Modern Building Services

10 MODERN BUILDING SERVICES JUNE 2021 FEATURE COMMISSIONING COMMISSIONING C ommissioning Management appeared about forty years ago and prettymuch paralleled the significant increase in specialist mechanical, electrical, and public health sub-contractors. Main contractors realised that, with separate companies providing the electrical installation, the drainage and domestic water, the heating and cooling pipework systems and the ventilation installation, their staff were becoming more and more focussed on a particular package and there was nobody charged with co-ordinating the testing and commissioning of all these elements to ensure that the services in a completed building worked as a comprehensive system. As with the development of air and water system commissioning companies, the main contractors soon found that they could not afford to carry the staff through the peaks and troughs of workload and so came the growth of commissioning management sub-contractors, coming on board part way through a job to plan, co-ordinate and manage the commissioning activities across the project. Initially the service was often provided by new divisions within established commissioning companies. These drew on their more experienced commissioning engineers to fulfil the role. Soon, however, newer companies appeared that provided the commissioning management services exclusively. The role encompassed more systems as time went on: • My first experience of working with commissioning management was on the Lloyds Building project around 1984 • Still very much mechanical system / BMS based until early 90’s, albeit with ‘bolt-ons’ like fire alarm cause & effect tests. Black-building tests were also introduced, especially where standby generators were involved • I seem to recall starting to use PCs (anyone remember Amstrad 1640s) around 1990 • Beginning to involve UPS systems and the CCTV / intruder detection / access control elements from late 90s / early 2000s • Further developments of these systems and interactions between them so that opening a restricted door resulted in the nearest CCTV camera view coming to the fore on monitors • Remote SCADA reporting and control of electrical switchgear around the same time • Digitisation of everything from around 2005 onwards, but pace of change picking up 2010 onwards • The major effect of this was the reduction in size of things like variable speed drives (VSDs), shrinking from wardrobe size to briefcase size • BREEAM / energy conservation to the fore from say 2008 • Mechanical plant VSDs everywhere from 2010 on - the death of the belt & pulley change! • The growth in further software driven systems such as lighting control • Full integration of all building services and use of PLCs to run everything more common from 2015 on • Control systems run across a common fibre network with each system having its own Virtual Private Network (VPN) from 2015 The adoption of these technologies has recently been driven by the ever-increasing importance of energy efficiency and conservation. Keith Barker , Director of CSA Member Tectonic Techniques and Chair of the CSA Marketing Committee, offers his appraisal. Commissioning Management – Where is it now and where is it going?