We’re going to discuss Safety During Commissioning, a very important topic. We’ll go through a brief presentation, and we’ll have a live Q and A at the end of the session, please make sure to get your questions in as we’re presenting. We’ll get them answered at the end of the discussion. Let’s get into the discussion. 

Commissioning Safety

First, who is involved in safety? The first point to make is that everyone’s involved in safety. Everyone’s responsible for safety. Nobody can say that safety is someone else’s responsibility, everybody’s accountable for their own safety, and everybody else’s safety on site. But there are a few groups that are involved and have very specific roles as part of that safety role, the design team, construction team, commissioning team, operating team, and HSE team. Let’s go through each one of those.

Again, everyone plays a role in safety but here’s the specifics of some of the roles that make sure that the right safety processes are taking place on site. It starts as early as the design phase with the design team. If something can be designed into the systems that makes it inherently safer, then that should be done. If there’s a safer way to do it, if there’s a safer way to design it, such as safety guards, or railing, or a different way to access a system that’s easy, that’s more safe, then that should be incorporated right into the design. 

Roles and Responsibilities 

The construction team plays a role during commissioning. Of course, the construction team plays a large role in safety during the commissioning phase of the project. They’re managing safety aspects of heavy civil equipment, large moving pieces of equipment, and all the related construction safety aspects. What I’m referring to here is the construction team’s role in safety during the commissioning phase of the project. There could be lots of instances where construction activities are still taking place while commissioning is taking place. There are two groups working in different areas, and the separation or boundary isolations need to be clearly defined between the construction work and the commissioning work. 

The construction team needs to work within the established boundary isolations that have been established by the commissioning team. The work needs to be very controlled and coordinated. The construction team can’t be wandering out of their approved work area and working on other items that potentially are being commissioned, that is certainly not safe. 

The HSE team is the group responsible to establish the site safety processes that must be followed and ensure that those established processes are being implemented and followed by all groups on site. The HSE team can’t necessarily be the subject matter expert for all equipment, all the different types of electrical and mechanical equipment. They will set up the processes that need to be followed, but then they will need to rely on the subject matter experts that do know the equipment the best, and that’s often the commissioning team as the equipment experts that are starting up the equipment. The HSE team is going to rely on those that have the knowledge and experience of the detailed equipment to identify hazards and make sure that the processes are being followed. The commissioning team is where a lot of the technical subject matter experts will reside. They’re most familiar with the new equipment and can provide the best guidance to the HSE team about how these activities should take place safely. The commissioning team is going to identify hazards and risks, provide mitigation methods to perform the work safely. 

The operating team are often the LOTO and PTW authority. The operating team will be the group that is or has the licensed operators of the systems, and they’ll perform all the switching activities. All the switching procedures particularly for a brownfield project where the owner already has systems that are in service. 

The emergency response team plays a critical role if there’s an incident that needs to be addressed on site. The individuals on the emergency response team are likely from several different groups on the project, from the contractor, to the owner, to the consultant, and is the group that is trained to operate the emergency equipment. They’re the ones that will respond to an emergency on site should something occur. 

I do want to stress that there is no place for big egos when it comes to safety. Everyone must participate as one team in order for the work to be completed safely. Unfortunately, I’ve seen projects that I’ve worked on, egos have gotten in the way of making the proper safety decisions. Safety can’t be approached in this manner. It’s got to be one team to make everybody perform the work as safely as possible. 

Safety Terminology and Processes

Let’s go through some of the safety terminology and processes that are involved.

HSE team– Health Safety and Environment team responsible for oversight and implementation or ensuring that the proper safety processes are being implemented on site. 

LOTO– stands for lockout tag out, and this is the process to control and isolate hazardous energy, and this could be electrical or mechanical systems. Electrical systems for control of electricity, mechanical systems for pressures in pipes and flows that can potentially burst. Both can be hazardous and need to have a proper lock out tag out to maintain safety. 

PTW– is a permit to work and this is the formal authorization that work can safely proceed. 

Exclusion Zone– this is a temporary keep out area surrounding new equipment during first energization. Normally, there would be railing and boundaries around equipment. But if you’re energizing a large oil filled transformer for the first time, you may require a larger exclusion zone, a temporary exclusion zone that keeps people further away from the equipment during first energization. Only once it’s confirmed that it’s energized safely and in stable condition can the exclusion zone be removed again and normal railing would be in place.

Safety absolute– this is a list of safety rules that if broken will require immediate removal from site. We’ll go through some of those in a bit.

Muster points– these are locations identified at multiple locations on site where staff are to gather in the event of an emergency. If everybody needs to evacuate the building, what are the two, or three, or four locations on site that everybody’s going to wait for further instruction.

Arc flash study– this is an electrical analysis to determine incident energy of equipment should there be a fault in the system, and we’ll go through this shortly as well. 

Some of the processes that are implemented on site are PSSR, Pre-startup Safety Review, Pre-Startup Walk-through, Lock-out Tag-out, Permit to Work, and Emergency Response Plan. I’ll go through each one of these processes.

PSSR- Pre-Startup Review

Pre-startup safety review is a checklist of items to confirm before startup of any equipment for the first time. This is completed well in advance of the planned startup. The commissioning team will prepare this checklist, have everybody review it, and agree on what should be in the checklist before actually proceeding to energization, so that you get everybody’s input, everybody’s best thoughts to make sure that nothing is missed in advance of first energization. Then closer to the energization, you’ll have a meeting to review the checklist with all involved. This could be a few days before the planned startup. This checklist is created by someone on the commissioning team since they’re most aware of the technical items with a particular energization.

What is on a PSSR? Some of the things that would be included are confirmation that all documentation has been reviewed and approved. This would include any construction closeout items and any commissioning documents that need to be reviewed. All the documentation is ready to go for energization. Review of the resources involved in the startup activities. Review all the particular or unique safety hazards related to a particular energization. And review any additional safety precautions that are required. If additional exclusion zones are required, then those are discussed and planned for during the PSSR. Assign any actions to be completed prior to startup. The PSSR can apply to electrical and mechanical systems. The PSSR is documented, and then submitted to the HSE team. 

Pre-Startup Walkthrough

A pre-startup walkthrough is another safety function of the commissioning team. The morning of the energization, you’ll have your morning tailboard and review safety aspects of the day’s activities, and review the plan of the day following that. The commissioning team will perform a walk through of the system or area to be started. The walkthrough will confirm a few things. It will confirm that there is no work taking place in the area, that all unnecessary equipment and tools have been removed, that all mechanical safety devices are in place, that cabinets are closed, if there’s belt or fan guards that need to be reinstalled. There are no exposed electrical hazards, there’s no cables lying around in the area, all electrical cubicles are closed and locked. There’s no way that anybody can come along and start poking around in cubicles and expose themselves to electrical hazards.

Another important function is to confirm the correct configuration of the equipment depending on the startup or the operating scenario to be tested that day. Valves will need to be in the correct position so that flows are going in the right direction and confirm that breakers are energized. The breakers that need to be on are in fact on, and any breakers that are off are in fact locked out and off, and that all LOTO has been properly applied and verified to any of the systems following the walkthrough. The commissioning team mobilizes to their assigned locations. It’s likely that the commissioning engineer will be in the control room with the operators. The commissioning engineer will be verifying the operations on the HMI screen. The commissioning engineer can’t be everywhere in all locations at all times, so there will be several site support people at various locations within the plant as well. If the commissioning engineer is seeing something that’s not functioning correctly, there may be local control of the equipment required. Equipment may need adjustment if there’s errors or fine-tuning, any troubleshooting will be done by the individuals in the field. Essentially, the support personnel that are at the equipment will put their eyes on the operation of the equipment if something’s being energized, or if it’s not quite looking right, it’s vibrating unexpectedly, or smokes being generated. That’s going to be the information back to the commissioning engineer that there’s problems in the field, and to shut things down. 

Hazard Identification

Hazards are identified on-site with yellow barriers and red barriers. For electrical installation, if you’re working on an air insulated AC switchyard, the barriers can’t be flagging tape. They can’t be something that’s going to blow in the wind and get caught in the buswork. You want to avoid any things getting caught into your electrical system. Typically, what it is it’s either a yellow plastic chain or yellow rope, and the colors are important. 

Red and Yellow Rope Chain

Yellow chain or rope means do not cross without permission. A work area will have yellow rope around it with a tag identifying the foreman. You can only cross yellow rope once you first make contact with the individuals or foreman working in the area, to confirm it is safe to do so. Red rope indicates you cannot cross unless signed on to the tailboard for the work taking place in the area. Crossing red rope is a safety absolute requiring removal of the individual from site.

Arc Flash Hazards

Arc flash incident energy is based on the voltage and current involved as well as the coordinated protection settings of the system. Your design group will determine all the coordinated protection settings, and they’ll conduct an arc flash hazard analysis to determine, should a fault occur, how much energy is available to that particular fault, therefore, determining the magnitude of the fault or the safety hazard that’s presented. The engineering team will conduct this study in advance of energizations. And once each arc flash hazard rating is determined, a label is affixed to the exterior of the equipment cabinet listing the hazard rating so that anyone accessing the equipment knows the hazard in advance and can prepare appropriately with the proper safety protocols required to complete the work safely. Depending on the arc flash level, basic safety precautions and specific safety precautions are required in order to work with the equipment. You can see this individual in his blue suit , that’s a blast suit that he is putting on to access the switchgear or MCC. There would be an arc flash rating on there indicating that to access this equipment, you need a full blast suit. 

Chicken Switch and Fire Rated Clothing

A blast suit isn’t required for all systems, lower arc flash ratings may only require fire rated clothing. There’s also other methods to mitigate the risk. You can see on the left side of the screen The individual has got a remote switch, or some people refer to it as a chicken switch, where you can install a device external to the cabinet, and then from a distance remotely operate it to either actuate the switch or rack in or rack out breakers.

Safety Absolutes

With regards to safety absolutes, these are a list of critical safety rules that if broken require the offending individual to be immediately removed from site. Each site will have a specific set of safety absolutes, but I’ve listed some here that are typical that I’ve seen on other job sites.

Not being tied off above a certain height, you need a safety restraint if working above a certain elevation. I’ve seen it as low as four feet, as high as 10 feet, it’ll be specific to the contractor or the work regulations of the area, If you’re accessing equipment or working above  six feet, then you need to be tied off or need to have a fall restraint system attached.

Violation of lockout tag out will require immediate removal from site.

Circumventing safety devices

Reckless driving, or no seat belt use.

I see this one being enforced more and more on job sites is use of personal electronic devices being used on the job site, particularly when driving. If someone is caught driving and talking on the phone at the same time, on my last project, that was a safety absolute that required removal from site.

Violation of drug and alcohol policy

Violation of confined workspace permit

And there are others as well

These are just some examples. These safety absolutes will be listed in many locations on site so that everybody is aware, and if an individual breaks one of the safety absolutes, they are removed from site. I’ve seen some pretty senior people removed from site when a safety absolute is violated.

LOTO and PTW

Let’s go through lock out tag out and permit to work in a little bit more detail. How do we set up a proper LOTO and PTW process? The roles and responsibilities are important. On site, there will be a LOTO authority that is assigned for contractor’s equipment. This will be an experienced electrical individual on the contractor’s team. For in-service assets, if it’s a brownfield project, this will be an electrical operator with switching authority. If there are two groups like this, close coordination at the boundary of these two systems is required. The owner’s operator controls the connection of any of the contractor’s equipment to the in-service assets. In other words, the contractor needs to make a request to the owner to close any breaker connecting the two systems. The owner will have a lock on the contractor’s breaker to ensure isolation until the request to close the breaker is received, reviewed, and approved. Something to note is not anyone can perform switching. The owner may have a trained operating team already established with formal processes to grant switching authority. The contractor is required to have someone with switching experience. You can’t just necessarily put the summer student in this role and say, “Go switch some breakers.” That’s certainly not safe to do. You need someone with electrical experience that’s familiar with proper isolation of systems.

Types of LOTO

LOTO requlations are governed by OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. In the OSHA guidelines, there are two types of LOTO. There’s simple lock out and group lockout.

In the case of simple lockout or individual lockout, a single lock is applied to a device. The individual performing the work maintains control of the key to that lock at all times, and will complete the work with that key in hand. The lock is only removed by the individual once the work is complete.

Often there are more people that are involved in the particular set of work, and that’s when we move into group lockout or complex lockout. When multiple people are involved in the work, a lock box or scissor lock is used. On the left side is a scissor lock. You can see the lock box on the right hand side. The scissor lock is a locking device in which multiple locks can be attached. You can see the two prongs  would go through as a lock would. The picture would indicate you can apply six locks to that locking device. You can get larger scissor locks that have even more slots for more locks depending on the number of people involved. In the case of a lock box, the key for the locking device is placed inside the lock box to which multiple locks can be attached. You can see two locks on there, two people have locked on to that particular lock box. Power can only be restored once each person removes their lock ensuring that everyone is clear from the area prior to restoration.

Of course, this can potentially lead to issues if someone leaves the site without removing their lock, that’s a problem. I’ve seen instances where late in the evening, individuals are being called back to site to remove their lock. Worse is maybe someone leaves the site, and goes away on a two-week vacation, and can’t physically get back to site, or can’t be contacted. This is a bad situation, likely requiring that locks may need to be cut, and this isn’t good because you’re defeating safety devices at this point, and cutting locks is not at all preferred. This is not a good situation and sometimes the requirement to cut a lock is a safety absolute, and that individual that didn’t properly remove their lock is required to be removed from site.

LOTO and PTW Process

How is this process actually implemented in the field? The individual requiring the electrical or mechanical clearance reviews the redline set of drawings. This is very important that the commissioning team and the operating team have access to the most current set of red line or as built drawings. If they don’t have the most current set of drawings, then maybe they’re missing a particular electrical connection that needs to be isolated. Without the most current set of drawings, the individual that’s reviewing and requiring lock out tag out doesn’t know 100% of the systems that are in the field, and doesn’t know everything that needs to be isolated.  It’s critically important that you have a current set of drawings.

The required clearances are indicated on the drawing, or identified in a particular form, that you need to fill out to request isolation, with a drawing attached. The boundary isolations are identified for the work that is required. The individual submits their request for clearances to the LOTO authority, and the LOTO authority will review the request. There could be other LOTO applied on the site. The LOTO authority will review the current request and all existing and upcoming LOTO requests to make sure that everything is coordinated, and the system can actually be taken out at that time. Once reviewed, the LOTO authority will grant a PTW or permit to work for a specific set of dates. On the dates of the outage, the authorized individual who has switching authority will perform the switching and lock out the required systems. In the case of electrical, locking out a breaker. In the case of mechanical, maybe locking out a valve.

All locked out equipment is tagged identifying the PTW number, and the contact information of the individual who owns the key so that anybody can walk up, and look ,and see exactly what that lock is for and who is responsible for that lock. The tagging is equally as important in this process. The key for the locked out devices is kept by the individual performing the work for simple lock out, or is placed in a lock box or a scissor lock for complex lockout. Once LOTO is applied, then the work can commence. But an important first step, once the equipment is isolated is that the individual must also confirm by measurement that the expected clearances are actually in place, you want to make sure that there were no errors. If they were supposed to lock out breaker 14, but instead they locked out breaker 15, you can’t assume that the system you’re working on is de-energized. It should be confirmed by measurement at the actual location of the work by the individual performing the work before proceeding as you need to check your clearances.

Once the work is complete, the procedure takes place in reverse. The process for the individual to surrender their PTW is that the individual with the key will remove their lock from the locking device, and then the individual with switching authority will perform the switching to restore the system. The PTW is then surrendered. There could also be instances where a PTW is issued for a certain set of dates, but the work isn’t completed by that end date. You’ll then have to make a request to the LOTO authority to determine if your PTW, your isolation duration, can be extended or not, and determine the state of the work or if systems can be restored or not. 

Incident Reporting and Investigation

It can get quite complex managing all the different outages at one time. Unfortunately, despite everyone’s best efforts or hopefully not due to a few bad apples, accidents can occur. The processes we have discussed are put in place to keep everyone safe, so everyone can return home to their families, and celebrate the project’s successes at the end. And we truly hope that there are no deaths or dismemberment when doing commissioning. But despite everybody’s efforts, there may be incidents occur ,and when it does, then incident reporting and investigation needs to take place.

When incidents occur, it needs to be treated as a learning opportunity to find the root cause and improve the processes so that the same incident does not reoccur. I have worked on projects, unfortunately where the safety authority has treated incidents as a witch-hunt to find the guilty individual, and punish them, and this never helps. People are less likely to report incidents in this situation. Everybody is withholding and not forthcoming, it needs to be a very open and collaborative discussion to improve safety. There’s no room for big egos on the job site, and everyone must work together openly and collaboratively. An incident investigation often requires taking witness statements from those involved and taking pictures of the location. These are gathered by the HSE team, and reviewed in detail to perform a root cause analysis to determine how the incident occurred. Once the root cause is determined, additional safeguards are put in place both physically and procedurally to prevent the incident from reoccurring. This needs to be a lessons learned approach so that everyone becomes more safe on the job site.

Question and Answer Session

For an electrical switcher, is he from a contractor or operations?

This is a good question because roles and responsibilities are important on the project. It could be from both. In a green field project, all of the systems would be owned by the contractor, under care custody and control of the contractor. It’s likely that the contractor is the LOTO authority.

But in brownfield projects it gets a little bit more complicated as you could have in-service assets as well as new assets being built by the contractor. In that case, you may have two LOTO authorities that the owner is responsible for the in-service assets and the contractor is responsible for the new systems depending on the split of brownfield versus greenfield. You will have an authorized individual that has switching authority on either side of those systems. In the case of the brownfield project where the owner is operating some of the in-service assets, the owner will have someone on their operating team that has switching authority and can operate the in-service equipment. 

It’s very important that this a designated function, and that person does actually have switching authority. In the case of large electrical systems in network-connected bulk electric systems, these are coordinated switching activities with your central control operator. And not just anybody can go start flipping switches. You need to have a controlled and coordinated process with your central control, and only individuals with switching authority can do that. In the case of the contractors systems, it’s not as tightly controlled because those systems aren’t necessarily connected to the bulk electric system yet, but you still need to have authority on the contractor’s side, and an individual that understands the electrical systems and can safely switch the systems in and out. These might be smaller systems for some of the auxiliary power systems or some of the piping mechanical systems, but still it needs to be closely coordinated to ensure that the contractor’s work is planned and coordinated. The same boundary isolations are maintained as assets are in-service or construction activities are taking place in parallel.

Process Safety Management PSM, please some scenarios about this event.

I’ll see if I understand your question correctly. You’re asking about safety from a process management perspective. This could apply to the project during commissioning or this could apply to operation after the project. It’s very similar for process management of in-service assets or assets that are about to become in-service during the commissioning process. There does need to be a central LOTO authority responsible for coordinating the operation or any isolations required of in-service assets. I guess with reference to your question, I’m thinking of a large plant that would have a central control room coordinating a distributed system, controlling many plant areas for that process management, that definitely needs to go through the central control room if there’s particular isolations that need to be instituted, same as I described. 

During commissioning or construction, that request needs to be made to the central control operator, or whoever’s on shift that day to be responsible for any isolations that are requested. Even in advance of that, the individual that requires the isolation would have to go through the drawings, identify any isolation that is required in the drawings, and submit that to the central control operator. They would need a few days probably to review that, maybe pin out the system, confirm order of operations, or coordination with the central control. Then respond back with a PTW to that individual saying, “okay, you’re authorized for this clearance during this period of time.” Then, that individual could conduct the work. I think what you’re mentioning in your question is that any isolations also are going to impact process operations, and how is that done for in-service equipment? That’s why it needs to go through the central control operator to confirm that if there’s any other risk to the system, either locally or off-site, that process needs to be managed so that the system can still continue to operate reliably. If a certain request to take out the A and the B system couldn’t be granted, the work may have to be replanned to only work on the A system while the B system is still in-service, and then vice versa. Also, given there’s other outages that are planned off-site and therefore decreasing the contingency or reliability of the system, that needs to be planned and coordinated with the central control operators, even besides just the local plant operation. 

Is the generator set up and commissioning under Electrical Commissioning?

I’ve commissioned a few genset systems, and in every case I’ve seen them part of the responsibility of electrical commissioning. There would be aspects of mechanical that you may choose to have the mechanical commissioning team involved in, if you’re looking for rotation of the shaft or some of those items, but it’s largely electrical. I’ve seen it all part of electrical commissioning certainly for the startup, because once you get into coordinated protection settings and coordinated startups of dual redundant electrical inputs or feeds from the utility, the automatic and controlled startup of the systems, it’s all electrical automation controlled aspects, and I’ve always seen that under electrical commissioning. 

What team covers the instrumentation and control? 

Typically, I’ve seen a lot of projects will have a mechanical group,  an electrical group and the instrumentation and control often falls under the electrical group. But if the system is large enough, and is made up of a lot of instrumentation and control there can be a third group set up specifically for that to manage just the instrumentation and control. If you’re talking about instrumentation, say for a pressure gauge or flow meter, those may be installed by the mechanical team and verified or calibrated at a device level. But once you start interconnecting them with the automation systems, all the PLC controls, the distributed network, back to the control room, and all the control functions that are associated with the system, that would certainly fall under the electrical. Or if large enough, a specific automation group just to manage and control all those aspects.

Unfortunately, in some of the projects I’ve worked on, the automation has been a bit of an afterthought. Lst minute, it’s determined to have the electrical group look after the instrumentation and controls, and maybe it doesn’t necessarily get the right attention that it needs to. I definitely recommend a dedicated group to manage, and oversee the instrumentation and control because it can get quite complex. It is a very important role to pull all the mechanical systems, all the electrical systems together, so that the plant can function as an overall and complete system. It’s definitely worth thinking about and planning well in advance of the project commissioning so that process can go a little bit better. 

Which is the best technique that is used for a leak test? 

That may depend on the substance that you’re looking to leak test. If it’s air or water, or maybe you’re looking at substances more like oil or other types of gases or liquids, there are different techniques for each different type of particular leak test. In the case of an air leak test, that one’s pretty standard as you just pressurize the piping to whatever rated or rated plus margin pressure you want to monitor. Leave that for a period of time. There’s always some sort of minimal leak rate, but whatever that leak rate is, if the measured values are below or within tolerance, and if the pressure drops that minimal amount, the piping is deemed to be appropriate. Very similar for water, as you’d apply water, apply a certain pressure, and  monitor that there’s no leaks with any of the piping. In the case of water, that may be somewhat of a visual test. When the pressure is applied. you go walk the length of the piping and ensure that there’s no water being extruded from any of the piping. I haven’t had much experience testing more advanced chemicals or oils or other more volatile chemicals, but those would get into a bit more complex technique, maybe I’ll defer that to others. 

Who’s  responsible for doing the risk assessment prior to applying for the permit? 

The commissioning team would take the initial review or assessment of the drawings to determine what exactly needs to be isolated. That’s why I mentioned it’s critically important to have an accurate set of drawings, because you’re going to take those drawings, and the person, the subject matter experts, the people that know the equipment best would be someone on the commissioning team. Either on the commissioning team or a consultant subject matter expert, is going to do that risk assessment and identify all the systems that need to be isolated or taken offline in order to complete the work properly. That would be the initial first assessment. Then the form or drawing package or whatever it looks like on your project is submitted to the LOTO authority that would then do a second review to look at it and say, “yes, this makes sense.” That nothing’s been missed, that all the appropriate isolations are in place for the work to take place properly. That first risk assessment would be done by the equipment experts, someone on the commissioning team.

For instrumentation work, is the padlock age important?  We often use low voltage ex 24v.

I haven’t seen this come up, but a lot of the projects I’ve worked on have been new projects where the contractor or operating team has bought a bunch of new locks. I’m sure it could be the case that if you’ve got an old 20 or 30 year old lock, then that may not be suitable for the lockout tag out that you’re looking for. But I think the most important thing would be if it’s mechanically secure, it’s functioning as a new lock, it can be controlled by a key device, and essentially is going to keep someone safe for its intended purpose. If the lock is suspect, that it could be easily tampered with, or if it’s not going to suit its purpose, then certainly throw it out and get a better lock. This applies even for any voltage range.

You mentioned low voltage 24 volts, a lot of those control voltages are some of the trickiest to find when you’ve got an electrical cubicle, a communication cubicle, or something like that, and there’s wetting voltages that are going back and forth between these cubicles. You need to be able to isolate all of those devices. You want to look at the direct power feeds. If you’ve got 600 volts, 240, 120 whatever, you certainly want to isolate those. But any of your control voltages as well, any of your wetting voltages, or any of your auxiliary supplies, AC, DC low voltage, 24 volts, that’s why you need to review the drawings thoroughly to identify all of these points, and make sure that all of your boundary isolations are put in place, to ensure that the system you’re working on is in fact de-energized. 

Is the HSE team responsible for carrying out Process Safety analysis?

In some regards, yes, because they’re the ones that will initiate the process to confirm that it’s being done safely. But the HSE team isn’t always or can’t reasonably be expected to be the subject matter expert on every piece of equipment. Although they would initiate the process and the analysis of safely conducting activities, they will defer to those that are the subject matter experts to review the process in detail, since those are the ones that are most familiar with the equipment, know the operations of it, and potential safety hazards. That could be someone on the commissioning team. If this is post-project and after the in-service date, that could be someone on the operating team, someone that’s familiar with the equipment to identify the safety hazards back to the HSE team so that they can incorporate that into the appropriate safety documentation for SOPs,  SWPs, so the work is conducted safely. That’s an ongoing process. When you write an SOP (standard operating procedure) or an SWP (safe work procedure), there still could be a safer way to do the work. When that first SWP is written, and someone goes through the process maybe six months later, someone identifies a new safety hazard or something that wasn’t identified before. This is definitely a continual improvement process to make sure that this feedback is sent back to the HSE team in order that the SWP can be updated and the work is conducted in the most safe manner. With regards to your question, it’s still a joint effort as the HSE team may initiate the process, but rely on the subject matter experts to actually conduct the analysis. 

Will the generator exciter brushes possible to be removed for cleaning during normal operation for maintenance purposes?

Yes, this certainly could be a six-month, annual, or whatever frequency is determined process to shut down the equipment, remove the brushes, and do any refurbishments that’s required. Typically, in your O&M manuals, periodic maintenance would be defined if there is an annual overhaul, or say an overhaul every five years. Some of these activities would be prescribed that you have to completely disassemble the unit, inspect whatever items are listed in the O&M, and exciter brushes could certainly be one of those items that needs to be inspected. Actually, I’m certain that they would need to inspect your brushes at a certain frequency to ensure that wear is appropriate, and that the mechanical properties are behaving as they should. It wouldn’t necessarily happen during normal operation because this would require a planned shut down to do the work of course, to access the equipment for a complete unit overhaul. 

What is the important thing to check before the startup ?

These items would be listed in your PSSR. Let’s say we had a large oil filled transformer that we were going to energize in a month from now. Leading up to that in the next week or so, we would be itemizing all the items to check in the PSSR. This would be things like ensuring proper gates are in place so that no one can access the stairway to get on top of the transformer. We would want to confirm that construction is complete, other safety barriers are in place, oil spill containment is ready to go. All the items that you would want to check are listed in that PSSR, and you’ll want to get everybody’s input into what that checklist should be. Input from the commissioning team, input from the construction team, input from the HSE team, so that everybody’s best wisdom is added into the PSSR checklist.

The PSSR checklist is reviewed and finalized. Then a few days before startup, we would review everything in the PSSR and make sure that it’s in fact complete, for more information about startup, you can check it out here The Commissioning Process: A Step-by-Step Guide  . The team would go through the PSSR and review that all items are complete. Any items that need to be completed before we proceed with startup are identified. The checklist will be reviewed leading up to energization and ensuring that all the items that were identified by everybody’s best wisdom are in fact complete prior to startup. One of the things to confirm on the morning of startup is that the PSSR checklist is complete. If it is, then we can move on. We can conduct our morning tailboard, we can review particular safety aspects of that day’s energization, move on to going out in the field to do a walk down of the transformer, and ensure that it is ready for energization. 

Is it necessary that the fire and gas system should be commissioned first and in service prior to commissioning process systems?

This sequence can be important. What I’ve seen in the past though is that these systems aren’t necessarily put in-service first. They’ll come a bit later often because when you’re still in a construction environment, and you’re welding, that can cause problems for smoke detectors and heat detectors causing inadvertent operation of your fire detection and suppression systems. Although they might be ready, they’re not enabled or turned on quite yet. Without these systems in place, you do need to have other mitigating methods in place to monitor the equipment. If you don’t have an automated system to monitor your first energized equipment, then you’ll need to have manual observation of the equipment. This might require, when you’re first energizing the large oil filled transformer, you may need someone on-site 24 hours to monitor the equipment. Should there be a problem, they can alert somebody to address the issue since your automatic fire detection and suppression system isn’t online to do that. That’s been my experience in the past, is those systems are deferred because they’re going to cause problems given that things are still under construction. But that doesn’t mean that you can operate unsafely, you still need other mitigating efforts to address the safety concerns by on-site manual observation, or some other alert systems should there be a problem with any of your systems.

How do you go about loop tests?

There are two types of loop tests. There’s a hot loop test and a cold loop test. In the case of a cold loop test, that would be your unenergized point-to-point tests or megger tests to confirm the wiring in the loop, learn more information about loop checks in this article Pre-commissioning of Electrical Systems

I’m assuming what you’re referring to would be energized loop tests or hot loop tests. The loop test is the confirmation from the HMI of the control system out to the end device and can either be an open-loop or a closed-loop test. If it’s an open-loop test, you confirm that the HMI system is in fact toggling the end device either by confirming communication, confirming HMI commands, and confirming that the end device is reacting appropriately. This could be something as simple as turning a pump on and off or indicating a particular mode of operation of the particular device. 

Closed-loop test is looking for the feedback from the device you issue the command to run and getting the signal back from the device., that it is in fact running, and confirming that the HMI responds – that would be a closed-loop test. This test will vary from device to device, and you’re going to have to figure out a way to stimulate the device given that this isn’t necessarily operating conditions. Maybe you don’t have plant process flows in place, but you will still want to trigger the alarm of the device and make sure you see the signal back to the HMI in all sorts of operating scenarios. Loop testing can be certainly a little bit more involved than this, but maybe we’ll just leave it there for now given that we could probably spend a whole live webinar discussion on loop tests. 

For a fire fighting system, is this a concern of the commissioning team or is this the responsibility of   an accredited organization?

The commissioning team is definitely going to oversee it, but you’re right, the vendor of the fire detection and suppression system is likely going to be on site, because they’re the accredited organization overseeing the implementation of that system. They’re the ones that are going to sign off on the implementation of their system. There’s a few organizations out there, but they’re responsible for the design of the fire detection system, as well as the implementation, testing, and certification of it as well. Certainly, someone from the commissioning team could be certified to test and certify this system, but typically that would come from the vendors. The vendor would be on site and they would be the ones that would implement the system and test it. That’s usually late in the commissioning process, and that can often be a very noisy day when they’re going through the systems and generating all the alarms, all the horns and sirens, and is a good day to plan around  if there are other things that are going on that day. This day of testing can be a very disruptive day when they’re testing all the signals and horns of the fire detection system.

Also for fire suppression, same thing for any actuated valves or interconnections with the detection system, the certified vendor is responsible to oversee the implementation of the system and certification of the final sprinkling system once the project is in-service. 

Is organizing or forming a commissioning team, does it consist only of all licensed Engineers?

No, I would say it rarely is. Some of the best people I’ve worked with on some of my commissioning teams have not been engineers at all. It’s made up of all sorts of varying skillsets. Engineers may certainly be in a lead role, the commissioning manager or the electrical and mechanical commissioning leads, but there’s certainly lots of engineering techs that are involved, operating techs, and other specialty skills like that are involved. The electrical techs are often the ones that are in the field, either the ones doing the commissioning, or overseeing the contractor’s commissioning activities. You would have both mechanical techs and electrical techs in the field hands on with the tools that are integral to the commissioning team, some of the other more specialized skills too. Once you get into automation systems for PLC systems, then you’ll have protection techs and control techs. There’ll be a lot of specialized skills that are integral to the commissioning team that certainly wouldn’t be a licensed engineer. By no means is commissioning exclusive to engineers. It’s a diverse group that needs to cover all the bases of all the systems so that the right skillsets are available. Certainly, there will be lots of other people involved that are the equipment experts besides the engineering group. That’s a good question, Jess. I’m glad you asked it, and I encourage everybody to get involved in commissioning, not just  the engineering groups. 

Can a fresh graduate licensed engineer be able to join the commissioning team?

Absolutely, yes. I’ve seen this occur many times. We need  experienced commissioning engineers with 30, 35 or 40 years of experience, the guys and gals that have energized these systems 100 times. We need someone that’s a fresh graduate right out of school to help as well. All sorts of disciplines and experience are required on the commissioning team. It is critically important to have people with experience on your commissioning team, the individual with 35 years experience that’s energized a hundred of these systems in the past, knows what to look for, knows the safety hazards, and has the experience to know what to do to energize. But they need help too. They can mentor the more junior engineers so that they can gain experience and become as knowledgeable as them through experience over time as well.

One thing I can suggest is it does take some time in the field to get experience, become that equipment expert, that commissioning authority on site. But something that can rapidly accelerate that is the information that I can provide in some of my courses, having the understanding of the end-to-end commissioning process before you even get to site, and can participate with the 35-year commissioning expert. It really helps because you know the language that’s being spoken, you can engage in the conversations, you can understand the process, you can get your hands on the equipment a lot quicker and understand the overall commissioning process. For more information about commissioning acronyms and terminology, please read  Commissioning Dictionary & Acronyms

​Is it alright to perform startup or pre-startup even if there are some constructions activities that are not yet finished. ex. cladding, wall, etc?

Yes, this is often the case. There’s a project deadline and in-service date needs to be met. There’s going to be some things that are more cosmetic and not functional to the system. Your example of cladding is a good one. Typically, the way that this is managed is through deficiency classification. In your mechanical completion when the system’s being handed over from construction to commissioning, it would be identified that the cladding is not complete, that’s a deficiency. But that would be classified as a Type-C deficiency potentially or maybe a Type-B deficiency. A Type-A deficiency is a show stopper, something that must be fixed in order to energize the system. That wouldn’t be the case of cladding, unless say the cladding was next to your transformer bushings, and due to electrical clearances, couldn’t be installed later. That would actually be a Type-A deficiency. If say it’s on the end of the building, and it’s out of the way, that could be completed at a later time and won’t necessarily impact the function of the system or any of the commissioning activities, that could be a Type-B deficiency. 

A Type-B deficiency is something that doesn’t impact commissioning, but does need to be completed before hand over to the owner. Or maybe the cladding is agreed as a Type-C deficiency where the owner isn’t too concerned that the cladding could be done say next summer in warmer weather after the system is put in-service just in order to meet the in-service date. Those types of deficiency classifications are reviewed on site with the commissioning team and the construction team to determine what’s outstanding, and what are the impacts on functional or commissioning activities to get to the in-service date. If in the case of your question, I would think that commissioning would probably proceed and startup would proceed. The cladding could be done in parallel or afterwards. 

Please, watch the full video of our live webinar. The presentation and Q&A portion provide helpful and important information about Safety during Commissioning.