The biggest mistake most people make when trying to figure out commissioning is thinking that they need to immediately get to site and follow someone around for a decade just to learn commissioning.

And I get it, this is very common. Everyone tells you this – and because there’s been no alternative, it’s indoctrinated into the industry that you need to tough it out on-site for many years and learn on-the-fly.  It’s always been done this way, so it’s very easy to fall into this trap.

But let’s compare commissioning to brain surgery – they’re both highly technical professions with a lot at stake.

Now, let me ask you, how does a brain surgeon prepare for their first surgery? Do they show up in the operating room, start asking a bunch of questions to figure out what to do, and do a few surgeries until they figure it out on-the-fly?

Of course not! At least not any brain surgeon that I would want!

So what does a brain surgeon do to prepare? They of course study the step-by-step process to follow, the tools they need to do the job, and they need to understand the procedures to use if something goes wrong – that is the only way a brain surgeon can be confident that they know how to do the job safely and properly. And only after studying these critical steps will they then proceed to get hands-on experience.

The same applies to commissioning – understanding the forms to use and the commissioning process to follow gives you a significant advantage prior to on-site commissioning, so you have the confidence to do the job safely and properly.

Both commissioning and brain surgery are highly skilled professions that require hands-on experience to become great. Prior to experience on-site or experience in the operating room, both professions require detailed and specific knowledge in advance to know how to do them safely and effectively.

The 4 Pillars of Integrated Commissioning

I’ll show you the 4 pillars of integrated commissioning, which you can implement on your projects so that you can understand the forms to use and the process to follow before getting to site, have confidence with commissioning before getting hands-on experience, and be able to precisely execute like a brain surgeon.

Commissioning must be integrated into all stages of projects, starting with procurement.

Commissioning Procurement

There are two important aspects to consider when preparing contracts. When these two aspects aren’t included in contracts, it leads to confusion and disputes on-site later in your project, and these disputes cause costly delays while everyone is determining what needs to be done instead of completing on-site commissioning. Without these requirements included in contracts, you’re not setting on-site commissioning up for success. By leaving these details out of contracts, issues are deferred to on-site commissioning and will compound the number of issues to deal with, rather than commissioning taking place snag-free.

What most people don’t realize is that there are critical steps of the commissioning process that must take place early in projects during procurement. Projects are not starting with the end in mind if either of these two steps of the commissioning process is missed, and you’ll be dealing with the issues later.

You must include commissioning requirements in contracts for both:

• Procurement of design and construction groups
• Equipment procurement contracts

Design and construction procurement processes, regardless of the project delivery strategy, must ensure that the groups selected have the skillset to meet the needs of commissioning. If groups cannot demonstrate an understanding of commissioning and how their role aligns with the objectives of successful commissioning to achieve the in-service date, then other groups must be selected. Price is not the only determining factor, and the price won’t matter when the selected groups aren’t qualified to do the work and take many more months/years to complete their part. Selection criteria to determine commissioning capabilities must be part of contract procurement processes to ensure groups can meet the project objective.

Equipment supply contracts must also align with the on-site test objectives. Any FAT or IFAT that is required must be specified in detail prior to contracts being awarded and must align with on-site testing. Testing in the factory cannot be determined after supply contracts are awarded, this always results in extra charges or testing that do not align with later on-site testing stages. And if others will be responsible for supply contracts, then their contracts must specify the requirements of what they are to include in supply contracts so that equipment that is received at site aligns with the next steps of on-site commissioning.

For example, when test requirements are missing in procurement contracts, there may be no definition of how integrated testing of both the software and hardware must be done before equipment is shipped to site. Without being defined as a requirement, the manufacturer isn’t going to voluntarily do it for free, they are going to test per the minimum contract requirements. Your choice is to either pay extra to have the proper testing done in the factory, or ship the equipment to site and test it during on-site commissioning. Invariably there is no time, and the decision is to ship the equipment to site and perform integration testing later during on-site testing. And by doing this, all the deficiencies and defects that should have been identified and fixed in the factory are now only identified during on-site testing, much later in the project when they cause bigger delays and are much more costly to fix. The delays caused by missing these details in contracts and deferring these issues to critical path on-site commissioning causes you to miss your in-service date.

Commissioning procurement is complex, and I don’t want to overwhelm you with all the details, but this is something we cover in full in our Commissioning Academy program. And I wanted to point this out to you so you can check your contracts and see if there is anything missing that needs to be tested in the factory before you receive equipment at site.  One more thing, you’re often joining projects after some or all contracts have already been awarded, so we also cover how to fix contracts after the fact in our Commissioning Academy program. Identifying these missing contract requirements before factory testing and issuing change orders to fix contracts can save millions of dollars on projects and avoid costly delays during on-site commissioning.

So hopefully now you are seeing the importance of integrating commissioning into the procurement phase of projects.

Commissioning Design

The next pillar of integrated commissioning takes place during design. What most people do is start the project, assemble the design team, and they start doing analysis, performing calculations, and generating design packages.  Lessons learned may have been gathered from previous projects, but these have been filed away and forgotten about to be included in designs. The design team works diligently for many months to prepare designs with very little input from the end of the project. The feedback loop from the end of the project back to the beginning is broken.

Instead, key members of the commissioning team need to be integrated as part of the design process to act as that feedback loop to design. There are two important aspects of feedback to consider:

• Commissionability – If there are things that can be incorporated into the design that can save time later during commissioning, then these are value-saving inputs that need to be considered. If spending a bit more time and money during design can save days or weeks of commissioning later, then these are usually value-saving activities.
• Startup Sequence – The startup sequence to achieve the project in-service date is the backbone of projects, and determines the optimized sequence of design and contraction activities to align with commissioning and startup. Having key members of the commissioning team integrated into the design process can guide the design team to optimize time on the project and ensure design deliverables are required when needed for commissioning and startup.

For example, if the startup of the chemical dosing system takes place prior to the startup of the biological nutrient removal system, then it makes the most sense to prepare these design packages in the same order. Having these take place in the opposite order, and then be installed in the opposite order as well, will cause delays during commissioning.  The commissioning team will be waiting for the chemical dosing system so they can complete commissioning, since it is required before being able to proceed with commissioning and startup of the BNR system.

Again, hopefully, you are seeing the importance of integrating commissioning into the design process.

Have a look at your project design processes and see how commissioning is integrated. We cover what is required to integrate commissioning into your design processes in our Commissioning Academy program.

Construction Commissioning 

The third pillar of integrated commissioning takes place during construction.  Most projects focus a lot on the construction phase because this is where you can start to touch and feel the things that have been conceptual up until this point. Construction is also the phase of projects where most of the project budget is spent due to heavy civil components of the project as well as major equipment deliveries, so it’s understandable why construction gets a lot of attention. Because of this high-visibility phase of the project, commissioning can get over-shadowed and forgotten about.

Instead of over-shadowing commissioning, several aspects of commissioning need to be integrated as part of construction processes to ensure that physical equipment deliverables and documentation deliverables are being met.

There are two aspects to ensure are integrated within construction processes:

• Construction Quality Management – these are the on-site construction quality management processes to monitor quality control and quality assurance, making sure that all contractual quality requirements are being met
• Sequence and Completeness of Static Completions – these are critical milestone dates that define subsystem handover from the construction team to the commissioning team, as well as the completions process to ensure that contractual construction quality has been achieved

If either of these does not align with the commissioning and startup sequence of the project, costly delays will be encountered. For example, if point-to-point checks of panel wiring is done poorly or wiring errors are missed, this will cause delays during commissioning. Because of the project burn rate, a single cable that is missed or terminated incorrectly can cause millions of dollars in delay for even just a one-day delay to fix the defect. This is why it is critical that commissioning is integrated into the construction process to ensure that construction deliverables are achieved – snag-free.

Construction and commissioning groups must work closely together to ensure a smooth transition from construction to commissioning, in order for the project in-service date to be met. Again, this is illustrating how these critical steps of the commissioning process must be integrated into construction activities. 

On-Site Commissioning

The fourth pillar of integrated commissioning is on-site commissioning and startup of the plant processes. If any of the previous pillars are skipped or done poorly, on-site testing will not go well. All four pillars must be integrated to fully achieve the Integrated Commissioning Method.

Focusing on only some of the pillars of integrated commissioning, which is what most people do, is what causes projects to be significantly late and over-budget.

There are several important tasks to prepare in advance of on-site commissioning so that this stage can focus strictly on the execution of on-site testing. Three of the aspects of on-site commissioning to consider are:

• Sequence of Static Completion, Pre-Commissioning, and Commissioning – depending on the type of system, mechanical, electrical, or automation systems, there is usually a sequence of activities that best optimizes each sequence.
• Commissioning and Performance Verification – this is where the rubber meets the road. All the complex control sequences defined in your Process Control Narrative need to be tested, including all normal operating scenarios, and any fault scenarios to protect the systems.
• Trial Operation – this is the period of time where plant processes must operate uninterrupted for a specific duration of time, let’s say 30 days as an example. This needs to be planned in advance to determine what takes place during these 30 days, and what constitutes an upset

These are some questions to ask about the sequence of static completion – who is responsible for pipe flushing, leak testing, and pressure testing? Are these included as part of Static Completion, and are these classified as construction or pre-commissioning activities?

What about point-to-point checks, megger checks, and loop checks? Who is completing these, are they part of Static Completion, and are they classified as construction or pre-commissioning activities?

And don’t forget about the important documentation required – what is included in each Static Completion for red-line markups versus as-built drawings, what O&M manuals are required, and who is responsible for each of these. These are all things we cover in our Commissioning Academy  program.

When commissioning is integrated into all stages of projects, your projects have a much higher chance of success. The 4 pillars of the Integrated Commissioning Method we have discussed give you the framework required to successfully complete your projects on-time and on-budget.

A brain surgeon that tries to skip figuring out what to do in advance isn’t going to have many patients to work on. Just like someone who skips figuring out commissioning in advance and goes directly to site isn’t going to have many projects to work on. Both professions require detailed knowledge before getting hands-on experience.

So right now you have a choice – you can work hard on-site, following someone around for years to learn on-the-fly how to implement each of these commissioning pillars into your projects.  After years on-site, you might still not know if you’ve figured out the safest and industry-best methods of commissioning. In fact, this is exactly what most people will do because it’s indoctrinated into the industry.

Or, you can be the type of person who focuses on confidence and gains the one thing that all people have who work on successful projects.

And if that’s you, then click below to enroll in our Free 3-Day Mini-Course to learn more about the industry-best commissioning processes being used by all successful projects.

I’ll see you in the mini-course!