Pipeline - Feb 2006
Pipeline - Feb 2006 |
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Happy New Year! - Getting Full Value from Your Systems - IT Update – Helpful Tip
Happy New Year!
After some well-earned time off, the team at AEC
Consulting Group are back on board and ready to embrace whatever
2006 might hold.
It’s already set to be a busy and interesting year for us with a number
of current projects up and running for the year and some new jobs set to begin
over the coming months.
We hope that all of you, our colleagues and clients, had the opportunity to
take some time off over the Christmas period and have had a chance to re-charge
your batteries.
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Getting Full Value from Your Systems
Commissioning of a new plant, equipment or systems is the process of setting
up the operation to achieve the design performance and economies.
So often these days we find commercial pressures on projects encouraging "switch
it on and walk away" approaches. The all important commissioning process
is sidelined as unimportant (the plant is running so it must be finished). In
fact, commissioning can be the single most important part of the installation
work without which the owner does not get full value, the contractor can be
subject to interminable call-back and the users left unhappy.
Most engineering systems are comprised of a number of pieces of plant linked
by system pipework, ducts and cables, and combined as an operating system by
controls and BMS equipment. An engineer has designed the system as a package.
Thus, a system is not going to work together as intended without each component
being tested and set to work in its correct sequence and relationship with all
other components.
System operating functions and settings have been devised by the designer to
achieve various performance and energy criteria. This is done under the guidance
of the designer working in collaboration with the relevant contractors. The
designer understands best the system function requirements whilst the contractors
know their particular plant and equipment requirements and capabilities. All
of these people, contributing their individual expertise at the end of construction,
can ensure a correctly working, smoothly operating system. In the process, they
can detect and rectify any hidden errors or faults. All this is necessary to
provide the owner with results which meet briefed requirements and operate efficiently
and economically. To carry this out in an efficient and organized manner is
in everyone’s best interest and will usually actually reduce hand-over
times.
Resistance to a proper commissioning process comes from several sources, which
is understandable if those involved don’t appreciate the value of the
process to them. Project Managers and builders have been heard to say "hand-over
is scheduled for ‘x’ and I don’t want people fiddling after
that". In fact, they are likely to see more fiddling if the system hasn’t
been properly commissioned. Main contractors often see the time spent with the
designer and their sub-contractors as an unnecessary expense. With completion
dates approaching, they are usually under much pressure to get last minute details
fixed up. Contractors may say "my subbies have commissioned their parts,
so this is duplicated effort". However, have the components been commissioned
as a system to meet design performance? Designers need to dispel the idea that
commissioning is just a consultant’s ego trip to generate spurious defect
lists!
In our office, we usually specify commissioning tests and procedures in some
detail. This is not just some standard specification clause, but often involves
significant time. The result is a requirement which can be easily costed by
tenderers and allowed for in programme schedules.
To demonstrate the thesis of this article, here are a couple of minor recent
examples:
AEC finally managed to
gather the crew to commission an air-cooled A.C. plant with back-up electric
heater banks. A number of safety cutouts are a statutory requirement for such
systems but no-one had checked them. We found they weren’t working, but
minor on-the-spot wiring adjustments by the controls subbie rectified this and
we left a safely working system.
On another occasion, a major electrical load bank on a new diesel generator
system was in service for some months before commissioning tests showed that
although it worked, the electronic selector was selecting the wrong load increments.
A call for 50kW resulted in 800kW being dumped on line! A simple wiring mistake
in the factory, but not immediately apparent until tested.
Part of the value-for-money engineering contract is most definitely a structured
commissioning procedure, directed by the system designer and carried out by
the contractor and various specialist sub-contractors. To the benefit of all
parties, we would like to see more owners and project managers insisting on
this.
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IT Update – Helpful Tip
Downloading Web Pages in Acrobat
The modern office increasingly utilises PDF format for storing and transferring
data. As the internet can be an important source of information, it can be very
useful to convert web page content to PDF.
There are a number of ways you can download web pages in Acrobat. You can specify
a URL in Acrobat, open the pages for a Weblink in a PDF document you already
have open, or drag and drop a Weblink or HTML file to an Acrobat window or Acrobat
icon.
The web pages are converted to PDF and open in the Acrobat work area. You are
then able to use, manipulate, store and transfer these documents as you can
any other PDF files.
Note the following when downloading web pages in Acrobat:
