Hey Commissioning Guys,

Imagine if everyone else on your project understood commissioning. How much easier would your job be to complete commissioning if your engineering groups, construction groups, project managers, and project executives understood the value of commissioning?

Just imagine how much easier projects would be…

Imagine if your engineering groups understood how their decisions affect commissioning 5 years later. Would they still make the same decision to save $1000 only to spend $2M later during commissioning? Would they still save 2 days of design work by leaving out engineering details, knowing that it will take 2 weeks and $1M to fix later in the field during commissioning?

Imagine if your cost and scheduling groups understood the importance of properly testing equipment in the factory. Would they still try to save $10K in factory tests only to have to pay $5M during on-site testing to ship the equipment back to the factory to get fixed, and 2 months of cleanup on-site to try to get the lowest-priced equipment to work? Would they still force half-tested P&C cubicles to be shipped to site for installation, knowing it will take 6-months of design, testing, and debugging on-site to get panels to at least partially function properly?

Imagine if your construction groups understood the urgency of meeting their due dates. Imagine if they knew the importance of installing ALL the equipment in a subsystem, not just 90% of it. Imagine if they understood that completing a subsystem 2 months late means commissioning gets SQUEEZED into half the time, leading to delays in achieving steady state operation, and costing the project an extra $20M to correct mistakes.

Imagine if your project hierarchy, project manager, project sponsor, and project executive truly understood the importance of pre-commissioning and commissioning, and how following a structured commissioning process through all project stages saves them millions (or billions) of dollars? If they understood that skipping 2 weeks of pre-commissioning tests means that in-service equipment is only available 90% of the time for the first year due to a mountain of deficiencies, costing them a million dollars per day in lost revenue for each forced shutdown, would they still try to save 2 weeks of testing?

Imagine if everyone on your project understood what you were discussing during meetings, so you could focus on getting the job done, rather than spending half your time explaining to others why we must do commissioning a certain way? Would it be easier to meet deadlines?

Would projects have a much better chance of succeeding, to meet the project in-service date on-time and on-budget, if everyone understood commissioning?

We know the answer to each of these questions. But most people working on projects have a very limited understanding of commissioning, if at all. And it’s not their fault – commissioning is complex. There are many moving parts on projects, and it takes a strong group of commissioning experts to make all those moving parts into one functioning system.

But it is nearly impossible to meet the project in-service date on-time and on-budget when only the core commissioning group understands how to complete the project during commissioning and startup. The commissioning experts understand what takes place during commissioning, but to everyone else, commissioning is a black box. They have no idea what’s in the black box, and they think commissioning is this magical part of the project when the experts arrive at site and things start to work. But when commissioning is only understood as a black box by most people working on projects, they have no clear understanding of how their role feeds into the black box, or exactly what they need to do to contribute to achieving the project goal – meeting the project in-service date on-time and on-budget.

We need to open up the black box to others on the project, so everyone can understand the fundamentals of commissioning and can help to meet the project in-service date, rather than hoping and wishing that the commissioning experts will arrive and make everything better. When more people working on projects understand commissioning, the ENTIRE team is aligned on how to achieve the project in-service date on-time and on-budget. They understand the implications of their decisions 5 years prior, and can align all earlier activities on the project with the crystal clear objective of meeting the project in-service date on-time and on-budget, and know the steps to get there. 

Let’s open up the black box and show others on the project what commissioning is all about. It’s the only way for projects to achieve better results – by helping more people understand how commissioning works and the value that commissioning provides to projects. Others working on the project don’t need to know the details of how to do a hi-pot test, or how loop checks are done, or other complex test setups – that’s for the commissioning experts to do. But others on the project need to understand the stages of commissioning, what takes place during each stage, and why we are doing them. They need to understand how their role feeds into the commissioning process so they can know what they need to do to achieve the project’s end goal and ensure commissioning goes smoothly.

When more people on projects understand the fundamentals of commissioning, especially the decision makers on projects, then commissioning goes much smoother and projects can achieve better outcomes. Since 9 out of 10 projects are late and over-budget, it’s clear that we need a new way to complete projects. And this new way to complete projects is by better project alignment of all project groups, all working towards the same end goal of the project.

In its most simple terms, all project groups must be working towards the same end goal of the project, which is meeting the project in-service date on-time and on-budget. We can only achieve on-time and on-budget commissioning and startup when more people understand what commissioning is all about. Commissioning can no longer be shrouded in mystery – information is what people need to better understand commissioning.

Here’s the new resource we’ve created to help everyone working on projects understand commissioning:

• Fundamentals of Commissioning – For Everyone Working on Projects

This is for anyone that needs to know the fundamentals of commissioning – the workflows to follow, the forms/certificates that are required, the stages of commissioning, what takes place during each stage of commissioning, and how to ensure that all earlier activities during design and construction are aligned to ensure pre-commissioning, commissioning, and startup take place smoothly for on-time and on-budget completion to meet your project in-service date.

If you know anyone that would benefit from a better understanding of the commissioning fundamentals, email us at [email protected]. We’ll send you an evaluation copy of this fundamentals course. You can check it out, and if you think it would be beneficial for others on your project to understand the fundamentals of commissioning, let us know and we can set them up with access to the full course.

Everyone working on projects should have this fundamental understanding of what commissioning is and the value it provides to projects. Get your project manager to take this course, get all your design team to take this course, and get all your construction leads to take this course. Really, everyone working on projects should take this course so they understand the fundamentals of how the project will be completed during commissioning. It is only possible for your project to meet the goal of your project when EVERYONE understands what that goal is and how to achieve that goal – on-time and on-budget commissioning and startup to meet your project in-service date.

So imagine if everyone on your project understood the fundamentals of commissioning. Imagine how much easier your job would be during commissioning. Imagine how much better our project outcomes would be when everyone understood commissioning…

Email us at [email protected] and we’ll give you the information to empower your project team with the commissioning fundamentals they need for better project outcomes.