Commissioning-Specific Best Practices during the Construction Phase

Staying abreast of project updates and developing a rapport with all the parties involved in the project are important aspects of the commissioning process. Interestingly, there is a handful of best practices that the best commissioning management company in the UK can integrate into each stage of the commissioning process to make it more effective. Keep reading to know about such practices that you can use during the important phase of construction.

Conducting a Great Initial Meeting

When conducted appropriately, the initial meeting should make the project team feel quite confident that the commissioning management firm is available at all times to ensure the project completes successfully. In addition to offering support to the team, best practices for the initial meeting include the following:

• Scheduling the meeting mindfully. It should not be scheduled too early. Reason being, contractors may forget about the commissioning process if too much time passes by. Whereas, if you conduct it after equipment installation, you would miss crucial opportunities to assess submittals and inform the process. The right time is when contractors are available on site and the construction phase has just started, but equipment is yet to be installed.
  
  
• It may appear obvious, but the initial meeting must include a complete review of the commissioning authority process. Present a master list of equipment that requires commissioning, testing duration and prerequisites, along with pre-functional checklists, so that each member of the team properly understand what they should expect along the way.
  
  
• Maintaining the momentum of the meeting is important. This can be done by visiting the site soon after the meeting and interacting with contractors while showing interest in their work to understand the project in a better way through keen observation.
  

Completing Pre-Functional Checklists by the Commissioning Authority

Instead of depending on installation contractors, the commissioning authority should take the responsibility to complete the documentation of pre-functional checklist. While acting as the most effective supporter of the project owner, the commission authority can check appropriate installation early on in order to prevent systemic problems from occurring in the first place.

Becoming Part of the Solution

Project teams admire commissioning management companies that work beyond generating lists of problems. That is to say, the commission authority should put in efforts to be part of the solution. The commissioning deficiencies log is certainly a crucial communication tool to track deficiencies that cannot be fixed immediately. Every deficiency is assigned to a suitable member of the project team. This log should define every deficiency with clarity while offering suggestions on how to resolve the issue.

When completing the pre-functional checklist on site, the commissioning authority should try its best to build rapport with the members of the project team, who have the responsibility to install equipment. When a deficiency is identified, this will help the commissioning authority know who they should contact to in order to discuss the deficiency – either to resolve it right away or to offer recommendations for faster resolution.

Customizing Functional Performance Testing

After the approval of submittals, Functional Performance Testing (FPT) documentation must be completed. The documentation should describe any particular installation or operational requirements from the manufacturer, along with test procedures developed through years of commissioning experience. Specific control sequences should be used that are developed by the design team to check the response of equipment to changes in the status, like transition from heating to cooling or enabling the economizer mode.

Does the equipment set back when set points are attained? Does the equipment for backup power work in the event of an emergency power failure? Is the direct digital controls interface working perfectly, without errors? Such questions can easily be addressed if the commissioning authority possess a comprehensive FPT documentation, uses test procedures in an organised manner and records the outcomes, so that testing can be done again during re-commissioning in future.

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