Where Things Went Wrong: Project Delivery Problems Seen from a Retro-Commissioning Perspective

Patrick Prendergast and John Riley, George Butler Associates, Inc.

Underperforming facilities do not meet users' needs and waste valuable resources, including: land, capital, building materials, labor, and energy. They also reduce occupant satisfaction and productivity, further compounding the impact. New building commissioning aims to address several deficiencies of current project delivery systems that contribute to improperly functioning facilities. However, for facilities that receive insufficient or no commissioning, the resulting deficiencies are discovered time and time again during retrocommissioning. Following are the fundamental causes of problems discovered during retrocommissioning.

1. Designers and users did not communicate the "why" of the basis of design. In other words, they indicated what facility conditions needed to be achieved, but the why was not documented.
2. The designers conceptually knew how they wanted the building systems to operate; however, they did not provide the detailed operational sequences to make it happen.
3. Value engineering decisions were not made by the right people or for the right reasons, often preventing the owner's requirements from being met, and resulting in reduced energy efficiencies.
4. Systems were never sufficiently tested to ensure proper operation, resulting in a legacy of inefficiency and occupant dissatisfaction.
5. Testing, adjusting, and balancing were not properly performed nor verified, leading to incorrect and inefficient building operation.
6. Facility users were not trained on the building systems' operations and limitations.
7. Operations and maintenance staff were not sufficiently trained, have not had hands-on experience operating the systems and do not know the "why" of that operation.

The presentation will further detail the above, provide real-life examples of these problems, and provide methods to ensure that they are avoided during the project delivery process.

Biographies:

Pat Prendergast serves as the project manager/commissioning authority for many of George Butler Associate, Inc.'s commissioning projects. As the commissioning authority, he has over nine years of experience managing the onsite activities of the commissioning team and an additional six years of experience providing formal commissioning services. Projects include laboratories, zero down-time facilities, and large governmental facilities. Pat led the onsite commissioning activities for Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) buildings 103 and 18.

Pat has been a speaker and provided educational commissioning workshops at CDC's 6th annual biosafety symposium, the American Biological Safety Association's 2005 international conference, the National Association of State Facility Managers (NASFA), the National Environmental Balancing Bureau and others.

John Riley serves as the lead electrical engineer for all of GBA's commissioning projects. John has been providing electrical systems start-up and commissioning services for over 15 years and has specialized in commissioning laboratories for the past six years. Projects include laboratories, data centers, central utility plants, and utility power generating plants. Past and current laboratory commissioning projects include CDC's buildings 103, 18, and 110 and University of Missouri's Regional Biocontainment Laboratory.

John is a certified commissioning provider by BCA and has provided educational presentations for 7X24 Exchange, NASFA, and the Data Center Journal.

Back to Agenda