The Commissioning Process – A Well Oiled Machine

What is Total Building Commissioning?

EAB is the leading authority in Total Building Commissioning, encompassing HVAC, electrical, plumbing and life safety. As experts in our field, the dedicated team that staffs our commissioning projects are separate from our testing and balancing staff. The two independent teams allow us to provide objective, third-party services to owners.

“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.” – Halford E. Luccock.

Our Commissioning Process

We are often asked what makes our commissioning process unique from our competitors. The answer is that we strive to build a cohesive commissioning team on each project that consists of the Owner’s project and operations personnel, design professionals, contractors, and equipment vendors along with our commissioning team members. Next, our goal is to serve the team so that we can lead an efficient and effective process that provides the best value outcome for the entire team and exceeds the Owner’s Project Requirements at the culmination of the project.

Building Commissioning

We begin this process by explaining the benefits of commissioning to each member of the commissioning team. The success of the entire commissioning process must begin with the initial step of gaining “buy-in” to the process from all team members.  In many instances you would say this is easier said than done.  Let’s breakdown the value proposition for each party.  

Simply stated, commissioning is the single most effective quality tool for reducing risk to the Owner, the Design Team, and the Contractor. When commissioning team members actively participate, the risks (and therefore monetary costs) to all parties are minimized, thus adding value.

  • Commissioning assures the Owner they take possession of a facility that is complete, fully functional and meets their original project requirements and design intent with minimized delays or cost overruns.  The training of the Owner’s operations staff is fully documented and verified for specification compliance to help keep the facility operating at peak performance.

  • Commissioning assures the Design Team during the design phase that they will have fewer costly design changes once construction is underway.  It also provides an effective collaboration zone to quickly resolve unforeseen design issues during the construction phase with the appropriate stakeholders.

  • Finally, commissioning assures the Contractor, subcontractors and equipment vendors that the systems they install are documented as compliant with the specifications and fully functional at project completion.  This reduces warranty items and increases their ability to develop future business.

It has been our experience that once the benefits are explained in terms of how commissioning helps each individual team member, rather than being viewed by team members as a contractually obligated hindrance, active participation in commissioning is achieved by the team members. Furthermore, Engineered Air Balance’s commissioning personnel bring a service-related attitude to help all members of the team succeed. We want all commissioning team members to feel the value added by the process throughout the entire project while delivering an optimum operating facility. Please contact us to see how you can feel the difference with EAB Commissioning service on your next project.

 

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