In today's podcast we tackle a vital but too often overlooked area of infrastructure delivery namely commissioning – the art and science of preparing and taking assets into service ready to deliver the outcomes required from the investment.

It is indeed a vital activity for every infrastructure professional to be aware of. For every asset owner and project sponsor for that matter. And while the results of getting commissioning right are so often unnoticed, the impact of getting it wrong can be commercially, socially, environmentally and politically disastrous.

So often fantastic infrastructure projects fall at the final hurdle by either opening late, having to close immediately after opening for retrofit and repair, fail to deliver outcomes to expectation, or see costs spiral as teams rally and race to meet the commercial promises of opening dates.

In the UK we might think about delays to the opening of the Jubilee Line Extension and Crossrail projects, West Coast Mainline, baggage handling problems on Heathrow Terminal Five, signalling and train power issues on the Channel Tunnel Rail link - the list goes on.

Usually the problem simply comes down to a lack of thought, time, investment and prioritisation for the commissioning process – those vital steps that make the assets ready for operation.

It doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, according to the Industrial Commissioning Association, a relatively new organisation devoted to improving the quality and performance of commissioning across infrastructure, industrial and process sectors, the more people working on projects understand the importance of commissioning and the value it provides, the more successful projects will be in meeting cost, schedule, and quality objectives.

So let’s here more about this very attractive proposition and find out about the opportunities and what’s holding us back by welcoming Paul Turner, chief executive of the Industrial Commissioning Association who is driving the new organisation forward after a career spent wrestling with commissioning around the world.

Resources
Industrial Commissioning Association website
Project Commissioning - Start With the End in Mind report
Global Commissioning Standard
How Big Things Get Done