Brief blog today guys, all based on the scoping of the turn-over aspect of a contract.

As clients we sat this morning and decided what we need to deliver by the time the EPC contract is written, in brief

• Strategy (what I had been working on)
• Commissioning Plan to level 3
• Interface management between what is on and off battery limits
• Commissioning risk analysis (at project level not per system)
• Commissioning budget

To gain the scope for the commissioning plan I was insistent that commissioning systems must be defined, which is an action that we as a project must address shortly. The outcome of this exercise will then feed into the project master schedule and the plans supplied by the principle technology providers.

This afternoon I listened to our principle contractor share with us their handover or turnover methodology and again I was pleased to hear us all speaking a common language but perhaps in a different dialect! Definition of terms is so key to successful communication and execution.

Tomorrow is the control system, I sense I am about to be educated in the “modern way”, which is good, I from today understand that systemization and punch listing is an activity undertaken on software and a tablet, I look forward to being further educated…

Safe and successful commissioning to you always…

At last the strategy document is complete and issued.

Having closed out the content the strategy was then issued for comment. I had chosen 3 peer reviewers and an authorizer for the document, and after receiving those comments I spend half a day sorting through the results and back-drafting, it is now out for information. I move on…

I had the privilege today of meeting a couple of guys who run a construction close-out and commissioning management company. It is always interesting and refreshing to me to meet people with a common interest in commissioning and to hear how others deliver our discipline. We all use the same methodology, but it is always fascinating to learn of new and in some cases novel methods to deliver effective and efficient commissioning delivery.

Today closed out with a meeting on documentation and specifically documentation at handover. I try and advocate that at the handover time the commissioning team are charged with only reviewing and accepting the key documents to allow us to do our work efficiently, these documents will include red lined loop sheets, P&ID’s and emergency shutdown test matrices. On my current project it is comforting to know my requirements are being built into the plans for handover now so we as a commissioning team can be effective at the time we desperately need to be.

Safe and successful commissioning to you always…

The strategy document I am currently working on has a significant section which details the thoughts behind the key commissioning phases, namely:

Punch Listing – The document highlights the plans we need to put in place to manage this important activity, who will be responsible for what and how from a management system we control the punch listing work. We have many thousands of P&ID’s on our project so a robust system of checking them out (punch listing) must be formulated.

Pre-commissioning – Although not directly under the commissioning teams control, the commissioning strategy details our role in the witnessing process of all the pre-commissioning activities, cleaning, loop testing, lubrication, alignment, and other checks.

Systemization – This section describes the three basic steps in a robust systemization process we will use on our project, 1. Highlighting each P&ID, engineering documents and single line diagrams to ensure each item, or entity on our plant is assigned to a commissioning system, 2. Then prioritizing the systems so they are delivered to us and commissioning in the most effective way possible to support an ideal start-up and 3.  Producing commissioning logic diagrams per commissioning system which lay out the road map of the key commissioning activities per system giving durations and enabling and successor activities.

Factory acceptance testing – The importance the commissioning team has in this first of commissioning activities

Modular construction – The strategy describes what role we will play at the module shop and the key work we expect to be undertaken, e.g. the witnessing of pre-commissioning work conducted at the module shop.

The strategy nears completion; soon I will be onto other commissioning deliverables.

Safe and successful commissioning to you always…

Apologies Dear reader, I was travelling again last week and although working on my strategy, I had little opportunity to keep you up to speed with my commissioning progress, sorry again.

So what have I made progress, comment and observation on?

Important sections in the strategy were drafted addressing my team competencies and the training they will require to execute their activities. A section was then inserted which explained the overall start-up sequence of the complex we are building and how they are inter-related and the various dependencies, successors and predecessors. The commissioning execution planning and tracking mechanisms were highlighted and the strategy explained.

A considerable section addressed the methodology my team will use to deliver the commissioning of the various plants, this will be the basis of a blog in its own right..

For this entry I shall sign off with reference to a section my strategy has on the important topic of handover, the guide documents we will use to see us through the process and the expectation I hold on how the EPC contractors will manage the handover process electronically.

More detail to come,

Safe and successful commissioning to you always…