This month, I want to address an issue which is as old as building systems commissioning itself. It was one of the first challenges commissioning professionals endeavored to resolve in order to more effectively and efficiently facilitate the commissioning process … and yet it still lingers. It does not linger in small, dark, unenlightened corners of the design and construction world. It lingers on a majority of projects. The issue is the readiness of commissioned systems for functional performance testing (FPT).
There are myriad reasons why systems are not ready for testing even after the commissioning professional works diligently with a project team to coordinate the process leading up to testing, provides test procedures with acceptance criteria, and repeatedly asks for affirmation that the systems are fully installed, started-up, balanced, programmed, and pre-tested for compliance with the test procedure requirements. Common reasons include: