plant.” It talks about that part—it’s all about setting up the project. That’s your map, your roadmap, your project-level documents, your execution plans, down to setting up all your drawings, your logs, getting right through your involvement with engineering, setting up your completions database, getting reject sheets assigned, building your schedule, building your processes and procedures. So, that could be daunting. When you see it as the iceberg scenario, it looks like a lot of work. But you find that it’s a lot of activities, but it’s not a lot of work in the grand scheme. As you said, it’s about 20% of the commissioning cost, but it’s a very important part because it’s the building block for the successful execution of startups. We do talk about this in the standard, and I think that’s probably one of the most underrated parts of commissioning—or the most misunderstood parts. Everybody knows the execution part, everybody kind of knows—or thinks they know—all the terminologies: the on-site testing, the handover, the closeout. That’s all pretty much mainstream. But that’s the part we’ve got to do better work on. I think everybody listening to this who’s been in the positions that you and I have been in will get this. That’s what we need to do—really push that commissioning engineering and planning phase. Because without it, you’re really just showing up and hoping for the best.
Paul: That’s right, yep. And I think for some of the existing standards that are out there, they’ve never really fully defined what early commissioning is. So, in my mind, it’s no wonder that it’s not understood why commissioning needs to be involved earlier in projects—because there’s never been a document that really defines what early commissioning is. So, we’re pleased to include this now in a fully complete commissioning process in the ICA Global Commissioning Standard. Often, you’ll still hear, though, that people are making decisions—they don’t want to invest in commissioning early on projects, they see it as an additional cost that could come later on projects. What would you say to those folks, Crawford?
Crawford: Well, I think it goes back to that understanding part, Paul. I don’t think people understand—I mean, the cost of execution is pretty high because there are a lot of people there. We’ve all worked on projects where you might have hundreds of people—technicians, executioners—working in the field. So, that’s a pretty high cost when it comes to manpower. But the actual setup at the start of the project—it could look pretty daunting when you look at the number of tasks. You’ve got between 1,700 tasks to do in somewhere like a 9- to 24-month period, depending on the size of your project. But the people it takes to do that is 20% of the cost. If you think of most commissioning budgets—they’re about 4% of the total project cost—and then you take a fifth of that, you’re looking at less than 1%. It’s money well spent to set you up for success. Because, as we all know, you can pay a little bit today and do it, or you can pay a lot later on if you don’t do it. So, I think that’s another understanding we need to get across to project directors and the people who control the budgets and the grand scale of a project. It’s a really minimal cost for a really big upside at the back end.
Paul: And now we’ve got another great tool to help people with that discussion—where they can take the standard and help other people understand the importance of early commissioning involvement.
Crawford: We’re going without, Paul, on the Industrial Commissioning Association, which you actually set up and moved forward. So, do you want to just share exactly what the ICA is and how people can get involved?
Paul: Absolutely. So, anybody who’s interested in getting the standard, you can go to icxa.net. There’s a link button right at the top there—you can join the Industrial Commissioning Association. There’s no cost to join; that gets you access to the nine sets of standard documents that make up the ICA Global Commissioning Standard. Plus, there’s a resource area with lots of helpful information—all of the document templates required to implement the standard are in the members’ area. Log in and check it out. The reason we’ve built this resource is just for that reason—there does seem to be a gap in information or understanding of commissioning. So, this is our way to give back to the industry and help everybody understand this important and complex phase of projects—so that everyone’s projects can have improved project success to meet cost and schedule objectives. When you look at some of the statistics ahead of us, the global construction industry right now is, I think, at $13 trillion, and it’s expected to almost double by 2040. So, we’ve got a lot of projects to build—for environmental reasons, for electrification, for a whole host of building out the infrastructure that we need. We need to be pretty precise to make sure we’re hitting objectives on projects. Here’s another tool that people can use on their projects to hit cost and schedule objectives.
Crawford: Yeah, so we’re just looking here, Paul—we’ve got some comments coming around, so we’re going to bring a few up. Obviously, people are tuned in, which is fantastic. We kicked it off with Framed Kumar, who said, “It’s amazing to be participating in the launch,” which we’re happy to have you announce. Tony Davis is in here—so, you know, Tony was one of the reviewers of the documents. Tony’s a longtime commissioning professional and author as well, and he’s connected with David, who’s actually working on my project. So, they’ve connected—there’s a common link. We’re a very small industry here, close-knit. Then we’ve also got a right—“Positive change in corporate culture is required to complete projects successfully,” which I think we agreed on, and we kind of talked about that. Then another one of our guys, well-known dealer, Martin over at Rev 1—he’s looking forward to supporting the adoption of the standard: “Love the user-friendly jump.” Then we’ve got a deal from Michael Velina: “Looking forward—great effort, much appreciated.” So, we’ve got a little bit of folks coming in there. We also got, “Standardization of commissioning will go a long way for the community”—that’s from Man Young Gang. So, we’ve got some good folks. There’s a longer one in here: “Incredibly helpful that there was a push to begin having construction managers, planning learners, and procurement managers with previous commissioning background basically as part of their formal training.” So, there are some great comments and some great suggestions in there. Keep them coming. To say this is an evergreen document—we want to keep it going, we want to keep it improving, we want to make sure it works for us and works for everybody else. So, you can see—yeah, there’s lots of support for this initiative.
Paul: So, the best thing you can do is get a copy of the standard and share it with other people—get it in the hands of your project managers, get it in the hands of your construction folks, and share this information. That’s the intent—to get this information in the hands of as many people as possible. It’s available for anyone to access. For someone who might not be aware of it, please pass it on, share it, and get them in touch. With enough word of mouth and sharing this information, we can get it to proliferate through the industry and help everyone understand commissioning.
Crawford: It isn’t easy to read because, you know, we didn’t start with 6—some of them were in the hundreds of pages, and we decided to pare it back. We want people to be able to pick it up, read it and get through it. It’s something that if you really want to go for it, print it, put it in a binder, keep it in your office, keep it on your desk, make it available to people. Use it as a reference document—like an encyclopedia—along with some of the reviews, like Tony’s book as well, and others. So, for sure, what’s happened here is this has been created now. There’s been that cry for a long time, so it’s here. Now we’ve got the standard, it’s up to us as commissioning professionals to take it and march forward with it—use it, showcase it, get it to our projects. Once you get it to your projects, that’s when you come back and say, “Well, this could be a little better, right? I’ve got a better idea for it—we could do this.” They’ll come back, give us your ideas, we’ll build them in, and you’ll get the credit for them.
Paul: Yep, that’s the important part of this process, right? There’s a lessons-learned and continuous improvement aspect from project to project and in the standard itself—that feedback loop is very important in both of those aspects, and that’s ingrained in this standard for continuous improvement. So, yeah, it’s a tool to use and help you on your projects, and we’re excited and happy to get it in your hands.
Crawford: Good question just came up here from a LinkedIn user: “Has the standard been adopted by any of the accredited training institutes as of yet?”. I’m assuming that’s part of the agenda.
Paul: So, we do have accreditation from the Project Management Institute—we’re an authorized training partner. You’ll notice when you read the standard, there is a section in there on training to the standard. Getting the information in people’s hands is one thing; applying this standard to your projects is another. So, there are companion training courses that go along with this, accredited by the Project Management Institute of Canada, to really supplement that project management understanding. If you go through PMI’s information and get your PMP, that’s a great start to projects, but the piece that’s missing there is this commissioning process to complete projects. So, this is kind of the add-on supplement to go through the entire process on projects—not only to start from PMI’s information but actually to complete the information we’ve compiled in this standard. You can definitely check that out at icxa.net. When you download the standard, there are links right below there—you can check out any of the training options that are available as well. So, that’s maybe one thing that’s been missing in the industry and partly the reason it’s been so disjointed and non-standardized—there has never been that global authority or overseeing organization to define a fully complete commissioning process. That’s part of the gap that we’re hoping to fill here—to provide this structure for the global commissioning industry to at least have a standard to follow and standardize towards.
Crawford: Going forward, though, once people read this and try to implement it or move it to a project, we’d love to hear from you—how that’s going, the journey. Give it to Paul—definitely, we can set up a couple of these smaller podcasts so people can share their experiences of how well it’s going or how well it’s not going, or how we can help. Build a community of any type to come together and make sure we’re all pulling together and pushing in the same direction.
Paul: Yeah, the feedback has been great this week since it launched. It was available on the weekend—big influx of emails, questions, comments, and support. There’s definitely lots of interest. So, next week, we’ll also be starting a series—a meetup series—to go through each of the nine sections of the document. Anybody who wants to join the meetup series—we’ll meet as a community, go through the structure of each document, how to use it, what’s in there, and the general concepts for commissioning. We’ll have a series of those—maybe three, four, or five weekly meetups—for anyone interested to dive deeper and understand this commissioning standard. When you’re a member—if you become a member of the Industrial Commissioning Association—you’ll get all those alerts so you don’t miss any of the meetups. You can join and engage with the commissioning community. That’s what it’s really all about, right? To share knowledge with the community and get everybody’s input here to better understand commissioning.
Crawford: Yeah, that definitely is. I’ve had a lot of comments this week—one comment this morning was a really nice comment on LinkedIn from Grant Gibson. Grant Gibson is the founder and owner of GATE, one of the big commissioning companies here in the U.S. When guys like that recognize it, get behind it—and then folks like Tony and others—it tells you that we’re doing something right. It tells you that it’s something you guys have been waiting for as well. Like you said, it doesn’t matter whether you own the company or you’re just walking in the door as a technician—there’s something here for you. I know today, the modern commissioning manager is looking at it that way too. You can learn this process early and get it on board—then you should have a pretty good commissioning career ahead of you.
Paul: We definitely appreciate the support from the commissioning community. So, happy to give back and happy to provide the community with a tool to better understand commissioning.
Crawford: Don’t think that can wrap it up—I’m almost falling! It’s been an enjoyable kickoff. The week’s been great—the comments and the support from the community have been wonderful. Onward and upward, as we say—we go forward, let’s set the tone for commissioning.
Paul: Absolutely, yeah. I appreciate your support, Crawford—appreciate all the reviewers and inputs in compiling the standard and appreciating the community’s feedback on this commissioning standard. Definitely get a copy of it—go to icxa.net, get your copy, check it out, ask any questions, and join the meetups. We’re happy to share information and help everyone understand commissioning. So, yeah, let’s leave it there for today. If you have any questions at all, go to icxa.net—feel free to reach out, ask any questions, or get involved in the community. We’re here to help you understand commissioning.
Crawford: Yeah, thanks, everybody. Have a great day, and let’s go forward—you know, icxa.net, download it, and use it.
Paul: Great, thanks a lot, everyone. Have a good day!
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