As a Commissioning Provider (CxP), we want to be a partner with the project team. When Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, and Technology (MEPT) Systems are not operating properly, your end users and facility occupants will suffer. If your facility operations teams do not have proper training, you might be waiting for your service team to arrive for an easily solved item. Leaning on your CxP’s skills and utilizing them as a valuable Team Member can enhance the outcomes of a building project or renovation. A CxP should be qualified with not only technical knowledge of systems, but also skills such as understanding the staging of the project. This helps to ensure systems are fully integrated and operational at the right times. As more projects are having a CxP added to the team, we want to be involved to maximize the value of these services to our project teams. We want to be a Project Partner.

Having a Commissioning Provider (CxP) as a partner on your team should not be a burden. We are engaged in the project to minimize mistakes in installations and system start-up and/or programming. This effort starts during scoping of services by the Owner and A/E. If you’re not clear on what commissioning is, please visit the past article at What is Commissioning.

A well scoped Cx process should provide support to all aspects of the project from design documents through warranty period and into operations. Outside of the minimum Cx process, the CxP can also include services that assist with additional project tasks to provide value to a project. The following task items are not part of IECC code minimum commissioning but will add value from your CxP.

• MEPT Coordination and Planning

CxP can provide confirmation that scheduled activities are in correct order, start-up and check-out of systems are coordinated and properly documented, as well as confirming coordination of training and close-out documentation. This can include a site meeting to discuss the requirements for each trade to ensure proper coordination of each system’s needs.

• Start-up and Warranty Documentation Requirement Tracking

Documentation is a large part of the CxP responsibility. It is common for our checklists to have these requirements included for each system. A CxP can provide a separate tracking document to ensure all team members have access to project requirements. Confirming this early will ensure start-up and warranty documentation meets project requirements and the Owner’s new systems have their warranties activated.

• Schedule Review and System Readiness Verification

Similar to start-up and warranty tracking, the CxP can utilize Pre-Functional Checklists (PFC’s) and System Readiness Checklists to assist a project team in assuring systems are installed per plans, specifications, and submitted information. This often saves a start-up technician from having to come to the site for a second trip when things were not fully ready on the first coordinated site visit. Minimizing extra site visits can save the project team time which helps meet project schedules. It is also good to have your CxP confirm the construction schedule is accurate and order of construction is logical.

• Systems Manual and As-Installed Documentation

The CxP will become familiar with specified project close-out requirements and typically have tools and processes that can assist with ensuring these documents are accurate and useful to our end users and facility operators. System Manuals assist the facility operations teams to better understand their systems and have useful information about each one in a central location. This document should reflect final system operation and BMS programming, as well as ‘as-installed’ graphics and sequences of operation. As we work through functional performance testing (FPT’s), it is common for us to have a marked-up copy of project documents that can be used to update and back-check final ‘as-installed’ documents provided by a project team.

• MEPT System Submittal/Shop Drawing Review

Fixing concerns during the submittal process saves time and money for construction projects. The CxP should have a review of these documents in their scope. This assists the Contractors and A/E teams in ensuring that equipment purchased meets project intent and will integrate/function as intended. Items typically commented on here are service clearances, BMS integration confirmation, and sequence of operations verification for each system. When the CxP does not have this opportunity before the equipment has been procured, it might be discovered during testing which is more costly and time-consuming to correct. This is a large value add to the project team.

• Owner and Facility Operator Training Planning and Involvement

Once the CxP has functionally tested the building’s MEPT systems, we have records and knowledge of these systems.  For this reason, it is an easy value adder to include your CxP in the training of these systems for the end users. This allows another professional to assist and answer questions from Facility Operation Teams. It is also good for the CxP to assist the installation team in understanding specified training requirements and coordinating this training with the end users.

As commissioning services continue to evolve, it is easy to show added value when useful services are included in the CxP scope early in the project. The entire project team can see the value and benefits of having a qualified and well thought out commissioning process for their project. If you, or your team, are interested in learning more, please contact Byron (contactbyron@bamcx.com) and he would be happy to further discuss CxP scoping and benefits with you.