When teams discuss the challenges of delivering large capital projects on time, on budget and at the expected quality level, the topic of completions and commissioning rarely comes up. Yet, they are essential to managing all three.
To quote the conclusion of a report by the Construction Industry Institute, "Commissioning failures are too common in frequency and extremely costly in impact. The business case for action is clear, yet the transitions between construction, pre-commissioning, commissioning, startup and close-out remain challenging, primarily due to contractual separations and the multitude of organizational interfaces and handoffs."
To avoid these commissioning failures, teams must understand why this phase is often overlooked and overshadowed by earlier phases of a capital project and how a smarter, integrated approach can turn commissioning into a driver of success.
Anatomy of an overlooked commissioning phase
The Construction Industry Institute's report came out before the pandemic, but its conclusions still apply today. Too often, teams treat commissioning or readiness-to-operate as an afterthought, something to handle once mechanical completion is done.
The first consequence of such an approach is the timeline. The commissioning phase often experiences delays that cascade from the ripple effects of prior milestones such as engineering, procurement and construction stages. This adds pressure and urgency to an already complex process.
Late preparation also adds to the problem. Teams need to create commissioning schedules early in the project to sync with other groups but, in practice, they often develop them late. And, all too often, field personnel encounter issues such as missing, incomplete or outdated information, which makes their job harder as they rush through large numbers of unverified systems.
Finally, to conduct this process, they will typically use multiple third-party tools, scattered files and unstandardized approaches that lead to errors, lack of visibility and headaches down the line.
In short, it is a high-risk, high-cost, low-visibility race around the clock, both for the EPC and the owner operator. And, if your completion and handover process is reactive and paper-based, it is difficult to learn from it and get consistently and predictably better.
Building a digital foundation to commissioning success
Unsurprisingly, many major players have realized there has to be a better way forward.
Today, leading EPCs and owner-operators seek to reduce the cost and uncertainty of the turnover process, standardize planning and execution and apply a repeatable framework across projects.
A powerful strategy is to pair a digital twin of the project with a collaborative, data-centric solution such as OnSite Completions (formerly Intergraph Smart Completions). This approach ensures that teams embed completions into every milestone of the capital project—starting early in the engineering phase. The solution tracks progress in real time, manages documentation effectively, ensures each component receives commissioning before the final stage and clears all punch lists. Finally, QA/QC digital certificates support an on-time, on-budget startup or plant turnaround.
A material impact on project performance
A digitized completion and commissioning process has a material impact on both CAPEX and OPEX performance.
Organizations can reduce execution setup costs by 70%, administrative costs by 45% to 50% and decrease overall capital expenditures by 1%. That may seem small, but this adds up to tens of millions in large-scale capital projects. On the OPEX side, operational readiness becomes more efficient, with Request for Operations (RFO) effort reduced by 10% to 20% and an accelerated transition to live operations. Schedules also benefit, with a 98% reduction in turnover/handover compilation time.
OnSite Completions brings structure, not rigidity. We have seen it implemented on projects of all sizes, including the largest mega-projects with thousands of active users on any given month. And, with a proven track record across geographies and industries, from oil and gas to utilities, mining, nuclear or chemicals, you can make gains rather than reinvent the wheel.
Discover how OnSite Completions can enhance projects of any size by learning more here.