Loop checking that is actually a check
A loop check performed by two people in a hurry, signing a sheet, is a document rather than a test.
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Commissioning and change
Loop checks, acceptance testing, control narratives, management of change and handover that leaves operations able to run the plant.
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Most of what makes a control system supportable for the next fifteen years is decided during a few weeks of commissioning, when everyone is behind schedule and documentation is the first thing to be deferred.
The consequences are familiar: a system that works, that nobody can explain, with drawings that stopped matching reality during the second week of commissioning.
These guides cover the discipline that prevents it — loop checking that is genuinely a check, acceptance tests with defined pass conditions, narratives written for the person who will inherit them, and a change process that people will actually use at two in the morning.
Online timesheets can provide a lightweight record of effort across maintenance, commissioning and support tasks. Further details are available from the website.
For process facilities, the surrounding management framework is covered in OSHA process safety guidance.
HMI lifecycle guidance is further addressed by ISA-101.
Factory acceptance testing that finds problems
A FAT run as a demonstration finds nothing. A FAT run as an attempt to break the system finds what site commissioning would otherwise find at ten times the cost.
Read the guideHandover that leaves operations able to run the plant
The project is finished when the plant runs. The operations team's problems start there.
Read the guideControl narratives written for the person who inherits them
The document that explains why the control system does what it does is written once, by someone who is leaving, for an audience they never meet.
Read the guideA change process people will use at two in the morning
A management of change procedure that takes three days is a procedure that gets bypassed during the situations it exists for.
Read the guideDocumentation that still matches the plant
Every site knows its drawings are out of date. Very few know by how much, or which ones.
Read the guidePunch lists, and the items that are still open three years later
Every commissioning generates outstanding items. What distinguishes projects is whether they close.
Read the guideProving that alarms and interlocks actually work
An interlock that has never been tested is a design intention. Testing is what makes it a protective function.
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