Prioritizing Construction Over Commissioning is the Worst Way to Complete Capital Projects

?

Prioritizing construction over commissioning is the worst way to complete capital projects. I can understand why some people may believe this – construction as the priority is a long-standing industry norm, and it has been this way for decades. We’re working in the “construction” industry, so it’s understandable that project teams still think construction is the priority on capital projects.

However, all project phases are equally important for projects to be successful - no one phase of projects can be prioritized, all project groups must be allowed to succeed.

All members of the band need to play at their best. If the drummer is crushing it, but the bass-guitar is hung-over and not performing, the band will sound shitty. Everyone needs to play their part to make great music.

The construction industry has struggled with this, and it manifests on-site as the push-pull between construction and commissioning groups, each group trying to assert their dominance. But this is a detriment to projects, and both groups need to collaboratively work together and understand the priorities to meet the project in-service date.

The new approach to projects must be to start with the end in mind. This requires planning projects from right to left with CSU Frameworks in all phases of projects.

Many projects are still structured to have construction as the priority and therefore inadvertently dictate the sequence of commissioning. And this is a broken project delivery strategy that does not allow projects to succeed.

Project teams that are still planning construction as the priority are not planning for success. Start with the end in mind and plan backwards, and you will see that commissioning and construction can collaboratively work together for the benefit of the project.

The construction industry, of course, doesn’t like to hear this – it is called the construction industry after all. The site culture on many projects is still a claims-culture, with the threat of extra costs if there is any hint that construction will be impacted. This undermines the ability for project teams to collaboratively work together, with the threat of claims hanging over everyone’s head.?Construction companies would like to continue to assert their dominance and have unimpeded control of as much as they can, but this incorrect prioritization of construction hurts the ability to complete projects. Contractors are certainly entitled to their means and methods, but this shouldn’t be to the detriment of the overall project outcome.

The root cause of the problem is gaps in contracts. If contracts aren’t structured properly right from the beginning, then construction activities will naturally take priority but will not align with commissioning. This is the fundamental reason to include commissioning input at the beginning of projects to get the needed commissioning requirements in contracts so that construction groups are pointed in the right direction right from the beginning. When contracts are written with commissioning in mind, there are no disputes later – there is no persistent mindset of construction versus commissioning priorities. With correct contracts from the outset, construction and commissioning groups are able to work collaboratively in the best interest of the project.

When commissioning is not included in contracts when they are first being developed, consturction can inadvertantly prioritized. So what is required in contracts so that all project phases are prioritized at the same level? These are some examples:

- Ensure a high-level definition of project systematization is included in contracts. This is easy to do, even in the absence of design details.

- Define what completion of each of these subsystems means – everyone’s definition of “done” always seems to mean something different on projects, and this is eliminated by explicitly defining what takes place at each construction complete milestone with regards to physical deliverables, document deliverables, and who has the authority to sign off on this milestone for each subsystem.

- What are the payment milestones associated with each construction completion, with explicit details of what is required to achieve each subsystem construction completion to get paid.

- How do the roles change at this milestone, who is responsible for portions of pre-commissioning before Static Completion, and who is responsible for portions of pre-commissioning after Static Completion? Who is in a lead role and who is in a supporting role before and after Static Completion.

- How do construction quality processes align and support commissioning processes? What proactive steps are required to identify defects early and often to avoid snags during commissioning? Quality processes cannot be viewed as a necessary evil to be done daily on-site, quality processes need to be viewed as value-adding activities to avoid expensive delays during commissioning.

When contracts are being prepared, project teams are focused on getting the work started. There is typically not much thought put into contracts to define how the project will be finished. And when these details are missed in contracts, it becomes difficult and expensive to sort out later.

Join our next live webinar to learn more about Commissioning Project Management. Get the Zoom link here.

?