A Guide to Improve Building Commissioning In Ethiopian Construction: Case Studies on Selected Public Institution Projects in Addis Ababa
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Date
2018
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Publisher
AAU
Abstract
Commissioning (Cx) new buildings and retro-commissioning existing construction
facilities are becoming a quality assurance measure in the construction industry in many
countries. The purpose of the commissioning process is to verify the performance of the
systems and to provide documentation evidence that all equipment and systems are
installed and functioned according to the design intents, standards and requirements of
the client. However, building commissioning (BCx) has never been systematically and
strategically promoted in the ‘program’, ‘design’, ‘construction’ and ‘acceptance’ stages.
This has not been properly addressed. Very often, Cx is overlooked by owners, architects
and engineers, contractors and operators mainly due to mis-conception on Cx as a “less
technical and lower level task”. As a result, commissioning process is implemented
differently from project to project, firm to firm, and sometimes polarized by “personal
expertise”.
This paper aims to explore the current scenario of building commissioning in the
Ethiopian construction industry and develop a potential framework to improve building
commissioning for construction projects in Ethiopia by conducting case studies on
selected public institution building construction projects in Addis Ababa.
The research findings indicated that, building commission is vital to confirm the final
outcome of a project is in compliance with the design and specified requirements and Cx
should be handled as integral part of project life-cycle. Also problems during
commissioning are mostly interrelated with problems during construction stage and some
of these problems are significance in affecting the handing over of the project and tend to
recur from project to project.
The framework aims to provide a more holistic view and better insight on building
commissioning for the Ethiopia context by eliminating these unattended problems. This
study also intends to generate a guideline for the construction practitioners on the
common activities of commissioning that needs to be planned even during the
construction stage to improve projects performance.
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Keywords
Building, Commissioning, Construction