Capital Projects / Commissioning / Design

Design Overview

A valuable characteristic of commissioning is the discovery of flaws in the design or construction that will prevent the facility from operating in accordance with parameters set forth by the owner. If discovery occurs before the construction contract is accepted as complete, the consultants and contractors will bear the burden of taking corrective action. When discovery occurs after the construction contract is accepted as complete, the owner inherits these responsibilities and costs. A key goal of the commissioning design phase is to ensure that all contract documents are aligned with the Owner's Project Requirements document. The Commissioning application supports discovery of design flaws early in the process by providing all stakeholders electronic access to required documents, and facilitating coordination between the design professionals and the commissioning agents.

This electronic access facilitates faster turn-around time as design professionals and commissioning agents collaboratively review and refine design submissions. For example, the design team can use the Review Owner's Project Requirements task to quickly locate the Owner's Project Requirements document for a commissioning project, as they refine the design submissions for that project. They can use the Archibus Document Management System to track document revisions until the document is finalized.

The commissioning submission process enables all parties to set expectations up front. The Design process facilitates this by automating the submission and approval process.

The Design process includes the following tasks:

  1. Assign the commissioning team members.
    • Assign the project sponsor, the project manager, the design team, commissioning agent, and any consultants. These team members can be employees, including operations staff, or vendors.
    • See Assigning Team Members to a Project.
  2. Manage commissioning actions and documents.
    • Manage commissioning work packages and their actions, and associate documents with commissioning documentation actions, so that both commissioning agents and design professionals can work with these documents in the other tasks of the Design Process. You can work with commissioning contracts (such as the owner's project requirements), design submissions, and contracts awarded to commissioning agents.
    • See Manage Design Submissions and Requirements.
  3. Review design submissions
    • The design team can enter and manage design submissions received from commissioning agents so that they can track the submissions from the time the design is submitted until the submission is 100% approved. Design professionals and commissioning agents review and refine design submission drafts for milestone statuses.
    • See Review Design Submissions.
  4. Enter actions for design submissions for milestone statuses.
    • When the design submission has advanced to a milestone status, you can enter a new action for the design submission, indicating in the Action Title the percentage of completeness that this action represents, and attaching the revised document to the action.
    • See Adding Actions for Commissioning Documents.
  5. Review owner's project requirements.
  6. Approve Design Submissions.
    • When the design submission is 100% complete, use the Approve Documentation action button to approve the design submission. Attach the finalized document and change the action's Action Type to reflect its new purpose now that it has been approved. For example, change an action from Design Submission to Construction Checklist. Using the Approve Documentation action, the action will now be available in the Construction process.
    • See Approving Design Submissions.
  7. Review contracts awarded to commissioning agents.
  8. Update the commissioning plan.
    • Design professionals and commissioning agents can use the Gantt chart to view all action items on a timeline. Schedule adjustments can be made by clicking and dragging the bar for the action in the timeline. This view enables you to view all actions for a specific project, a work package, a time frame, a building, or for specific types of actions.
    • See Updating the Commissioning Plan.
  9. Alternately, work with a single project using the Commissioning Console
    • The Commissioning Console offers an alternative to working from the individual tasks. Use the Commissioning Console to manage details for one project, including estimating the schedule using the Gantt chart, adjusting costs, deleting and updating work packages, and viewing communication logs.
    • See Using the Commissioning Console for the Design Phase.

Action Item Types for the Design Process

Action items for documentation are tracked based on the Action Type designation for the action. From the Design process, you work with the following action types: