How to Get Commissioning Resources
Paul Turner, P.Eng, PMP
Technical Project Manager | Electrical Engineer | Commissioning Manager | I help deliver complex capital projects
If you’ve had challenges finding the commissioning resources you need to complete capital projects, it’s going to get even more challenging in the future. There are two compounding factors that are evolving by the day, making the commissioning people you’re looking for even harder to find.
First, there is an unprecedented volume of work on projects. Our global society is undergoing significant change, with a shift in how we power the infrastructure we depend on. Capital projects play a significant role in making this transition:
Project resources are currently hard to find, especially for specialized skillsets like commissioning.
And second, our wise commissioning experts are retiring at a higher rate. Many of these experts enjoy working into their seventies (because they love commissioning!), but they will retire at some point. And when they do, they take all their expertise with them.
Projects are often not super process-driven, so when our commissioning experts leave projects, their tacit knowledge of the commissioning process they’ve been using to guide the team, leaves the industry as well.
Project teams without a plan to get the people, processes, and tools they need for commissioning, will get to the end of projects without being able to finish them.
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The situation is going to get worse before it gets better. And project teams that are not taking proactive action will be even more constrained in the future.
How are you planning to address this labour shortage – to get the commissioning skillsets you need on projects? Everyone is faced with this same challenge ahead of us, even if you’ve got great resources now, commissioning expertise in the industry appears to be diminishing, and if we let this happen, we may never be able to build these skillsets back up to the level that the industry requires.
I see a lot of project teams posting positions for commissioning. But from my experience, the response to these job postings has not been great, with mostly people looking for help with visa immigration paperwork. It’s difficult to find commissioning people, because the good guys are already busy on projects, and they’re not responding to job postings, because the good guys at the end of projects always get scooped up to work on another project. So posting positions looking for commissioning experience (with fingers crossed) seems more like wishful thinking, and not a viable strategy to get the resources you need.
We need a new way to get the people, processes, and tools required for commissioning, if we are to tackle this huge volume of work ahead of us.
We need a new way to generate a strong pipeline of people that can complete commissioning of capital projects. If we don’t find a solution to this, we’ll have trillions of dollars in capital project expenses, only partially working, with minimal progress to meet our global objectives as a society.
Join us this Friday for a live discussion - to see what other successful project teams are doing to generate a strong pipeline of commissioning personnel they need for projects, so you can do the same on your projects.
Commissioning Lead
9moI think also there is a fundamental shift in mentality when it comes to Commissioning as well. Most posts are Contract opportunities and it seems in Canada with the way governments are changing tax rules. People are shying away from those. Also many of the ones just getting into the trade are also looking for fulltime with benfits. Have also seen many companies wanting experience but only want tompay junior rates. Which is a typical thing also
Over 18 years of experience in power system engineering.
10moA very relevant topic nowadays. This is an actual challenge for many companies. Young specialists want to work in an office from 8 to 5. Don‘t want to travel and work on site. And this is about work life balance. And YES, it’s going to get even more challenging in the future. 😏 Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow. Opportunities don't happen. You create them... ⚙
Looking for commissioning opportunities
10moThere's a lot of older people out there who still want to work and are still capable of doing the work but the companies look at their resumes and do the math and won't hire them.
• ELECTRO MOBILITY • DATA CENTER & NET-ZERO bldgs • ESG_SCOPE3_SUSTAINABILITY • COMMISSIONING & QA/QC • Integrative_Design_Coordinator • Digital twins_BIM_modeling You can hire me; I am globally ubiquitous
10moI have read some of these comments; Commissioning activities need #RESOURCES (TIME + BUDGET + TALENT) none of us are so good, have plenty of experience or has +100years knowledge to Cx all the Installation Systems in a building (mission critical or not). And I remember this TRIANGLE , just keep in mind 👇commissioning function need #RESOURCES to accomplish what is intended with it
Retired
10moLots of ‘switch on’ engineers out there taking the £££’s but not many real commissioning engineers. Alas the best Commissioning Engineer retired last year, sorry guys! 🏴🤓