NASA Builds on its Maintenance Program
with Commissioning
EMR developing NASA's Building and Equipment
Commissioning Guide
EMR, a long-time contractor of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA), has been tapped to develop a building commissioning guide that
provides an approach to testing for and correcting defects in the manufacture
and installation of facility equipment and systems during new construction,
repair, and rehabilitation projects.
The guide will be used as a technical
reference by design engineers, project managers, construction managers
and inspectors, and quality assurance and control personnel.
Commissioning is a systematic process
for verifying that a facility performs according to design intent,
is less costly to maintain, and meets operational efficiency goals.
The commissioning process achieves these results by:
- Identifying the functional needs
of the facility owner and occupants and capturing these requirements
in written procedures for the project
- Verifying building systems and equipment
performance through functional performance testing
- Providing full documentation and
training for the operations and maintenance (O&M) staff to improve
their performance
The need for a comprehensive commissioning
guide is clear. It is not unusual to discover installed systems or
equipment that are out of alignment and balance, that contain latent
defects from manufacture and installation, or that simply do not operate
as intended. Such systems or equipment failures require corrective
action by O&M staff, taking up time, money, and personnel resources.
Given today's tight facilities O&M
budgets, it is good practice to employ the commissioning process to
perform non-invasive diagnostic tests that verify systems and equipment
condition and installation prior to final payment and the exit of
the contractor from the job site.
NASA's application of commissioning,
as presented in this guidebook, is a customization of the traditional
and total commissioning processes. NASA recognizes that there can
be substantial benefit even when commissioning is applied only to
the acceptance phase of the construction project. NASA's commissioning
program concentrates on facility and equipment acceptance rather than
on the entire life of systems and equipment because of:
- NASA's placing of safety as a top
priority
- The current Federal budget process
involving project funding from numerous autonomous and non-integratable
sources
- NASA's emphasis on reducing life-cycle
costs within available and limited resources
- The institution of a strong Reliability
Centered Maintenance (RCM) program already in place agency-wide
EMR is emphasizing the substantial benefits
to be gained during acceptance that, by using available predictive
testing and inspection technologies in addition to traditional operational
parameters, will reduce premature failures, increase safety and reliability,
and decrease life-cycle costs.
In addition to the guide, EMR is also
developing a corresponding commissioning training course.
For more information regarding EMR's
building commissioning work or other NASA projects, contact Kate Kelly
at (323) 874-3458, or by e-mail at kkellyemr@aol.com.
