Testing and commissioning
The pair of activities that prove an installed asset works: testing checks an item or system against stated criteria, and commissioning is the managed process that verifies the systems work together to meet the owner’s requirements.
The two words are routinely joined, and they answer different questions. A test checks one thing against stated criteria: a pressure, a flow, an alarm, a control sequence. Commissioning is a process rather than an event. ASHRAE Guideline 0 describes it as a quality-focused process for achieving, validating and documenting that facility elements meet the owner’s objectives and criteria, running from predesign through occupancy and operation, with tasks in every phase.
The difference shows where systems interact. NFPA describes its NFPA 4 as setting out test scenarios to confirm that multiple individual systems operate, interact and coordinate to perform their intended function, which is a separate exercise from testing each system alone, and it describes NFPA 3 as covering a commissioning process that includes that integrated testing, so that systems perform in conformity with the design intent. A set of passed individual tests is evidence about the parts, not proof that the whole performs.
Under FIDIC’s 2017 conditions, as the Fenwick Elliott summary sets them out, the completion on which taking over rests includes passing the Tests on Completion. Taking over and a complete test record are a contractual event and a technical record. Neither establishes that the receiving organisation can run the asset, which is the separate question of operational readiness.
Sources
ASHRAE Guideline 0-2019, The Commissioning Process, foreword, in the preview pages published by the ANSI webstore. NFPA’s standard development pages for NFPA 3, Standard for Commissioning of Fire Protection and Life Safety Systems, and NFPA 4, Standard for Integrated Fire Protection and Life Safety System Testing, for NFPA’s own description of each. Jatinder Garcha and Edward Colclough, Fenwick Elliott, Contractual liabilities post completion, 28 January 2021, slide 9, on completion under FIDIC 2017 Sub-Clause 10.1.
Read the sources
- ASHRAE Guideline 0-2019, The Commissioning Process, front matter and pages 1 to 42019 edition, preview pages; read 2026-09-06.The preview ANSI’s store publishes at a stable address, covering the front matter and pages 1 to 4. The front matter states the procedure the guideline was developed under and that it was not submitted to ANSI, and the foreword sets it beside Standard 202.
- NFPA 3, Standard for Commissioning of Fire Protection and Life Safety Systems, 2027 edition2024 edition; read 2026-09-04.Free to read in full online via the View Free Access link, on a free NFPA account. Read-only: no download, no printing.
- NFPA 4, Standard for Integrated Fire Protection and Life Safety System Testing, 2024 edition2024 edition; read 2026-09-04.Free to read in full online on the same terms as NFPA 3. NFPA says it was the first body to give free public access to privately developed standards.