There are two particular challenges that are unique to commissioning and require a very specific approach in order to get through them. If you don’t address these two challenges upfront, then your commissioning is unlikely to be successful at the end of your project. So, listen to this episode to learn what these two challenges are and how you can best address them to be successful with commissioning.
The first, most challenging aspect of commissioning is often right at the beginning of projects: getting management buy-in for the importance of commissioning and early commissioning involvement. This is because there’s still a lot of confusion in the industry about the difference between testing and the commissioning process. A lot of people working on projects still believe that commissioning is only testing at the end of projects. While testing is one part of the commissioning process, there are a lot more upfront activities required earlier in projects that many people just don’t quite see or understand. When they’re working at the beginning of projects, the tendency is to leave all of this to the end, thinking it’s only a bunch of testing on-site. But when you do that, it’s like an iceberg; you see the testing that takes place, but that’s only the tip. All the activities to make your testing successful are below the water line, and that’s the 80% of the activities that must take place before mechanical completion, before any of the on-site testing even starts.
When project teams miss this 80% of the commissioning process, it’s very unlikely that the project will be successful at the end because they’ve missed all the opportunities earlier in the project to plan for success. This is a challenge on many projects: to help management see the importance of commissioning and the need for early commissioning involvement. We’ve got all the support you need if you need to get buy-in from your management; they’ve got all the resources you need in the members’ area within the Industrial Commissioning Association. In there, there are video presentations, slide decks, and case studies, and you can use all these resources that we’re giving you to help with some of these discussions to make the case to your management on why they need the best in commissioning early to save time and money on projects. So be sure to get access to all these resources that we’ve given you here to help you with this first major challenge in commissioning so you can get buy-in for commissioning early in your project and then you can get on with planning for your commissioning success.
The second most challenging aspect of commissioning is the transition from construction to commissioning. This is challenging because there are two main groups involved in the project, and each has a slightly different mindset about what commissioning is all about. The construction groups are, rightly so, very focused on equipment-based installations: getting a pump installed to the floor, getting a transformer filled with oil, getting the piping installed. These are all equipment-based installations. But the mindset needs to shift as we move into commissioning towards a systems-based completion. Maybe we’ve got the pump installed, but we’re missing the piping; that doesn’t help from a system perspective because we need a whole group of equipment installed to do any practical testing at a subsystem or system level.
What we need to establish early is a methodical approach to how projects will be completed. The problem when commissioning people get involved in the project too late is that this methodical approach hasn’t been established earlier in the projects. When commissioning shows up late, they’re never very popular when discussing with construction groups and suggesting changes to already established construction sequences. In some cases, these changes can be accommodated, but in others, they can’t. Construction planning takes a lot of effort too, and when material procurement lead times are already established, when construction site crews have already been hired to do the work in a particular sequence, it’s not necessarily that easy to change any of that based on what commissioning is requesting to be changed by joining the project much later. It’s much more efficient to have commissioning involved earlier to have those discussions in conjunction with construction planning so we can plan the most efficient completion of construction to align with commissioning. This mindset shift from equipment-based installation to systems-based completion can also be quite challenging because the thought process from construction groups can often be, “Well, 99% is complete; that’s good enough.” But that may not actually be the case. Each item that’s outstanding needs to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and if the particular item missing is an instrument that provides that critical input logic to start your PLC logic sequences, that’s an important deficiency – that’s going to be a type A punch item that’s going to prevent the next stages of commissioning.
99% may not be good enough; we actually do need that instrument before we can say that particular system is complete and before we can move into the next stages of testing. Now, there will be other deficiencies like painting that needs to be done or a hole in the wall that have no impact on commissioning, and we can agree that those punch items would be a type B or a type C item. But when we talk about system-based completion, there are going to be critical aspects in order to get to that definition of complete so that we can move to the next stages of testing. A better approach is to structure this methodical completion and definition of each system upfront in projects with the associated payment milestones so that we can establish the right incentives to align priorities on projects for a smooth transition from construction to commissioning. If you can get through the second challenging aspect of commissioning through construction completions and pre-commissioning successfully, then you’re through the hardest part of the project, and the rest is usually pretty smooth sailing.
Now, if you need any help with either of these challenges on your projects, we’ve got the resources you need. So, if you need support to get management buy-in on your projects, definitely log into the Industrial Commissioning Association’s members’ area, and you can get those management buy-in resources. All the resources are in there as well so that you can make your transition from construction to commissioning as smooth as possible when you properly plan your projects. Visit the members’ area to get access to these resources, and if you want to become a member of the Industrial Commissioning Association, you can do so at ICxA.net/join. Membership is free, and you get instant access to all these resources. So hopefully, this helps you get through these two challenging aspects of commissioning. Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you in the next episode.
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