RE:RE:RE:New Year Momentum ShiftA simplified clarification, hopefully helpful to some Bboard colleagues:
Commissioning is a vital step near the end of a plant's construction. Its purpose is to hand over to the owner, a safe, efficient and operation-ready facility, that performs according to its design intent and meets the owner's project requirements.
The “erection” or building stage includes the physical building structure, equipment installation piping, electrical, instrumentation, etc..
Commissioning – entails running and testing all areas of each system, and then the entire overall plant, to ensure the system performs as anticipated and to correct any remaining problems prior to hand-over to the operations team for continued Production and maintenance. Operator training is properly part of commissioning.
Various systems need to be tested during commissioning, every instrument and control valve calibrated and tested; checking the proper action of all controllers; interlocks need to be checked; alignments of all pumps verified; tracing every pipe in the unit to make sure that it conforms to the Piping & Instrumentation Diagram(P&ID) and has the necessary high point bleeds and low point drains; using air or water to flush out piping to remove debris; inspection of all vessels; confirming the circuitry on all electrical switches on a unit and ensuring that they’re properly marked; testing the programming all PLC’s (programmable logic controllers) and embedded softwares; installation of all safety appliances; the list goes on….
Once all sub-system checks are complete full system is checked progressively from no load to full load. The Plant when it is run for pre-agreed duration on full load stands commissioned.
After commissioning plant starts operating in its commercial Production operation.
Note: There are accounting Capitalization considerations for plant commissioning activities and for “Income” from product produced during commissioning.
Peace,
Good Decision-making to All,
ElJ