Operations & Maintenance Staff
• In the build environment, facilities operations and maintenance (O&M) personnel are the uncelebrated heroes, who work behind the scenes painstakingly to ensure that buildings perform optimally at all times. They are the ones who make sure that the occupants of the building are safe and comfortable, and that systems and equipment are maintained well.
• As per general expectations, building O&M is a costly affair. In fact, it’s the biggest cost incurred in owning and operating a facility over its entire lifecycle. Thankfully, building commissioning management companies may ease the owner’s cost burden specific to O&M while lessening the learning curve of O&M personnel, provided that they are included in the turnover phase.
How to Build Turnover
• It is crucial to include O&M personnel in the design and planning phases of any new building project – particularly, for the development of the Owner’s Project Requirements. Their contribution is important with respect to verifying system capabilities, offering feedback on unexpected maintenance-related problems, and giving insights into how end users will actually use the building.
• For instance, if the building is a college or university dormitory, O&M personnel could easily predict that the end users will consume large amounts of hot water.
• These types of ideas can help facilitate the design and fulfil end user needs while ensuring that systems are just as complicated as they need to be.
Documentation for Vendor Contact
• The commissioning services and management agent examines documentation for vendor contact information, warranty, troubleshooting matrixes, replacement part availability, completeness, etc. The documentation package basically transfers project-related knowledge to the professionals assigned with the task to ensure that the building performs well.
• This documentation package should ideally include:
• As-built plans
• System-level O&M manual
• Construction test plans & reports
• Owner’s project requirements and basis of design
• Final report of commissioning
• Systems manual
Takeaway
• Operations and maintenance professionals add value to the construction and design of buildings they will be operating and maintaining in future. Therefore, it’s important to have their inputs early on in the project. The opportunity to partner with them during the turnover phase is probably the last chance for commissioning management companies for ensuring a positive effect on the long-term health and performance of any building.
• Knowledge of the building-specific systems, equipment and controls can be shared with O&M personnel in the form of a well-structured turnover documentation package, a user-friendly systems manual and an exhaustive systems training material.
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