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Last week CFMS attended the annual ERAPPA conference. It made me aware of how far Commissioning has come. I first asked ‘What’s Commissioning?’ after meeting Mel James and Wendy Collins, when I was working at St. Michael’s Hospital, in their Engineering and Plant Services department, many a year ago.
“What’s ‘commissioning’?” would become a question I would then come to hear often after joining CFMS myself several years later. All the conferences I attended in my early years, included answering that question, and further explaining what the benefits were. We had to make an effort to get attention. Now, it’s a completely different situation.
LEED has certainly put Commissioning on the map. In the early years of LEED, we would have potential clients call us up, and say “I see I need Commissioning for LEED certification, so am calling you.” Even though they still didn’t really understand WHAT we did, or WHY they needed it. But an uncommon word in the industry had become a common one.
All of this has changed – within moments of arriving at the conference ‘Meet and Greet’, and introducing myself and CFMS and the service we provide, people were excited:
“That’s just what we need at this conference!”
“Oh, I’ll be sending my colleague to talk to you as they have lots of projects coming up!”
“We worked with you at such-and-such, and boy what a difference it made!”
Are just a few of the comments, and it didn’t stop there. People went on to talk about the importance and necessity for commissioning, and how it made a significant difference in a project, or turned a project around. LEED or not, people definitely want Commissioning. Unfortunately for some, there was a catch – poor experiences with the Commissioning they received. “We need the Commissioning authority with feet on the floor.” Or “Some guys, all they do is sign contractor checklists.” Or “Too much paper! Binders and binders of useless information!” were some of the statements I heard based on unsatisfactory experiences with Commissioning.
Once Commissioning became a common word in the industry, and more important, a requirement for LEED, then of course everyone wanted to get on board. And big engineering firms thought it made sense to offer the service in house. But: a market rush does not a quality product make. Commissioning takes years of experience to provide WELL – as of now there is no college or university degree in it, and even if there were, it would be impossible to cover the nuances we often find that vary from project to project. Only experience can provide the education required. We have found at CFMS with new employees there is no real way to explain the career they have embarked on, it’s a matter of donning hard hats and work boots and getting out there in the field and DOING.
Talking to the various people I did over the course of the couple of days at the conference, I felt very proud to be part of CFMS. It wasn’t just the direct accolades we received from clients, but the chats I had with the people who had the negative experiences with other companies as well. It reiterated to me WHY CFMS is different – while Commissioning has indeed become common, the way we provide it hasn’t. We were the first company in Canada to offer Commissioning, and we are a personal, independent firm. We believe in being part of the team, and present on the project – not just a name on a report or a signature on checklist. And we at CFMS ourselves are a team, who support each other on every project, to ensure the collective experience is applied resulting in a thorough and well executed commissioning process for each and every project.