Project Management in the Chemical Industry.


Commissioning

When the erection of process plant or unit is completed and is ready for normal operation, it should be inspected, checked, cleaned, flushed, verified and tested. This process is called commissioning. Overall commissioning of the process plant includes but not limited to the following

Mechanical completion
Leak tests
Chemical cleaning
Flushing of necessary system
Provisional acceptance by client
Pre-commissioning
and first startup.

Therefore Depending on the complexity of the project, commissioning can be executed on individual systems, groups of systems or even partial systems. Commissioning is a vital step near the end of a plant’s construction, its purpose is to hand over a safe, efficient and operation-ready facility to the owner.

The process unit(s) shall be considered to be commissioned successfully only once all the system along with instrumentation / control systems and support systems have been on without any uninterruption work in normal stable condition for not less that 72 hours.

Any interruption of duration up to 30 minutes during the commissioning run of 72 hrs shall be ignored. However for interruptions greater than 30 minutes, the commissioning run period shall be extended by the time equal to the interruption plus the time taken to stabilize the unit back to the normal operating conditions. Whether the 72 hours operation has been successful or not, shall be decided by the OWNER based on observations recorded during 72 hours. The countdown for 72 hours operation shall start only after Unit has been on stable operation with all controls and safety system in normal operation for a period of not less than 48 hours. OWNER will issue acceptance certificate accordingly.

Three months in advance of starting the commissioning, the Contractor shall submit proposal to the Owner/Client representative giving details of the programme to be followed during commissioning. This shall be checked by Owner/Client. The Contractor shall depute operating team comprising of commissioning co-coordinator, process/operational co-coordinator, mechanical, electrical & instrumentation engineers, technicians/ semi skilled personnel to carryout UNIT start up & commissioning under the overall guidance of Owner/Client.
Owner/Client shall depute operating team consisting of process operators (field and control room) and supervisors during the commissioning.