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Capital Project Management / Commissioning / Planning

Planning for Commissioning - Overview

The commissioning process begins during the planning phase so that adequate consideration can be given to the commissioning scope, budget and schedule. It is at the Planning stage that the Owner’s Project Requirements are developed by collaboration with the building occupants. These requirements establish the benchmarks for performance that are used during functional testing, and form the basis from which all design, construction, acceptance and operational decisions are made.

Commissioning Template

Using the Commissioning application, you can work with a Commissioning template that includes pre-defined work packages and associated action items to cover the typical systems and assemblies examined by commissioning. For example, the commissioning template has work packages for the building envelope, plumbing, HVAC, automatic temperature control, electrical systems, life safety systems, security, and specialities, with typical action items associated with these work packages. If needed, you can edit the work packages or their actions to fit your specific commissioning requirements. Or, you can create your own project templates. See Defining Project Templates. Using templates reduces data entry and ensures consistency in your commissioning process.

Planning Phase Tasks

The Planning phase includes the following tasks:

1. Identify projects with potential commissioning needs.

   Use the following tasks to identify and manage your commissioning projects:

   • Manage all active projects: View total duration, estimated design cost, and cost adjusted by funding probability totaled for all projects and for projects by their status. Having this summary information helps you make decisions as you route projects for approval, or withdraw projects. From the Manage Active Projects task, you can edit details for projects that have not yet been approved, route projects for approval, submit projects, or withdraw projects. See Manage Active Projects.
   • Request projects: Enter preliminary information for the project, including the cost budgeted and estimated duration. After saving a project request, you can add project documents using the ARCHIBUS document management system, including Project Business Case, Project Risk Analysis, Project Charter, and the Project implementation Plan. See Requesting a Project.
   • Create work packages: If needed, create work packages for each of the commissioning areas. If you are using a template, the work packages are created for you, but you can create additional work packages as needed. If you need to delete a work package, use the Commissioning Console/Edit Work Packages tab. See Creating and Editing Work Packages.
   • Add action items to project requests: You can add actions and associate them with work packages, or you can apply a template of actions to the project. Adding Actions for Created or Requested Projects.
   • Copy assessment items to projects: If you are using the Condition Assessment application, you can copy assessment items to your project. See Adding Condition Assessment Items to Projects.
   • View your projects: Review projects that you have created or requested. See Editing or Viewing Project Requests.
   • Edit your projects: Add or edit projects, work packages, or actions for the projects you have created. See Editing or Viewing Project Requests.
2. Define owner's requirements with building occupant

   Once your commissioning project has been requested, you establish the preliminary commissioning plan by estimating the baseline schedules and baseline costs. These estimates establish the timeline and costs for the work packages and action items you have defined to reflect the owner's requirements. After establishing these estimates, you can route the project for approval.

   • Develop a preliminary commissioning plan: Working with Requested projects, you can view actions for all Requested commissioning projects, or, to work with a single project, you can select a specific Project Code from the Filter console and click Show. You can see all work packages and actions for the project laid out on a timeline. This enables you to evaluate if all requirements have been specified. See Estimating Baseline Schedules and Costs.
   • Estimate initial budgeting: Enter baseline costs for the actions you have defined. See Estimating Baseline Costs.
   • Route projects for approval: See Route projects for approval.
3. Approve Projects

   Next, you can analyze requested projects, and Approving Managers can approve or reject them.

   • Prioritize commissioning projects: Review details for requested projects, and enter a priority for them before deciding which projects to approve. See Prioritizing Project Requests.
   • Approve project funding requests:  If you are an Approving Manager, you can approve or reject project requests. See Approving a Project Request.