Operational readiness check

An operating cost carried inside the project budget stops when the project closes. Look for a budget line owned by the operating organisation with a start date on or before the handover date.

Procurement of these contracts takes months and has to start at concept design. A contract awarded but not mobilised is a contract that is not there on day one.

Consumables should be full at handover, including items used up during commissioning, such as filters. Capital spares supplied under the construction contract should be identified and stored separately.

The main contractor is normally obliged to provide the training; the receiving organisation has to verify that every maintenance person attended. A training matrix with names and dates is the evidence.

Attendance at commissioning is how operators learn the equipment before they own it. Electrical distribution, HVAC, fire detection and alarm, security and the building management system are the systems to check.

A rota with names against systems. A system whose competent person is "the contractor" has no competent person.

Awareness is a requirement of the standard, not a nicety. Ask a shift supervisor what the building must deliver and to whom.

Commissioning verified the systems against these requirements. If operations has never seen them, the only people who know what the building was meant to do have left.

The period only works if notices are given. A defect nobody notified is a defect the contractor is not obliged to return for.

A help desk, a number, a named duty holder. The test is whether it answers on the first morning.

Under the 2017 FIDIC forms their supply is a condition of taking over and the Engineer issues a notice of no-objection. Received is not reviewed.

A manual says how the equipment works. A procedure says what this organisation does with it, on this site, in this sequence.

The manual requires register information in a format compatible with the asset management system. Loaded and in use is the test, not delivered.

A warranty starts on the event its own terms name, which need not be the handover date, so a building can carry many expiry dates. Logging them all from the handover date can misstate the coverage the register believes it has.

The manufacturers’ planned maintenance should arrive in a compatible electronic format so it can be consolidated into the register and scheduled.

Clause 7.7 is new in the 2024 edition. Knowledge is held by people, people leave, and on a programme the people who know most are employed by somebody else.

The commissioning standards expect a review of operation after occupancy. It is the cheapest step in the process and the most commonly dropped.

A permit in the contractor’s or the project’s name lapses with them. Ask for the document and the name on it.

The contractor’s insurance of the works ends at taking over and the risk of loss transfers with it. The custodian is responsible for ensuring the required insurances are in place.

This is the mechanism most quickly lost and most expensive to lose. A name, a file and a procedure.

Master keys stored securely, access-card programming equipment in the operator’s possession, a written procedure for databases and passwords.

Taking over is a contractual event about the asset. Readiness is a state of the organisation. The gate reviews ask for the second to be declared by name; most handovers only produce the first.