Effective Collaboration between Commissioning Authorities and Operations Staff Ensures Successful Turnover

We all understand the importance of collaboration and communication with the project team and owner, from design to turnover. But, do you know that the liaison between commissioning management companies and operations staff is equally important for successful turnover?

Operations & Maintenance Staff   

In the build environment, facilities operations and maintenance (O&M) personnel are the uncelebrated heroes, who work behind the scenes painstakingly to ensure that buildings perform optimally at all times. They are the ones who make sure that the occupants of the building are safe and comfortable, and that systems and equipment are maintained well.

As per general expectations, building O&M is a costly affair. In fact, it’s the biggest cost incurred in owning and operating a facility over its entire lifecycle. Thankfully, building commissioning may ease the owner’s cost burden specific to O&M while lessening the learning curve of O&M personnel, provided that they are included in the turnover phase.

How to Build Turnover

It is crucial to include O&M personnel in the design and planning phases of any new building project – particularly, for the development of the Owner’s Project Requirements. Their contribution is important with respect to verifying system capabilities, offering feedback on unexpected maintenance-related problems, and giving insights into how end users will actually use the building.

For instance, if the building is a college or university dormitory, O&M personnel could easily predict that the end users will consume large amounts of hot water. Suggesting a shell & tube-based, semi-instantaneous water heater with drain water heat recovery will perform better than heat pump technology and it will also require low maintenance. O&M personnel can also identify that a buffer tank over a chilled water system can lower start/stop cycle times, leading to enhanced performance and decreased wear on equipment.

These types of ideas can help facilitate the design and fulfil end user needs while ensuring that systems are just as complicated as they need to be.

Today’s projects produce sizeable documentation, comprising information which helps ensure that the building performs well in the long run. During the turnover phase, commissioning agents or commissioning management companies should assess the documentation while ensuring that the owner as well as the O&M personnel get an exhaustive documentation package.

The commissioning services and management agent examines documentation for vendor contact information, warranty, troubleshooting matrixes, replacement part availability, completeness, etc. The documentation package basically transfers project-related knowledge to the professionals assigned with the task to ensure that the building performs well.

This documentation package should ideally include:

• As-built plans
• System-level O&M manual
• Construction test plans & reports
• Owner’s project requirements and basis of design
• Final report of commissioning 
•  Systems manual

For instance, if the project requires special equipment like a high-performance heat recovery system, the commissioning management company will need to check if the O&M manual offers the contact information of vendors, extensive details of the maintenance procedures, comprehensive troubleshooting matrix and system parts schematic, along with ordering information.

The scope work of commissioning should additionally consist of analysis of training content provided to O&M personnel by contractors so as to ensure that the material appropriately covers key HVAC systems. The training approach should be exhaustive, detailing at length how the systems should act, the interactions between the systems as well as the consequences of improperly maintaining the systems.

Finally, commissioning services and management agent should deliver a user-friendly systems-level manual that can provide operators with the crucial information, required for the proper maintenance and operations of the systems.

At minimum, the documentation should offer the following:

• Confirmation that equipment fulfils installation-specific requirements & specifications
• System-level locations & descriptions
• Operational information gathered during the commissioning phase
• Preventative maintenance intervals & procedures
• Relevant as-built control & mechanical drawings

The commissioning services and management agent should also include and assess a re-commissioning plan with O&M personnel. As a frequently neglected extension to the systems manual, a re-commissioning plan offers guidance and outlines timelines for the re-commissioning of building systems. Its format is similar to the project commissioning plan with major attention on functional testing and monitoring outcomes. O&M personnel can make use of the re-commissioning plan to explain when building systems need re-commissioning, how to involve the commissioning team, implement functional testing and record results for future building project managers.

Takeaway

Operations and maintenance professionals add value to the construction and design of buildings they will be operating and maintaining in future. Therefore, it’s important to have their inputs early on in the project. The opportunity to partner with them during the turnover phase is probably the last chance for commissioning management companies for ensuring a positive effect on the long-term health and performance of any building.

Knowledge of the building-specific systems, equipment and controls can be shared with O&M personnel in the form of a well-structured turnover documentation package, a user-friendly systems manual and an exhaustive systems training material.

Commissioning services and management agents should take advantage of the turnover phase to bring about a positive effect on the long-term performance of buildings, by working harmoniously with O&M personnel while ensuring that they have all the updated information as and when needed.