The document discusses the challenges of handing over construction projects to commissioning teams, noting that proper planning, coordination between teams, and use of commissioning management software is needed. It emphasizes the importance of quality control during construction, creating integrated schedules, developing pre-commissioning checklists, and clearly defining handover responsibilities to ensure a smooth transition. If handover details are not addressed thoroughly, it could result in safety issues, incomplete systems, and project delays.

2.  Handover of subsystems to the commissioning team from the construction
team is perhaps one the most challenging facets of project commissioning.
Having said that, it shouldn’t have to be complicated and all you need is to
plan it thoughtfully in advance.
 Obviously, the construction phase plan requires to be fully aligned with the
commissioning phase plan. This ensures that all parts of the project are
completely ready and easily available when you require them to facilitate the
overall start up and commissioning sequence.
 Projects today are more complex than ever before, which makes the process
of handover even tougher. Given the sea of information that needs to be
handled during the handover, spread sheets and paper are not the most
suitable tools to manage such massive details. Way better options are now
available that could streamline the entire process while ensuring that no
details are lost during the process. Commissioning professionals should
leverage commissioning management systems software to handle the large
amount of data that exists within a project.

3. CONSTRUCTION QUALITY PROCESSES THAT
LEAD TO THE HANDOVER PROCESS
 The commissioning phase will only be a success if appropriate QA/QC
processes are executed during installation activities before
commissioning.
 A quality management system (QMS) is therefore important for
achieving success.
 Multiple inspection and test plans (ITPs) are needed once the
installation is complete. This produces a voluminous paperwork that
requires to be archived and monitored for future reference.
 While this was done earlier using hard ITP copies, the sizeable volume
of information available on projects today renders manual tracking
somewhat unmanageable.
 Manually completing every ITP on site may result in errors since
handwriting may be indecipherable or data may be lost during the
process.

4.  The QA/QC processes that lead up to handover must find out
deficiencies to be fixed prior to commissioning, or it must complete
before handover to the project owner.
 There will be so many minor details to track and manage, which can
only be done with accuracy using the best commissioning software to
make sure that nothing is missed.
 With multiple elements being monitored through the commissioning as
well as the construction phase, software solutions are the key to
ensuring smooth transition between different project phases.

5. CREATING AN INTEGRATED CONSTRUCTION
AND COMMISSIONING SCHEDULE
 The list of milestones for every completion defines the important
handover-specific dates needed for every subsystem that are involved
in the project schedule.
 This list offers guidance to construction professionals on how to plan
the work.
 Any unachieved milestone dates must be identified well before time so
as to discuss beforehand how to plan the work appropriately with the
commissioning team.
 The integrated construction and commissioning schedule is assessed
quite often – starting with monthly reviews at the start of construction
and subsequently increasing the frequency as mechanical completion
milestone dates approach.
 Any delay require close monitoring to find out whether or not it will
affect the commissioning process – and if so, how to avoid such delays.

6.  When construction and commissioning schedules are followed
separately, the collaborative discussion becomes much tougher.
 Without a complete understanding of the effects of construction-
specific delays, the project team cannot come up with mitigation
solutions.
 Today’s commissioning management system software features a
forecast function that can automatically discover effects to the project’s
in-service date.
 With advance notification of possible problems, the project team can
act proactively to deal with the problems while avoiding expensive
delays to the handover process.

7. PRE-COMMISSIONING ACTIVITIES
 Mechanical completions and ITPs must be defined beforehand so that
the commissioning team gets to know what they would receive.
 Also, pre commissioning checklists require to be created beforehand so
that the necessary testing can be done without any delay once received
from the construction team.
 Proper documentation is required to lay out the scope of construction
vs. commissioning.
 Pre commissioning checklists are needed to guide the team on what
inspections need to be carried out, when and by whom.
 These checklists have been in use for several decades to check
mechanical and electrical equipment.
 While the inspections to be done on regular equipment has not changed
with time, every project needs to develop a new checklist.

8.  But why? Let’s understand this with an example. The inspection to be done during
the pump’s initial run-in includes measuring current draw, vibration, flow rates,
and inlet and outlet pressure.
 These are the same set of inspections on a pump that has been performed for
years. So why there’s a need to re-develop this checklist for every project? Rather,
a standard checklist for regular equipment is required.
 The best commissioning software packages of today include such checks in
project-specific checklists with the ease of “drag and drop”.
 It’s no longer required to find a past project’s checklist and change the
document’s title for the new project at hand with the similar list of inspections.
 These resources facilitate easy checklist creation, instead of re-creating it for the
same equipment on each project.
 Taking things a step ahead, data gets recorded into software packages. A physical
copy of the checklist is no longer needed on the site which often results in data
entry errors.
 Field professionals feed information directly into online checklists, where it is
registered and assessed against the criteria of pass/fail. Once done, checklists are
archived to be included in the final turnover packages to the project owner.

9. COORDINATING CONSTRUCTION AND
COMMISSIONING WORK
 In most of the projects, some commissioning and construction
activities do overlap. It is highly unlikely that all construction activities
are cent-percent complete and the construction team has moved away
from the site before the commissioning team takes over the site.
 The commissioning team may start testing several systems when a few
subsystems are still under construction.
 Working in such a situation requires close coordination and monitoring.
It would not be safe to have one team powering up systems for the very
first time while another team is still installing it.
 Formal handover and mechanical completion documents denote the
transfer of custody/care/control of a given subsystem from one team to
another.
 This is, in fact, crucial to determine which team is bearing the
responsibility to find out the day-to-day activities that would take place
on a specific subsystem.

10.  Once a subsystem is handed over to the commissioning team, they will
determine the boundary isolations that require to be established and the
lock out tag out (LOTO) requirements that have to be in place.
 The LOTO and PTW processes defined on site must be followed by all
teams involved.
 The construction team will require working within the predefined
boundary isolations to keep themselves from any commissioning or
even pre-commissioning activities on a neighbouring subsystem.
 Any changes to boundary isolations must be reported and coordinated
beforehand to ensure all teams can work safely.

11. TO CONCLUDE
 If not planned for well in advance, the handover from construction to
commissioning can become extremely challenging. There are too many
details to figure out to make the handover smooth, beginning with an
appropriately executed QMS.
 Moreover, the volume of information on today’s project entails making
use of more comprehensive processes and tools, compared to using
simple paper or spreadsheets.
 Never assume that these details will automatically be determined at the
time of handover – any items that are missed between commissioning
and construction will result in unsafe working conditions, incomplete
systems and/or project delays.
 The construction as well as commissioning teams requires working in
close collaboration to plan for a smooth handover.

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