About this transcript: This is a full AI-generated transcript of HyperScale Data Center Commissioning and Construction from AABC, ACG, EMA: Leaders in Building Performance, published June 7, 2026. The transcript contains 20,495 words with timestamps and was generated using Whisper AI.
"Thank you. CX Planner is a browser-based commissioning software developed with all the tools from Astrate Guideline 0 and Astrate Standard 202. These tools ensure that the commissioning manager on the construction project has all the tools in his backpack to perform commissioning according to the..."
[00:00:00] Speaker ?: Thank you.
[00:00:30] Speaker 1: CX Planner is a browser-based commissioning software developed with all the tools from Astrate Guideline 0 and Astrate Standard 202. These tools ensure that the commissioning manager on the construction project has all the tools in his backpack to perform commissioning according to the guidelines. When the commissioning manager is out and performing a commissioning test, he can assign a specific test item or a task to a technician. So that the technician can register that the task has been fixed and is completed. CX Planner is developed for commissioning leaders on construction projects, but is also used by the consultants and contractors to get an overview over the project's progress.
[00:01:29] Sam Schwartz: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Sam Schwartz and I'm member engagement and marketing manager for the ABC commissioning group. Thank you for joining us for the fourth installment of the ACG Essential Commissioning Webinar Series. Every month for the rest of 2020, we're hosting a new presentation covering different facets of the commissioning process. And this particular session is supported by CX Planner, our commissioning planner, so thank you to them. I'd like to go over a few housekeeping notes before we jump into things. We encourage you to submit questions at any time using the Q&A button. Since this is a discussion-based webinar, we'll be addressing questions as they come up, so please do not hesitate to wait on submitting them. The chat function is where you can make general comments and chat with attendees. If you happen to be experiencing technical issues during the webinar, please use the chat function and one of our technical experts will assist you. And then finally, in terms of continuing education credit, you will receive an email after the webinar with instructions on how to receive your proof of attendance using ACG's CX Energy app. So I'm going to hand it off to Derek now, who will be moderating today's discussion. Derek?
[00:02:56] Speaker ?: Thanks, Sam.
[00:02:57] Derek DeJesus: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for attending today's enlightening, I hope, as well as entertaining and thoughtful discussion on hyperscale data center commissioning. This is a very unique experience. When we thought of this idea last fall, we were all hoping that we could be together in a nice, you know, palatial conference room in San Diego, everyone would be buttoned down in their ties and suits and we'd have a good panel discussion. But unfortunately, we're going to do this virtually, so don't mind the background. Some of us are at home, some of us are on job sites, and some of us are actually in hotel rooms because we're on job sites working. But don't let that hesitate you from, you know, trying to participate. We look forward to seeing your questions. We do have some generic questions that we're going to throw out to the panel today. And this is a very unique experience. We've been able to bring together some of the industry experts from an owner's perspective or data centers, contractors experience in quality and commissioning of data centers, as well as a commissioning agent where they can offer their own experience with data center commissioning. So, with that, I'd like to go ahead and introduce our panelists' discussions. Again, my name is Derek DeJesus, I'm on the ACG Board of Directors, as well as the Education Committee Chair. And I'll be moderating today's discussion. With us today from Facebook is John Lutz. John, do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself? Yeah.
[00:04:28] John Lutz: Absolutely. Thank you, Derek. John Lutz. I'm a regional construction quality manager at Facebook, overseeing a few sites supporting our quality program. A little bit about me, ex-Navy nuke, went into data center commissioning right after the military. And I've been loving the life ever since.
[00:04:48] Speaker ?: Great.
[00:04:49] Derek DeJesus: We're going to go over to Nick Zeis from Microsoft.
[00:04:54] Speaker ?: Hi, Nick.
[00:04:55] Nick Zeis: Hi, Derek. So, Nick Zeis, regional commissioning lead for North and South America. I also served in the Navy, nuclear mechanic on submarines, got out, very similar to John's background, went straight into being a commissioning agent, and came over to the owner's side. About six years ago.
[00:05:21] Speaker ?: Great.
[00:05:22] Derek DeJesus: Thanks, Nick. So, as you can tell, we have, we do have our, I guess you could call it, industry experts representing Facebook, Microsoft, and as well, I am from Google. So, I think we'll be able to give you a very unique owner's perspective. Next, I'd like to throw it over to our contractors, who are some of the trusted partners that all three of us use to build our data centers. We're going to start with Steven Hodgins from Holder.
[00:05:47] Speaker ?: Yeah.
[00:05:48] Steven Hodgins: Thanks, Derek. And good afternoon, everyone. I'm Steven Hodgins. I work for Holder Construction Company. I'm a senior manager for the MEP and Bill and Technologies Department. And I support one of our hyperscale data center clients. I'm the program lead for commissioning. I have 15 years experience. I started off in the industry as a mechanical design engineer. I'm a mechanical engineer, and then shifted over to the general contractor world. Wonderful.
[00:06:15] Derek DeJesus: Thanks, Steven. Also with us today is Jose Calderon from DPR. Hi, Jose. Do you want to introduce yourself? Hey, Derek.
[00:06:23] Speaker 7: Thanks. Hey, everyone. My name is Jose Calderon. I work for DPR Construction. I'm currently the quality and commissioning program lead for the Facebook account. So I'm managing consistency across quality and commissioning efforts in all the data centers we're building for Facebook. A little bit about me. So I am a mechanical engineer by trade too. I've been in the industry, construction industry for nine years. All of it, most of it on the MEP side, anywhere from BDC to project engineer to project management, and now focused on quality and commissioning efforts.
[00:07:01] Derek DeJesus: Thanks, Jose. And last but not least, our solo and lone commissioning provider that we could pull together for this panel discussion. No pressure, Brandon, but you are representing the industry tonight. So Brandon Sedgwick, go ahead.
[00:07:16] Speaker 8: Don't gang up on me too bad here. Brandon Sedgwick, I work for Hood Patterson Endure. We're a commissioning firm, mainly commissioning. I'm the president of the company, and I have been with Hood Patterson Endure for about 18 years. Mechanical engineering degree, worked for Pratt & Whitney for a little bit. And then I went and traded currencies and decided that I couldn't handle the stress of that sort of work. And so then I got into the commissioning industry, and it's been great. Sure. Thanks.
[00:07:54] Derek DeJesus: So before we get going, again, I want to reiterate some of the housekeeping rules from Sam. We are going to utilize the Q&A function of Zoom. So if there are questions that come up from the crowd, from the attendees, please don't hesitate to post those. I will get to those as I see them or as they fit into the discussion. So with that, we do have some predetermined questions. Softballs is what I like to call them, just to kind of get the discussion going. What we're going to do is we're going to start with John. So John, when it comes to the mission critical commissioning, what qualifications are you looking for from the firm? And then potentially, what are you also looking for from the individuals themselves?
[00:08:34] John Lutz: All right, Derek. So from a qualifications perspective for the firm, I think first and foremost, we look for expertise and experience in the space. We all know that there's a heck of a lot of commissioning firms out there that focus on MEP commissioning, etc. But that can be very, very different than in the mission critical world. And oftentimes those things do not translate. Technical expertise and depth of field are also a major consideration. So understanding the why behind what we do and, you know, why it's required is a lot more important than someone being able to read through a check. And ultimately, company culture in terms of flexibility and the capability to be partners with others in their space. As we all know, a commissioning, a commissioning agent is a supervisory contractor, right? They are oversight, nothing more. And they bring that expertise and bring that, bring that team together on site. And being able to do that is critical, especially working on long term projects, right? You jump in, you jump out on a small project, maybe not that much of an impact, but you're going to be working with the same team for the next three to four years. Potentially that can make a significant difference for the individual CXA is, I would say that is reflected in those responses as well. You know, from a project management standpoint, folks who understand how to be project managers, understand how to lead teams, not necessarily someone who's just done really well in commissioning in the field and is looking for that next role. Nick, do you have any suggestions or feedback on that?
[00:10:34] Derek DeJesus: Sure. Nick, do you have any suggestions or feedback on that?
[00:10:38] Speaker ?: No, I agree 100% with John.
[00:10:41] Nick Zeis: You know, some of the other things that I usually look for in firms is a mixture of engineers versus operators. Not just having a firm that's completely one or the other. You know, it's that mixture of theory versus practice. And, you know, the different types of training. What's the company culture like? What's their mentality? Is it, you know, when we do interviews, did they come prepared? Did they actually read our documents? Did they, did they prep ahead of time? Or are they just going with what like the ASHRAE standards are? Or the ASHRAE guidelines? Things like that. Just preparation, confidence, qualifications, such as, you know, making sure that everybody's trained up on FPA 70, first aid, OSHA 10, OSHA 30. You know, getting your security, getting your, you know, some kind of commissioning certification. Things like that.
[00:11:51] Derek DeJesus: Yeah, I think, Nick, I think you, you hit on a topic there. I want to expand on a little bit. You talk about culture. I think, you know, when we're, when we're evaluating our firms, I don't think we emphasize enough culture. I know there's a lot of times where we talk about diversity and inclusion. And we talk about having the bare minimum requirements. But actually having somebody that understands what it's like to work in the tech environment is a little different than what it is to work in a higher education environment or a government environment. What are some of the qualifications or some of the soft skills, John, that when you're evaluating a firm's capabilities, you're looking for a meld, right? You're looking for a partnership. You're not looking for somebody that's going to stand out or drive a wedge. What are some of those culture and soft skill points you're looking for?
[00:12:38] John Lutz: Well, Derek, with regards to the culture and soft skill, you know, we see that being much more impactful with the project or the project manager level or the account manager level. And the ability and willingness to work with partners is first and foremost, the flexibility that comes from not having to be the smartest person in the room to prove a point, right? Working with the team, even if that requires going over the same lesson more than once, right? Some folks get really burnout trying to do that. And that's one of the things we look for that ability to collaborate. And, you know, in in this environment, there's a lot of work to go around. So oftentimes a commissioning firm isn't the only commissioning firm on a hyperscale program. And what we what we see is there's an opportunity to make everybody better by working together. And there really has to be an emphasis on that. And that honestly, that can even make up for potential technical deficiency. Right. Because we can always train and we can always help people understand the what and the why. But the how is incredibly important.
[00:13:58] Derek DeJesus: That's great. Hey, Brandon, I'm going to throw this over to you. You know, obviously, you're the president of a firm. I think there's a hair club joke for men in there. I'm not going to use it right now. What are some of the firm capabilities that you have? And when you're hiring, you know, commissioning agents and engineers with specific goals of going after mission critical work? What are you doing? How are you staffing your team? And I have some follow ups to that. But let's start with that first one. How are you looking to staff your team and your firm?
[00:14:29] Speaker 8: Well, as you as John just mentioned, I think that that attitude and philosophy play a major role. And I think a commissioning agent can come in with the intent to make themselves look good at the expense of the overall team objective. And you can have you can have a situation where all the firm wants to do is find problems with everything. And there's no solutions and there's there's no collaborative effort toward the goal of making a functional product for the end user in a in a reasonable period of time. And within the budget constraints that were there. And it's it's easy to get sucked into the look what I found. Look at this problem that the commissioning agent found when really it's it's you know, we have a challenge here. Here's our options. Here's what we could do to get around this. Here's what we can do to You know, deal with this roadblock and still make progress toward our end goal of completing the commissioning process successfully. And we've certain been in situations where we've we've come behind others that have been just more come back If I guess and everybody's kind of at each other's throat. We try to do The individuals that have some industry experience certainly and certainly important, but that are willing to to save the pride of the others on the project and work to just make us all better. That's kind of what we're looking to do and people that are kind of selfless. So one of the things we we say in our, our, our company, it's servant leadership is what we want from our people servant leadership. And we like this that within our own corporate structure, but also on projects. And so we're, we're looking to help the the contractors in ways where we can. And, and then in turn, the contractors are helping us to do our job because really as a commissioning agent, we can do very little completely on our own. We're, we're quite reliant on everybody else doing their job. And, and so we can, if we can come out, we have been in projects where everybody is unhappy with each other, but not us. Yeah. And, and that's what, that's what we want to always foster. And, and that leads to a more adaptive approach to things. So if there's a problem or a change that maybe the owner wants to make in our approach, because we have that sort of, I guess, attitude, we're more willing to be adaptive to change. But as far as qualifications beyond beyond that, we do like to find startup technicians and people that have, that have worked on the equipment that's being commissioned within these facilities, and we meet them in the course of our work. And so we try where we can to kind of absorb them, you know, snatch them away from wherever they are, bring them into our organization, because honestly, a lot of the best work on any project is really done during the startup process. You know, that's where the, the equipment gets ready. And it's in really, if they do a good job, the commissioning is, is, is easy, you know, relatively, and then it becomes a project management thing. So, um, anyway, that's, that's a big thing. And then in the hyperscale industry, the one, one thing John also mentioned was, was, uh, PM and the ability to manage a project and communicate effectively. And that is, uh, that is huge, but the, the, the piece of that, that's often missing when we, when we find people that have project management experiences, they don't have enough technical knowledge to be able to contribute enough. So that they're always just the middleman where they're finding somebody else to ask the question that got asked of them. And what we want is somebody that has enough knowledge to be able to handle a large portion of those questions without having to constantly do that. So, yeah.
[00:18:26] Derek DeJesus: Yeah. I want to hit on another point. John kind of alluded to, and I, it's kind of stuck with me because, you know, I'm looking at this, we have 123 attendees and, you know, most of them are commissioning agents. Right. And they want to know how to break into this industry. But we also have to remember, you know, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, we're not building in your hometown, right? We're building across the globe. Um, and that's a challenge for commissioning provider. How are you specifically Brandon marketing yourself and your company and your team to locations that aren't really suited for where you're at? You know, we're not always in Atlanta. We're not always in Albuquerque, New Mexico. How are you hiring people that want to go where the work is?
[00:19:06] Speaker 8: So one of the methods is a lot of the places that you're referring to. We have, we've done work already in those locations and we've begun to attain contacts and relationships with some local folks. And so we are doing, we're finding people local to the, these jobs because we've been there and we, we like generally speaking to hire people that we know, and we've resisted the temptation to go down the contractor path, which, which leads to less ownership in the end, the end goals and less adherence to, to what our company is trying to do. Um, but other, uh, in addition to that is, is hiring people that are, um, that are younger and that, that are right out of college before they've kind of cemented themselves in a particular location. And then we're kind of using a, um, I don't know if you want to call it an apprentice approach, but, but a mentoring approach between them and others. And our goal is in a particular area that we have people that have experience and they're going to kind of be there already. And then we bring in the younger folks that are, that are local and we can kind of assimilate them into the culture of that, those projects in that location. And then they will take the reins, uh, after a period of time. So let's, that's one way. And then just generally speaking, looking for people that are willing to travel around. I think the hardest thing is we've got a lot, a lot of long time employees that, that came to our company based on a kind of a work life lifestyle and, and it's changed significantly since we started. I mean, as you, when we were having our discussion, uh, beforehand, I mean, it was two or three months was a project was a significant project. And now it's, you know, two to five years, depending on where you are. And, and, uh, so the tendency to is people are local and so they're going to stay on this project, but I mean, people want some variety in their lives too. So we're working to manage being able to move people around a bit to, to keep them from being stagnant and being, I mean, I mean, if somebody only commissions for one particular client, then they're, you know, they're kind of unable to adapt to other clients, you know, cause they're, they're so used to that world.
[00:21:24] Derek DeJesus: Yeah. I'm going to come over to Nick real quick. I want to get his perspective. So Nick here, you heard Brandon and his ideas for hiring and staffing your project. What's some of the feedback you have for him?
[00:21:36] Nick Zeis: Um, in some cases that, you know, like hiring directly out of college and doing a mentoring programs is worried. Um, you know, but one thing that I've seen on some commissioning companies, that's actually been really, really worked out really well is to have that person go to different clients. Um, you know, not just stick with a single client while, you know, it's nice to have, you know, people stick with a single client cause you learn that process, you get it down cold, but having that, just that diversity of projects. Yeah. And that, you know, seeing the different styles that, um, the other companies do. Cause I know, you know, from what I hear, you know, we have Microsoft do commissioning a lot different than like Facebook or, uh, Google or Apple. You know, we have different requirements, different things and having that background and also just seeing the different, you know, essentially the different ways that equipment can fail.
[00:22:36] Speaker 8: Yeah. No doubt. Yeah. I mean, that's standpoint, you're right. Yeah. The experience on, on lots of sites is very important. Yes.
[00:22:46] Nick Zeis: I mean, that's, that's one of the things that I, one, kind of one of the advantages I have a lot over a lot of, um, you know, people that I deal with is, I mean, I've seen five art flashes in my life. I, you know, I have, I've seen, you know, pieces of equipment just fail left and right. Um, you know, anything from 120 volts up to 34, five KB. So, you know, having that, you know, just having that experience, knowing how things can fail, why they fail, what they can, you know, how to fix it. I think that's invaluable as well. Cause sometimes you get on a project and you know, you've got a, a standard design standard manufacturers and everything's just like very, very, you know, vanilla and boring. Yeah. But having, you know, seeing the different types of equipment, the different ways that things can fail. Well, you know, sometimes give you a kind of a, what we call leading indicator into, Hey, this UPS doesn't quite sound right. I remember on this other project, I heard the same sound and three months later it exploded. Um, you know, things like that. It's a little, but, uh, you know, definitely. I think it's, you know, a big thing to get people staged in the right areas. Um, yeah, getting them with a good mentorship program. I mean, it's definitely solid.
[00:24:11] Derek DeJesus: Lessons learned. Yeah. John, just to tidy up this discussion on quals, throw it back to you for final thoughts. Okay.
[00:24:21] John Lutz: All right. So the, the final thoughts, you know, they're commissioning is a unique industry. We don't go to school to learn how to commission a data center. We learn through experience, not only from the technical opportunity of going to, you know, different sites. Different bills, different types of data centers as well. That is extremely valuable. However, to hit on Nick point and I'm sorry, my chats going off crazy here. Um, to hit on next point, right? Like letting those of those who are doing commissioning for us go to different clients, go see the different personalities, go see the different cultures at work. Selfishly, because when they come to my side, I want to, I want them to know how good they have it. But secondly, though, right? Understanding the differences and how they can be a difference or a differentiator in that space is incredibly important. And it also helps develop those people. Yeah.
[00:25:28] Derek DeJesus: So Steven and Jose, I want to get the contractor's perspective, right? You're, you have to deal with the commissioning agents full-time in the field, right? When the stress is hitting the fan, your, your number one priorities. And I know I'm probably going to get shot for this schedule, right? We're the owner. We're breathing down your neck for schedule. Why do you have so many change orders? The drawings were perfect. What do you, what, what isn't understood? Make it happen. Right? And then you have Brandon and his teams coming in and they're looking at this and they're like, pointing out these punch list items, these BIM issues or CX alloy issues, whatever you want to call them. What are the challenges that you have when you have a green or versus a seasoned commissioning agent, right? You come to the table with 15 years of building these things. You're an expert and now you have to bring them along or maybe they're showing you the way. Why don't you give us your perspective? Yeah.
[00:26:21] Steven Hodgins: So Derek, I'll, I'll put in my two cents. So, you know, definitely when you have a more experienced team playing commission agent, definitely makes it a lot easier. Um, you know, and there's two, two ways to look at that. You can have, and Brandon brought it up that the, the operator or they're coming from, let's say the Eaton's of the world. They don't have startup equipment first. Maybe they're coming from the engineering world and they know the real technical side. There's, there's both two benefits of that. Um, obviously when you have a more technical person, sometimes they get lost in the weeds. And yeah, they can throw a schedule to the side and we can't get out of the weeds and let's go solve the problem. So there's, but sometimes you need that. Sometimes you have these humongous challenges that you need that engineering thought. And, but then sometimes you just need a technical guy. Who's just the technician. That's like, I've seen this a dozen times. Let's go fix this problem. Let's go work through it together. Uh, it's definitely about teamwork, um, and working together. So it doesn't, to me, it's their experience or their inner experience. We're going to work together as a team to get through that. And even when we've worked with less experienced commissioning agents, they always still provide a value. We can provide a value for others through subs vendors. We have expertise on our side. Sometimes we just need that commission agent to get over a hump. So it is about working together. Um, obviously if they're have no experience, that, that, that hurts, but we can definitely work through it. And, and sometimes, you know, we have team members that aren't experienced. So, and they help us through it. So I think it is collaborative and that's the C that's the secret sauce. What about you, Jose?
[00:27:54] Speaker 7: Yeah. So what I was going to say is, um, I see our involvement as the GC as being kind of like that glue facilitator. So I agree with Steven. It doesn't, doesn't really matter if the, the team is green or, or very seasoned. Uh, we, as the, the construction managers need to manage. Cause like you said, cost quality schedule, uh, commissioning and bring the team together. Be that glue, be that facilitation and build, help build that high-performing team. Which very clearly involves the commissioning agent. They're a critical part of that success. So, um, really evaluating the, the technical expertise of the commissioning agent and saying, okay, well, we may need to bring these guys a little bit earlier. If they're not as, not as experienced with this program, uh, and bring them in. And bring them in earlier, maybe in design and coach them, coach them through, get them engaged with the design team. Uh, versus, Hey, no, these guys have done, you know, seven of these data centers, uh, really want to plug them in. Uh, at factory witness says they already know, they know the scripts, they know what they're doing. So, so really being able to gauge that level of expertise to me, uh, it's extremely important. Um, so that, that, those are my two centers there. Okay.
[00:29:10] Derek DeJesus: Yeah. You hit on a topic and we're definitely going to hit on factory witness testing in a little bit, but I'd like to, uh, get a couple of questions here from the audience. Here's one. Um, we're going to start with you, John. At what level do you recommend the commissioning agent to be on site full-time? I think it's a bit generic, but I think you can, you can do your best to answer that one. Uh-oh internet frozen.
[00:29:32] Speaker ?: We'll go to you, Nick.
[00:29:33] Derek DeJesus: We're going to let you start with that one, Nick. All right. I'm going for the steel.
[00:29:36] Nick Zeis: Um, no, uh, so we've actually started bringing in our commissioning agents that, you know, as soon as the first piece of equipment starts off, you know, gets set on site. Um, in the past, we've done various things where we've had them come in just randomly throughout level two and three. Uh, we did this, um, you know, a couple of years ago, we just decided to start with that. Years ago, we decided to, you know, hey, let's just say, call us, you know, call us when level three is done and we'll start at level four. Um, that did not turn out well, as you all could probably imagine. Um, so we, you know, so here recently we've actually rewrote our, you know, we call our commissioning plan of record to bring in, you know, one mechanical, one electrical starting at level two and just having them on site full-time, uh, doing random inspection. Doing random inspections, uh, pre-functional checklist. Um, things like that.
[00:30:36] Derek DeJesus: So yeah, there's a, there's a premium to be paid for that.
[00:30:39] Speaker ?: Right.
[00:30:39] Derek DeJesus: I mean, we're, we, as the owner recognize the value for having people on site to doing this job, but there's also a balance. What does that return on investment? What do you think, John? What's your opinion on this? Am I back?
[00:30:51] John Lutz: All right.
[00:30:52] Derek DeJesus: Albuquerque internet.
[00:30:53] John Lutz: Some of the best in the country. So, Hey, um, I, you know, I agree with Nick. Absolutely. Um, but it, it really, it really has to do with the scope and the scale of the project. Now is, is the juice worth the squeeze, right? Depending on how structured the quality or the commissioning program is that there may be other scopes overlapping with those installation verification pieces, et cetera. And is this, you know, senior commissioning resource expert in their field is the best use of them to really sit on site and wait to do an inspection. Are they going to get bored and they're going to get burnout and leave, right? We have to weigh that out. Obviously on the road up to level four is, is unanimous, right? You have to be on site. You can't get there the day all four starts and Hey, surprise, nothing is ready. Look at that. Right. Um, so I would say to give it a finite answer, I would say starting in that L3 and the, in the third quarter, so to speak, having that onsite presence full time is incredibly important, but even more important than having the CX days present is the project manager, right? There you go. Because we can only read so much from BIM 360 or whatever tool platform we utilize.
[00:32:13] Derek DeJesus: Yeah. I think definitely you hit it right on the head there, right? I think it's not just about the technical expertise. It's the project manager. Who's going to do some of the activities, design reviews, middle reviews, project, schedule, coordination, CX plan, kind of working behind the scenes with their team, which I think brings up a good point. Brandon, you're not going to have everybody working on this project on site. You're going to keep people back at the home office working, right? So how do you prefer your CX days to help with design and construction problems? Do they need to be really driving home the point with the contractor or are they just kind of facilitating the question and letting the designers and contractors answering them?
[00:32:53] Speaker 8: Well, one thing I did want to say is that I think that what you're doing, at least in the beginning of a project where you have potentially a new project team paired with a new CXA with people that haven't, you know, haven't worked with each other. So I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. What do I want to know? And how do I, how do I navigate the communication maze that's often present on these projects? And so one of the most important things about that initial phase of being on site is building those relationships. Then after you get a project that's, you know, phased builds where you have, you know, common teams, then it becomes less, less of an issue. The contractors know better what they need to do. And the CXA is know who to talk to. And there's kind of a symbiotic relationship, I think, that forms if things are done right. But as far as, I guess, driving issues, you asked that question. Well, I think it's different from, from owner to owner. In some instances, the owner doesn't want the meddling from, from the CXA. They, they want to know if there's, if there's problems and then they want a hands off. We got it, you know, we'll take care of it. And then in other instances, it's not that way. They look for more of a leadership role. They look for more of a leadership role from, from our firm. And so in that case, we have to see that, you know, the PM has to see that. We have to understand that it's necessary. And I would say that from own, from, from site to site within the same owner's organization, it's different. You know, in some cases you have the facilities operators and they're the most dominant people there. And so they're our master one day, you know, and then, and then we got, we got some other master another day. And so, and client service overall focusing on what are they wanting me to do and being able to figure that out is what we need to do. I don't think you can really say how it should be. Our, our goal is always to try to provide solutions. That's our, that's our kind of our default. If we don't know what else to do, that's kind of what we try to do is provide our, you know, our two cents as though we're an engineer, but that can muddy the water in certain instances, depending on what the dynamics of the car.
[00:35:25] Derek DeJesus: I got to, I want to follow up to Jose here real quick. So Jose, when you're, you're in charge of the subcontractors, you have a whole quality control program that you're building. Do you want that commissioning agent poking his nose into that issue and driving that to solution? Or do you, you want to take ownership of it, right? You want to drive it. You want to validate it. You want to make sure it's right before the owner and their consultants come in and valid and verify. What's your take on that?
[00:35:53] Speaker 7: Yeah, no, Derek, I think you're driving a really, really good point here. So we pride ourselves to try to, one, build it right the first time, but then also self-report and, and not only self-report, but drive those issues. Depending on what level of commissioning or quality they're being found. We do, we do definitely want to partner with our commissioning agents, especially during level three, like you, like John said, later on in level three. Not only validating that, that we're doing the right thing and, and resolving issues correctly, but also getting their buy-in being like, Hey, this is what we found at level three. You probably, you probably won't found, find that a level four, or if you do, then we need to realign. There's something that, that we might have missed. And so we want, we want that sort of like symbiotic relationship, like Brando was saying, but not necessarily are expecting the commissioning agent to do our job for us. We really want to drive the teams. We want to drive the trade partners to identify issues early and often, and hopefully build it right the first time. But, but if they don't, then, then identify those issues, realign the team, and then put lessons in place to not, not make those mistakes again. And then show the commissioning agent that we're learning, that we're growing, and we're all doing that together.
[00:37:11] Derek DeJesus: I think, I think there's a good question here from the audience and Steven, I'm going to ask it to you first. What is your thought about hiring level four commissioning providers for level two and level three process to really drive home level three schedule? I think, I think what we're getting at here is hiring like a Brandon and Hood Patterson to come in and own level three to pre-prove that the level four activities are going to be successful.
[00:37:41] Steven Hodgins: So what our experience with the hyperscale clients, you know, the Facebooks and the Microsofts of the world, all that. So they're very technical and then, and they have very specific requirements for quality and so on and so forth. So we have found a lot of value actually bringing in, hiring, let's say, Hood Patterson or our primary integration, one of those partners of ours. And having them as our partner to help facilitate those interactions in terms of helping with L2 inspections, helping identify issues early, as well as help problem solve out in the field with L3. And it's just another partner on our team. We do find value in that. And we've had a lot of success with it. Not that, let's say, Holder won't hire those people or we still won't have those requirements for our subcontractors and vendors, but it's another set of eyes and ears out in the field to help drive the work and be successful.
[00:38:29] Derek DeJesus: So I want to, I want to come back to that, right? Because I think what we're looking at there is we're looking at a responsibility of ownership. If you hire a consultant, Steven, to do your quality control, have you shifted that responsibility down to a sub or do you as Holder still own that?
[00:38:47] Steven Hodgins: With Holder, we still own it. So it's our process, still what we want to do. We're just, they're just another set of eyes, another set of expertise that we need on our teams. General contractors, maybe some are different, but you know, a Hood Patterson commissioning agent, one of their associates compared to maybe some of ours or maybe some of our subcontractors is not the same thing. And to hire those people as withholder in terms of a business model, we can't hire commissioning agents, they cost too much. So we do have to go through a third party to bring them on board. And so we don't want to shift responsibility. At the end of the day, the buck stops with us and we're going to push and drive that, manage that process. But we sometimes need that additional technical expertise to get us along.
[00:39:34] Derek DeJesus: So, John, let me start with you. I have a follow up to this. You just heard our contractor saying he's hiring the commissioning agent to do the job. Conflict of interest. I see that this is actually good for the industry.
[00:39:50] John Lutz: I think it's fantastic for the industry. Because Steven, to your point, it builds partnership. Now, the challenges come, you know, hiring the same third party commissioning agent. Maybe that is not worth exploring, right? That is going to create conflict and it's just going to confuse the entire process, right? However, finding a partner to work with and to trust to basically be a staff augment is a huge win. One, it gets the right people in the right place at the right time. We all know if we can maximize level three effectiveness, we can minimize risk to the right of the schedule, right? But we also give an opportunity to grow these commissioning agents in that project management, that scheduling world that oftentimes they don't get the exposure to on the hyper scale projects. And then giving these folks a home, for lack of a better term, is extremely valuable. They're going to learn more in that time than they would, you know, putting out fires from site to site to site to site. There is significant benefit, in my opinion, for the industry there. And it works. Yeah.
[00:41:06] Derek DeJesus: Brandon, I'm not going to put you on the spot and say, do you prefer working for owners or contractors? Won't do that to you. But, you know, through ACG, we do advocate that hiring third party commissioning agents by the owner is what our motto is and what our mission statement is. What value do you see if you're hiring across the board, young engineers, former installers, to working on both sides of the fence?
[00:41:34] Speaker 8: So we preach to our people internally that in the end, we always work for the owner. We're always looking for the best interests of the end user, because if the building doesn't work after we leave, we feel like we didn't do what we should have, you know. So in the end, we have to do that, but it is a, you know, it's a line you have to walk when you're, when you are working for, for a contractor that is building the site. To your, to your point about learning, I think that, that being there for the startup process is an excellent learning opportunity for, for, for a CXA. So, you know, coming in after everything is energized and seeing it, seeing it work is very different than coming in and in the front end and really seeing how exactly it got that way. As far as the, the, I don't know if you said preference, I would say that there's, there's any number of arrangements that are bad in either direction. I would say we have, we have people working in owner relationships that are, that are looking out for themselves more than, more than the, the owner that they work for. You know, we have people that are, you know, on the, on the contractor side that are completely ethical and are totally looking out for the, for the owner's interests and they're great to work for. We have owners that are super interested in everything we're doing and owners that view us as a, an impediment to their completion of a project. And so, I don't know, I think there's probably conflicts of interest that you could generate in, in either arrangement, depending on who you're working for and, and how they do you and view your role as, as a CXA. I mean, I, am I, am I there to be a box checker to get through and say CXA was done or am I there to provide value and, and build a relationship and, and all of those things. So that's, it's a, I don't know. I'd say there's probably conflicts either way, but yeah. Yeah.
[00:43:37] Derek DeJesus: I think, I think those are great answers across the board. Nick, when you're evaluating qualifications from a commissioning agent. You're looking for that synergy that they, they understand what they're looking for at level two, level three. Have you ever tried to force a relationship with a contractor that they hire a specific quality control company? Maybe just to kind of expedite the process a little bit.
[00:44:02] Nick Zeis: No, we, we leave that up to, you know, the individual contractors. You know, we don't, um, you know, we don't want to force them. If they ask us for a recommendation, you know, we'll provide, you know, we'll provide them with our list. You know, hey, these are, these are the commissioning agents that we use. Um, they come highly recommended. Uh, it's one of the things that I've seen that works the best is, is for a commissioning firm is having, you know, especially when they're coming in during the level two and three process is actually having a dedicated QA/QC department. Uh, ones that specializes in, you know, the QA/QC aspect. Um, cause one of the things about bringing a commissioning agent in during level two and three is they're looking for the same things they'd be looking at in level four and not necessarily focusing on, uh, some of the level two and three aspects that are just part of the normal build. So, um, that's one thing, you know, that is one thing to, you know, kind of think about is, you know, looking at it from the full spec perspective. Uh, prime example of this would be like point to point checks during level four. We don't necessarily require that our commissioning agent go through and verify every single individual point. You know, watch the calibration and the scaling of every single, you know, sensor. However, um, we do expect stuff like that from, you know, the GCs, QC, uh, things like that, that kind of, um, aspect. Yeah.
[00:45:44] Derek DeJesus: I got, we got a great question here. Um, I'd like to throw it your way, John. What is your expectation of involvement of commissioning team in the project for, for COVID-19 as an example, right? How do you see that commissioning is really working there? You're on mute, John. You're on mute, John. Internet's hard. I know. Rookie, rookie mistake.
[00:46:10] John Lutz: So, you know, we've hit on a few key points with regards to the kind of the qualities that we're looking for qualifications, if you want to call them that, but, you know, communication came up, right? During this entire thing, honestly, like we could probably have our own entire council about COVID, how to commission in COVID, et cetera. But that communication is so incredibly important and the ability to be plugged in, the ability to be interfacing with all the different project stakeholders, understanding what's happening because the name of the game is minimizing exposure, right? And that comes with intelligent scheduling that comes with working to ensure that, hey, we've got enough work to bring the commissioning agent on and it is scheduled and it's ready, right? Because a lot of folks are having trouble traveling. A lot of folks, families are having challenges with their family traveling. And that's a scary place to be, right? And we ask our commissioning agents to do that, to come out there, right? To come to these places, spend time in hotels, et cetera. The commissioning agent has to be more plugged in than ever and more supportive of the team than ever at the same time. And that also requires ownership from our GC partners. That requires ownership all the way around and from the owner's perspective as well. We have to, you know, maybe if that means scale back expectations or understand how to unlock more resources to get the same thing done, et cetera.
[00:47:45] Derek DeJesus: Yeah, I think one thing that we're doing, you know, as we're trying to continue to keep the economy in the regions that we're at busy in the construction world, right? We're not trying to shut down project sites. We're trying to be smart, smart and safe. You know, we're driving social distancing. We're driving, wearing masks. We're also asking our commissioning agents to look at local teaming, right? So we don't have travelers that have to fly or have to drive across the country. So be smart with your sourcing. Be smart and respectful of who you're actually working with. You know, if, if Hood Patterson's working in, you know, New Mexico and they don't have an office there, look for a teaming relationship with somebody that provides you that local boots on the ground, if you will. Because, you know, while COVID may go away in the future, there will be another COVID. There will be another opportunity that we have to, that we have to adjust, that we have to understand how, how we can work in that environment. And I think what that's going to end up also doing is it's going to make us more efficient and more cost effective. I mean, look at this. We're in a, we're doing a panel discussion instead of flying to San Diego, right? And so far, I think it's actually going pretty well. It's not quite the dumpster fire I had envisioned. So who goes to us? So I think that there's opportunities for us to be smart about using remote tools, GVCs, cameras, live web streams, and then having people there to support local project sites.
[00:49:13] John Lutz: One more thing to add on to that, you know, for quite a while in the industry, folks have tried to do virtual commissioning, right? You know, sit on the couch, watch the commissioning agent do this, I think is exactly how Mr. Soroka explained it to me. But throughout COVID, we have, we've actually started utilizing some of those remote viewing opportunities effectively rather than have, you know, this whole room of people crowded around a BMS screen. You know, we now, basically, we broadcast BMS, EPMS. So folks can see it. Do we still have a commissioning agent on site running things? Yes, for the expertise. But have we opened up that visibility, the rest of the team in an effort to help keep the commissioning agent and the commissioning team safe? Absolutely. There is a significant opportunity to grab hold of those advancements that we really take for granted and use them in ways that, you know, might not have been how it was intended to be used, but it works. It works for the team.
[00:50:18] Derek DeJesus: Hey, Jose, you know, you're on site actually building the project and you're having to interact now with a webcam or a television screen. What are the challenges that you're seeing on the construction side to maintain that same level of quality, right? We haven't lowered the expectations. We haven't said, you know what, it's okay to have 300 issues at closure. You've had a hard time. What are you doing to combat that in COVID-19?
[00:50:46] Speaker 7: Yeah, so we did a few things and thankfully right now, you know, working with a client like Facebook has been beneficial because they see, you know, the needs of protecting people. So we actually went through a very efficient staffing mode. And going back to what John was saying, right, when we were doing level four and level five in the building, we minimized the people that were going into that building and restricted those numbers. Everyone was, everyone is required to wear face masks at all time. Our buggies have plexiglass in between. You're not riding in the same car. And everyone else that is not directly involved with commissioning is not in the field, right? Can be doing. And so something that if anyone has seen an IST remotely, it's probably one of the most boring things you'll ever see. And that's a pretty successful IST, right? And so there's pretty cool things that John was saying, innovative ways that you can, you can still participate while keeping everyone safe. In terms of construction and quality, really innovative ways that we've done, for example, as we're doing some of our, and I know this is going away from commissioning, slab on grade inspections. We're doing some of those sign offs virtually right so where we would all go and meet before a poor and fill a checklist together and touch the same iPad. That's all not being done virtually and people that actually are going and verifying that it's only one or two people. And so you're, you're trying to keep everyone safe. So, so a lot of very innovative ways that are making us still pretty efficient, high level of quality. And, and, and keeping everyone on site safe. Yeah.
[00:52:30] Derek DeJesus: There's a, there's a few questions here for the, from the audience, and I'm not even going to try to touch a couple of them just because I don't think that they're prudent for us to define what the industry allows when it comes to expectations. But I think there are a couple in here that we can hit on. I think it's pretty easy. Let's start with you, John, or Nick. I think, John, you've had enough face time today. We're going to start with Nick. Hey, Nick. Would you allow, you know, the same firm to do the commissioning process to also do the tab work for that same project? Or do you think that that's a conflict of interest?
[00:53:03] Nick Zeis: So this is something that we've kind of gone back and forth, you know, a lot of times during. We had, we've had projects in the past where we've done the commission agent was also the NIDA tester. And what, one of the things that we found was that you don't have that backup. Because one of the things about the commissioning agents, it's a new set of eyes, a fresh set of eyes. And what we, what we were seeing in the past is that the commissioning agent wasn't really looking that hard at the NIDA testing. And so we generally tried to avoid having the same company do things like NIDA or TAB as, you know, being the commissioning just for, just for that. There's pros and cons either way. And I can sit here and I can argue with myself over and over. But I do it, you know, 24/7 anyway. But, you know, I think we generally try to get, make sure that we have that, that different viewpoint. That fresh set of eyes.
[00:54:09] Speaker ?: Yeah.
[00:54:10] Derek DeJesus: Well, that, that actually brings up a good point as we're talking about TAB. Brandon, Hood Patterson is NIDA accredited to do NIDA testing. I think that could also be considered a conflict or maybe a benefit. What, what's your take on that?
[00:54:26] Speaker 8: I guess that's directed at me.
[00:54:28] Derek DeJesus: That's you, buddy.
[00:54:29] Speaker 8: All you. Okay, buddy. Just making sure I didn't want to step out of line. So, well, the thing about doing the, the, the NIDA testing, and honestly, we, we as a, as a company were mostly, before it was NIDA testing, we were doing testing. And that was the vast majority of our revenue came from that. And what it did for us was give us great individual component knowledge. So when we were looking at a Schweitzer relay mounted on switchgear, it's not just a blue box that somebody programmed and set up. And I'm here to stand in front of during the commissioning. It's a blue box that does, you know, a line differential and bus differential and, and all the things that it does with the ability to see, okay, it didn't, the system didn't work. And it's because it's because the Schweitzer relay didn't pick up the way it should have. And so what we, we really value the ability for our people to do that NIDA testing and be there. And not only, not only from a technical learning standpoint, but also when you, when you test a piece of equipment, you know, things about it that you would never know. Just, and just getting, getting beyond the knowledge of Schweitzer's in general, but that particular system with that particular design, you know, more than you, than you ever could, if you didn't go through that experience. So I, I view commissioning and NIDA testing as one. It's kind of a continuous quality assurance process. And I'm not sure exactly what the conflict of interest necessarily is between the two. They're both, they're both, I mean, in a lot of instances, the second set of eyes on something. I mean, the contractor put it in, it should be right, but we've got to, you know, we're going to do a hypothesis to make sure that it is. And, and I think it does give when, when commissioning level four commissioning functional performance testing begins. You have somebody that really is acquainted with the equipment to a degree that they wouldn't otherwise be unless they were the installer. And anyway, so we view it as a real value add for the client and for, for us as a, as a tool for training our people and how everything works.
[00:56:46] Derek DeJesus: So Steven, this one's going to come your way. You typically hold the contracts for NIDA testing, TAB, a lot of those activities. If there's a commissioning agent that could offer you a great deal to do that, but it's also contracted with the owner. Would you do that?
[00:57:05] Steven Hodgins: Well, typically we do contract TAB and NIDA through our subcontractors. So technically, yeah, we it's contracted through us, but it's directly contracted straight. So our electrical contractor will carry NIDA or mechanical contractor or carry TAB. And our, definitely our preference would be then to have an oversight, whether it be the commissioning agent or the engineer record review, both NIDA reports or TAB reports. Okay.
[00:57:30] Speaker ?: Yeah.
[00:57:31] Derek DeJesus: John, do you want to chime in on this? Yeah, I do. I don't.
[00:57:35] John Lutz: So I don't see it as a conflict of interest potential right now. If we get into that conversation about, you know, going to the GC, going to the owner. Now who's responsible for what? That's a huge conflict. We all know that. But Brandon, I'm going to disagree with you on one thing there. Right? I, you could be really good at performing NIDA testing, or you could be really good at performing L4 and L5 commissioning. It is oftentimes not the case that that's overlapped and to be good at all of those things. Just as we, you know, we take a look and a deep dive into the different level of commissioning and how to get the most out of those levels. You see a heavy emphasis on different skill sets throughout that entire sequence. And with NIDA, with TAB, as compared to L4, L5, I don't see them as a conflict of interest. I see them as a conflict of capabilities. And I think to get the most out of level four and level five, we need those experts. Right? We need those guys who fly around, the expensive ones, Steven. Right? We need those folks to do that, who are probably going to get bored, for lack of a better term, sitting there, plugging into every break or doing primary injection testing or doing some transversals, et cetera. Right? So I would think there's a significant difference there. And I don't think it's, I don't think it's a conflict. I think it would be a missed opportunity.
[00:59:05] Speaker 8: I would say the way we view it is the people that we typically bring in that are younger. The first thing they do is they do more of is NIDA testing work. And that teaches them the intricacies. And then they kind of graduate to some degree to, to a more of a commissioning role over time. We try not to have, as you kind of alluded to, somebody with, you know, 15 years of experience in the field doing primary current injection on a breaker. But that person with 15 years experience has done that before and knows, knows, therefore, how exactly ground fall protection works in a breaker with, in a series with four wires versus three wires or direct ground sensing or whatever you want to do. So we use it kind of as a development tool in addition to a way of, you know, knowing more about a particular project. But, but I agree with you that I don't, I don't think you want to pay somebody that's a, it's a high level engineer to sit and test breakers, but it's good that they had done that at one point in time to know more about how everything works.
[01:00:18] John Lutz: So I, I, I hear you, but I'd rather have the person with 15 years of experience testing breakers, testing my breakers.
[01:00:25] Steven Hodgins: But I hear you, I hear you. And talking about the conflict of interest or preference, you know, ultimately if I'm installing a piece of electrical gear or I'm balancing a mechanical system, I really want more control of that. Because ultimately the need of folks are out there testing our equipment. And if there's problems, I want to be the first person to help resolve those issues. So there's another aspect of looking at on our end and conflict of interest, not that there would be a conflict of interest there. But ultimately, you know, if the commission agent is out there also testing the equipment, and then we're getting that information. There's a little bit of lag there if we don't have the right personalities or whatnot. So we would like that. But at the end of the day, I still think it's a huge value for the commission agent to review our need of paperwork to review our test and balance because we make mistakes. And they're really good at catching those things, feeding that stuff along, and really overall helping the project.
[01:01:24] Speaker ?: Sure.
[01:01:25] Derek DeJesus: Great, great dialogue. Nick, I have a question here from the audience. What are your thoughts on hiring different commissioning firms for various disciplines, meaning a mechanical, an electrical, maybe building enclosure, versus hiring one firm to do it all? What are your pros and cons on that?
[01:01:44] Nick Zeis: Well, I actually think this kind of goes back to a little bit of what John was just touching on as far as expertise. It's not something like so typically we'll just hire one commissioning firm to do, you know, to do the level four or five for both electrical and mechanical. We, we've had it in the past where we've had the commissioning agents subcontract out for building envelope commissioning, just because most commissioning firms don't have a separate building envelope firm. But the, you know, it's the whole jack of all trades master of none theory. You know, we try to, we try to go with companies that are, that that's what they do, you know, you know, we're selecting like, so if I'm going out to, to do a building envelope, I'm going to go to a building envelope company, you know, just because that's what they do. That's the bread and butter, but also, you know, it's, there's also some, you know, a finite financial aspect to it as well. Because then you don't get that markup for, you know, having the commissioning agent subcontract out.
[01:03:01] John Lutz: Absolutely. Right. What we're looking for is core competencies. Because it's not, you know, so Nick, I agree with you on the price tag, right? You've got the upfront cost. If we're covering, right, that's going to drive additional costs just from there. But we also have to think about advocacy for the project advocacy for the build, and the effectiveness of what is being done. And, you know, like, like Nick at Facebook, we do the same thing. We branch out to specific suppliers for those activities and to cover those scopes. And we do that to grab on to that expertise, to get the folks who have the experience who, you know, been in the program, they've seen the program, they've got that world of knowledge to bring to the table, and then bring that to that specific scope.
[01:03:53] Derek DeJesus: Yeah, I think there's opportunities here, when you're looking at targeted systems like telecom, security, AV, building enclosure, that if your firm is lacking that expertise of those qualifications and that RFP or RFQ, it's okay to subcontract out, it's okay to be transparent that Hood Patterson is lacking X, so they had to bring in firm two to help with that. Just understand that as an owner, I want to have one throat to choke, right? I want one contract. I don't want five contracts. Would you like that analogy, John? I'm going to go ahead and say that's not the approach. Anyway, go ahead. Okay, got you. Because when I have a problem, I want to talk to Brandon, right? He's my commissioning PM. He holds the contracts. I don't want to hold five different contracts myself. But, you know, when we look at these specialty disciplines, telecom, security, AV, you're starting to get into areas of expertise that our user groups, you know, our security teams, our AV teams, they want to source, that they want to see qualifications for. That might be a separate contract outside of your standard quality and commissioning team or management structure. But those are definitely systems that are commissioned by third parties, overseen by internal partners like security. And they may only take it to level three. And then they close the firewall and then you're out. And then the ownership team finishes camera aiming, card scanning, HVAC within the data hall commissioning. You know, so I think that there's going to be different scopes of work that are going to be unique to data centers that you're not going to traditionally see in a hospital. And I think that's, this is where you kind of have to understand what is the owner's need. What is their OPR requirement. And that should be very clear to you when you're bidding a project.
[01:05:57] Speaker 7: Hey, Derek, I wanted to chime in from the, from the contractor side. So I'm a huge, I'm going to take it a step back into the partnership and culture. Right. And so I think it's, it's pretty similar to, to hiring, you know, multiple contractors to build your, your same building. I agree, you know, you could subcontract if you're a commissioning agent, if you don't have the expertise from, from a, from a conflict of interest perspective, right. Commissioning tends to be that like last thought, you know, if you need to take time out of the schedule, where does it come out of usually commissioning, right. So our job is to provide that roadmap, but to also work with the commissioning agent to come up with a plan to where we're not overstepping on each other systems. Right. So like if the, the electrical guy needs to system online or offline and the mechanical guy needs a system online, like we want that commission. We want that collaboration from, from that one entity that we can collab that we can collaborate, plan and schedule with, as opposed to, you know, having multiple touch points where, where we could make more mistakes.
[01:07:17] Derek DeJesus: Sure. That's great. So I think, I think we've hit on some of these activities and questions here. Let me, let me continue to go through the questions we're getting from the audience. So keep bringing those in everyone that's listening. Here's a good question. You know, we'll, we'll start with you, Nick. How do you best provide remote access to networks for the commissioning team while maintaining the required security requirements? This might have to do a lot with like network turn up dark fiber, things of that nature.
[01:07:51] Nick Zeis: This is, this has always been a challenge. Um, I mean, usually for us, like, you know, the, as far as like network, you know, like dark fiber and things like that, they, for us that usually comes after, you know, commissioning is already well and done out of there. Um, but so there are a lot of our tools that are accessed through secure networks, um, and things like that. And that's, that can be quite a challenge. Um, that's been, you know, in some cases, uh, sometimes it's just getting, you know, like simple things like internet out to the site. Um, that tends to be one of our biggest challenges, or if we do get internet out to the site, it's got the lowest bandwidth humanly possible. So only like half a person can be on it at a time before it crashes. Um, you know, cause a lot of our, a lot of tools that we use are web, you know, web-based. Uh, we're working with some, you know, some offline tool, you know, capabilities. Uh, to, you know, to be able to, you know, perform the work out in the field. Um, I hope that's answering the question. Cause that's when I think of network, I think that's kind of what I think of at this point. Go ahead, John.
[01:09:13] John Lutz: Yeah. So, I mean, like Nick, we, we, we did struggle, um, you know, probably about a year or two ago, man, about two years now, with getting wifi in the field. Um, what we, what we did was worked with general contractors to basically develop approaches and standardized technologies to utilize in the field. And that actually went really well for helping get more than the 56 K. Um, out there to the team because you got a lot of steel. You got a lot of concrete. There's a lot of things going on that could impact an iPad. Right. Um, as I think, you know, if I, if I'm reading the question correctly, it's also about connectivity to like internal systems such as BMS, EPMS, et cetera. And that, that is also a struggle, you know, working alongside the GC, uh, the operations team and the controls contractor. That usually is where our CXA gets tied in. I mean, I'm not going to go into too many details there, but there are a lot of networking provisions that would be required for access. So sometimes the best thing is just to have someone with access in your back pocket, right? You're working with the controls contractor. That should be the path of access, right? You're on site. You're doing the conditioning, et cetera.
[01:10:32] Derek DeJesus: So Steven, I think you're going to talk about a constraint here, right? When you have, when you have the demand to do final level four commissioning as the owner would see it on their graphic screen. And we have network turn up requirements. We have fiber. We have, um, temporary HVAC and cooling requirements, temporary power. How do you balance that into your level three, level four schedule to give owners that early turned over space that is then secured and stable.
[01:11:07] Steven Hodgins: So there, I don't know if I a hundred percent. I understand the question. Are you talking about in terms of a network reliability aspect of it or, or just the interface to having live systems in a partially complete world?
[01:11:23] Derek DeJesus: Yeah. It's the, it's the latter, right? It's the second part there.
[01:11:27] Steven Hodgins: So yeah, it's definitely a unique challenge. You know, there, there's, um, many clients that we're starting to see is they want a specific spaces turned over earlier than the rest of the building. So they can get in there, turn up network systems and such so that they can get their facility operating. Once we're done, you know, once we're done, they can roll in there and get going. Um, so the biggest challenge is honestly the clean space and getting the space locked down, getting the space pressurized, getting the space clean and so on. And so that it is an active clean environment. The commissioning aspect of it. You can get commissioning servers and get tent networks. You can get systems up and communicating and communicating locally and you can get it to what I'm saying L3 ready without much of a struggle. It's no different than just a normal commissioning process. The challenges is maintaining the space, maintaining the separation and being cognizant and aware of that because once you commission those systems, you hand it over to the client. Um, you have no, you have a lot more constraints, restraints of your ability to go work on that equipment, to go access that equipment. And at the same time, you're, you're handing over a space, uh, for operating systems and you have a lot of risks there if you don't do it right.
[01:12:43] Derek DeJesus: Okay. Jose, from your perspective, when you're trying to turn over a zero defect space. Eight, 10, 10 weeks before the final level four is complete. What are some of the challenges you're encountering with that?
[01:13:00] Speaker 7: So, I think, I think we need to understand first what zero defect means at like the different stage. So there's a zero defect that we do have substantial completion that, that would happen post a level four. Uh, but we do try to, uh, to turn over to the commissioning agent with as many or as little issues or rework items as possible before going into level four. Uh, what we find is, is still challenging while we're commissioning, uh, is that you still have to fix some issues, right? You still potentially need some, you still need to go in and clean the equipment. Uh, you still need to turn over that space to the, to the client, look at those data holes, do a super clean, uh, all that sort of stuff. Uh, and, and unfortunately, even for commissioning agents, uh, you know, there can also be damage, right? And so, and so just, just doing that, doing that twice or three times is not really to our best interest. We, we, we want to come into a level four with as many, as, as, as little issues as possible in the systems and provide the commissioning agents a functioning system. Uh, but not necessarily, uh, completely zero defects on the CSA world so that we can do, you know, touch up paint and all that stuff. Uh, once we are a hundred percent outside of that space. So I think there's, there's a big differentiation zero defects that substantial completion, which is, is truly doable. Uh, and then minimizing the impact to the system prior to giving to the commission agent at level four. Yeah.
[01:14:31] Derek DeJesus: So, so Brandon, your perspective as the commissioning agent, when you're, you're doing level four commissioning of an early turned over space. Yet the control contractor is still programming. You know, they're still working on graphics. That's a fine line that you're trying to balance there to prove to the owner. It was commissioned two months ago. I don't know if it's still commissioned now. What do you do there?
[01:14:54] Speaker 8: I think one of the things is it requires is, uh, a very detailed understanding of how the BMS system is put together in program. For example, um, some systems are object oriented. I don't know if anybody knows necessarily what I mean by that, but you know, if you have a, a BMS system that has a Cray, there's an object for that Cray. And that's kind of the template. And every Cray that is meant that is put in the system, henceforth, uses that same template. And so, uh, a change or, or something that gets put in or a fix say is, is applied, uh, system wide, but in other instances, um, you know, that's not the case. It's, it's the, every, every instance of everything is custom built by, and it's only dependent really on the. The stidiousness of the guy that did it. And if he's detail oriented, then you get a good result. If he's not, then you don't. And, and, uh, so for example, you mentioned, you've got a turned over space. And so then let's say they turn it over and, and you've got a, uh, a, uh, air handling unit. And, uh, in, uh, space number two, we find that there was some sort of issue that, that popped up intermittently and needs to be addressed. So now addressing that issue by updating the template will most certainly affect the first instance of, of that system. And so I think knowing that is super important. The other thing is, is setting expectations with the owner and, or whoever it is that we're working for. Um, or the project team that anything that happens as the potential to in the existing space has a potential to change beyond the intended change as a potential to, to undo some of the commission that's been done. And I think, I think the biggest thing, and I think it's been talked about in independent, I guess, indirectly a bunch of times is discernment. I think discernment in the commissioning field is super important. You can flood a project with a fog of worthless issues or very minimal value issues and make everybody say, Oh my gosh, we've got 400. We got 5,000 punch list items, but really only like 12 of them are consequential and the rest are labels or, or things that are just, uh, much more superficial. And I think, I think one of the most important things that any CXA can do is provide context and discernment about what is important and needs to be focused on by, by not just us, but the whole team. You know, what is important. So we have this goal four weeks from now. We don't need to be fixing the paint scratches right now. We've got to get the relays, the relay issue that's out there set, or we need to, we need to replace all the surgery rescuers because they have the wrong rating and that's going to hold us up. We don't need to worry about these other more superfluous things. And I think an experienced commissioning agent should be able to do that. And, and that's where I think that's the biggest thing that comes with experiences discernment. And I think if you're going to kind of follow a servant leadership mentality on a project, that's what you're looking to bring is, is discernment and context.
[01:18:10] Derek DeJesus: Yeah, that's great. I love, I love your word choices. Discernment, fastidious. Yeah, I knew, we know why you're on the panel for a reason.
[01:18:18] Speaker 8: I have a, I have a copious amount of other words like that.
[01:18:21] Derek DeJesus: Well, that's my, in my, in my lexicon, if you, if you desire. Lexicon. Well, we, we have a few questions here from the audience. I'm going to get to those here. Uh, let's see. There's a, there's a very unique one here. It deals with fire protection. Um, and I think this one could go both ways. This could start on the contractor side. So let's start with you, Steven. So let's assume that this is during fire protection testing. So the quality control side, how many times do you retest the system before you get concerned about maybe going to the owner and saying, Hey, you know what? The design just isn't working. It's not, it's not there. We need some extra money to make this right.
[01:19:00] Steven Hodgins: Very good question there. So, you know, I kind of look at it twofold. You know, if I'm, if I'm testing the system is just not working. I think it's a design issue. You know, I'm probably only going to go two or three times before I start bringing up the concern. Um, on that end, but I don't think it's ever our intent at least to go after the, the owner for additional costs. And we're resolving and solving the problem and making sure we've done everything we possibly can do to make it right. So it is, it is a complicated question, but I'll end the day, if it was a massive design change, obviously we'd look for, for, for additional costs there.
[01:19:43] Derek DeJesus: What about on the owner side? You know, we're a lot of times, John, you know, those are delegated designs. You're looking for a local expert, a design build contractor to take that on that responsibility. You're just expecting the system to work past the AHJ inspection. Do you have any sort of, uh, concerns there if the system just won't pass? So a hundred percent.
[01:20:06] John Lutz: Right. But you know, if we're running into issues at level four, typically level four functional performance testing of a life safety system is completely independent of the age. Right. Now, the reason for that is obviously one. The age is looking at safety, temporary certificate of occupancy, et cetera. Commissioning is looking for tie-ins to BMS, all those different communications pieces. If we are running into problems at level four, which require enough retesting and be like, Oh my God, I just sunk another a hundred hours into this. Right. That indicates a problem to the left-hand side. Delegated design is not forgotten design. Right. Engineer of record needs to be engaged. Right. They end up signing off on the submittal. General contractor needs to be engaged. They own that entire scope to that point. Right. And what it does is it creates an opportunity to look at a root cause. Okay. And take, take an understanding right on these phased builds. This isn't going to be a one-off. Right. We're probably going to run into the same thing next phase or next building. And taking that time to learn what happened and include the commissioning agent in that conversation. Right. Because again, I go to that expertise point. Right. We have folks who have seen every kind of fire system imaginable and they ran into problems when they read through the sequence of operations and it didn't make sense to them. Why didn't the commissioning agent get a chance to read that sequence of operations earlier and bring the impact farther to the left on the schedule. And I think, I think that's exactly how I would attack that one. You know, we don't keep moving forward with problems. We fix the problem and then move forward.
[01:21:52] Speaker ?: Sure.
[01:21:53] Nick Zeis: Yeah. There's another. Yeah. Go ahead, Nick. Yeah. Just back when I was a commissioning agent, we had one site where we had a water reclamation system that no matter how many times the manufacturer came out to try to, you know, to try to fix it and make it work. About the fourth time that we went out there and, you know, the hose popped off and shot water and soaked about 30 people that were standing around hoping this thing would work. Finally, the owner just decided, you know what, we're done with it. And they actually just abandoned it in place and actually put shrubbery up around it. Yeah, it was kind of, it was kind of interesting, but, you know, at the end of the day, we pay, you know, we're paying for this stuff to work. You know, it's got to work. And then so, you know, some cases, it may not, you know, the system installed may not been like the original tent of, of the engineer or the original tent of even like the manufacturer. And that's where we got to get everybody together, figure out the best path forward and move on. Yeah. As far as when that determination comes with the fast pace, with the fast pace that we are putting out data centers. Like that's a conversation you start before you even have the problem.
[01:23:22] Speaker ?: Yeah.
[01:23:23] Derek DeJesus: A couple of great questions here regarding process. Level three to level four, right? We all know level three is startup owner validate or contractor validation of pre-testing point to point graphics verification. Level four that's supposed to be the actual contractors stepping away. The commissioning agent takes it on. Do we feel that there's a necessary stage gate or a barrier to this? Or is it just a prevention of doing faster commissioning? What I think we're trying to get out here, combining level three, level four together.
[01:24:00] Speaker ?: Right.
[01:24:01] Derek DeJesus: Is there, is there value or are we shifting risk over to the commissioning agent?
[01:24:06] Speaker ?: Okay.
[01:24:07] Derek DeJesus: Let's start with you. Go ahead, Brandon.
[01:24:09] Speaker 8: Well, I was going to say one thing that you do if you try to do both at the same time is you, you, you do give yourself some scheduling uncertainty because if something hasn't been started up and you're trying to kind of commission it at the same time, it's hard to know how it's going to go because you're really kind of doing it together. And I think it's, it can be difficult. But I will say that when we, when we used to commission things, say, I don't know, 12, 15 years ago, something like that. We were heavily involved in the startup and then we would just kind of roll right into, to level four. And I do think that, that involvement by some level of, I guess, overlap, if you want to say between the, the commissioning agent and the, and the, the, the vendors is, is useful and, and can help to move the commissioning. When it finally, you do, you do get to that kind of official point where you go much quicker because your knowledge of how everything works is so much better than it otherwise would be. And then I do think too, that after the first, I mean, a lot of the projects that you guys are building and, and Facebook and Microsoft it's, it's phased, right? And so the initial phase, I think should be treated different than the other phases, because that's when everybody's learning, you know, you're learning at the CXA. I'm learning the, the Google way or the Microsoft way or the Facebook way. And so that's a big piece of, of how, you know, what we've seen is oftentimes it's the paperwork that holds up the whole thing because it wasn't understood or because the level of importance wasn't given to it or because the, the point was misinterpreted. And so, so we're sitting there with mounds of paperwork equipment that's basically ready to go, but mounds of paperwork undone and there's some gate that's waiting for somebody to sign off or whatever. And you end up, everybody's falling all over themselves with pencils, trying to, you know, pencil with all the, all these boxes and we're missing the point. But, but after the initial phases of all of that, you, you, you kind of, that all smooths out typically, and you, you learn the way and the contractors learn the way. And so I guess overlapping becomes easier, I guess, as you go, or you could say, well, the overlapping investment is done on the first phase. And therefore you, CXA can come in for level four and have less involvement with level three and you're kind of ready to go, you know, so I just think that if it, in these large builds, the understanding that the first phase and the fifth phase are completely different in, in pro and efficiency perspective is, is important. Jose, let's turn that one over to you.
[01:27:13] Speaker 7: Hey, so I have a few thoughts here. I do think level three should definitely be a gate to level four, but I also feel like engaging the commissioning agent on level threes becomes extremely important. And things like first of kind, right? Like looking at the system together, maybe one time and then allowing the contractors, keeping the contractors like our controls contractors and vendors accountable. I think owners like Google, Facebook, Microsoft is an amazing opportunity. And to just bring, you know, manufacturing into construction and, and hold those vendors accountable and say, Hey, doing your level threes, we are expecting you to, to give us this level of equipment, this level of quality, even at level one. And so what ends up happening is level four should really just be a validation of those level threes. So if you are doing it correctly, you are not actually extending the schedule. You are providing, you're bringing in your commissioning agent and learning together. But then you're not doubling up on resources. You're letting the vendors, the trade partners and the, and the contractors like our controls contractor being so critical, do their job and do it well and set those expectations. And then turn it over and say, Mr. Commissioning agent, here you go, go validate what I just did.
[01:28:30] Speaker 8: I will say too, that one of the things that can totally throw a monkey wrench in the whole overlap between level three and level four is if the commissioning agent doesn't have the right approach and perspective on what they're doing. You know, if you're walking up to a piece of equipment that's still being started up, it doesn't make sense to write a bunch of punch list items about that piece of equipment when it's really, it's not necessarily ready to go. Now, if there's something that's been done incorrectly regarding the installation. That's one thing, but a lot of times what I've seen we've kind of come in behind is we've had experiences where the CXA will come in and basically write up punch list items for things that just aren't yet finished. And that's a different, that's a different thing as compared to an actual installation error or, or omission.
[01:29:21] Derek DeJesus: Nick, what's your take on these level three to level four stage gate barrier perceived or real.
[01:29:28] Nick Zeis: Nick, I think it's very important. So, you know, in Microsoft, we have a tagging process. And, you know, we use that and the tags themselves, I call them the stop sign between the levels. Yeah, that it's a stop, go back, look, did you actually do everything correctly. You know, it's a last minute check. Hey, is everything good. It's a handoff. You know, and the, you know, I definitely believe in having the commissioning agents come in, witness level threes. You know, be there, be there for some of the startups. You know, double checking, making sure that, you know, like, hey, yep, you crossed that T and you dotted that I or, or, hey, these IR scans, they look like they were taken from 30 feet away through, you know, six pieces of glass. You know, or, you know, hey, this doesn't meet all of our requirements for, you know, thermal monitoring system and how to, you know, and, you know, how to verify that or, you know, just different things like that. Different things like that, like being able to, you know, it's kind of catch some of that stuff early can definitely help that transition between level three and four, but I still do believe in a clean handoff. And because we've tried, we've tried it where we come in and try to hit like the low hanging fruit. You know, a couple of panel boards, a couple of this, a couple of that, and all we've seen is just kind of wasted time and increased cost because of it. You know, like we've seen, we've seen various things associated with it, like various issues and so that's why we preach a, you know, clean handoff between the two. We don't like combining levels three and four. Yes, there are certain cases where, you know, hey, UPS went down, we got to get it back up and running, you know, over the weekend. There's, yeah, there's special cases for stuff like that, but as far as our long-term bills, no. Definitely believe in the stage game between them.
[01:31:37] Derek DeJesus: John, do you have any last thoughts on this?
[01:31:40] John Lutz: Last thought would be if we combine those two steps, there will always be time to do it twice. So take that as you will.
[01:31:48] Derek DeJesus: Yeah, I think, I think when we look at it, commissioning isn't just the validation and verification at that one instance that it worked. It's the documentation that backs it up so that two years down the road when it doesn't work or it fails, we can go back and say, well, it did work at this point. Here's who was there. Here were the day conditions. Here's the trend data that shows it. So I think if we try to go too fast with quality and with commissioning to meet a schedule for capacity, we are doing ourselves and our operations team a disservice by saying, well, it was just a documentation miss. It did work at that time. I agree though. So here's another group.
[01:32:29] Speaker ?: Yeah.
[01:32:30] Steven Hodgins: Derek, I was going to add, like, I definitely think there should be a distinct separation between the two L3 and L4 and a separate stage. However, I do believe it is best to bring in the commission agent earlier into the L3. Not that they're running it. Not that they're responsible for it. That should definitely be on the vendors, the contractors and so on and so forth. However, I do think it does shift things to the left because we are able to find earlier design issues much sooner and solve them sooner. While if the subs and vendors, you know, we can do a pretty good job help solving those problems. But having the commissioning agent there sometimes speeds that up as well as sometimes there's misunderstandings. You know, commission agent was going to go commission and thought it was going to operate this way. Well, vendor thought it was otherwise. So you do cut down on some of those issues and churn you get later on when you hand over to L4. But definitely at the end of the day, you get done with L3 and it is definitely the commission agents show to go make sure that let's go try to break this thing. Make sure it's done right. Yeah.
[01:33:32] Derek DeJesus: So. So, Brandon, you know, we're on this level three phase because it's the most important transition, right? It really kind of does the final check out as as the commissioning agent. Are you witnessing first of kind? Are you doing like a full level four on a first of kind? Are you just reviewing documentation? What is your involvement at level three during startup?
[01:33:56] Speaker 8: Well, I guess it totally depends to some degree on what is being asked of us. And certainly, I mean, amongst the parties on this call, there's there's differences, vast differences in how you would like us to interact with the vendors and how much presence you want in the field versus versus review of paperwork. I mean, me personally, or I shouldn't say me, but as a company, I think that the thing we try to push is is involvement in the field to a large degree, because because if we think if we do it right, we learn, they learn from us, we build relationships, and then we work well together during level And then we work well together during level four paperwork tends to be it depends. It really depends on how much effort is put on the quality of the paperwork by the management team of the project. I mean, a lot of times you, you know, you were reviewing paperwork and it's, it's, you know, it's low quality paperwork and it's voluminous and it's in it's tons of tons of time and effort to review. And sometimes I wonder what the necessarily what the level of value is other times if if the the owner is very specific and insistent that the paperwork be right, then eventually it does become right. And the vendors do truly try to do what the work line items indicate they are supposed to do, but I think what we find a lot of times is, is that never really happens. And it's just a lot of paperwork review that doesn't give you a whole lot where we could be out there with the vendors doing I think more so I don't know all my answers to your questions like seem to be on both sides of every fence and I'm sorry about that. I would say, I would say that I would say that that that is it just is so vastly different. And I mean, even within within, you know, the organizations that you guys are all part of it's different from area to area I remember we worked with with with Nick on a project recently. And we had to recalibrate ourselves during that project because we had been to some degree calibrated by other experiences that we had had, you know, and, and there was even there was even different masters within within the Microsoft organization and there's and this is all all of these things lead to just we have to adapt ourselves, you know, and there is really isn't I don't think a rule. I don't think a rule for what you could definitely apply to every situation. So you bring up a great point.
[01:36:41] Derek DeJesus: And I think if we, you know, we speak for our not the organization per se, but we at least speak for our teams or our departments. Wouldn't it be nice if, as an industry, we could sort of standardized the approach to commissioning the approach to quality, you know, we have associations 24 by seven ACG and others that are meant to bring us together to help educate and inform. How can we as an owner, and we'll start with you, John, how can we at least start to try to turn the tide a little bit that when Hood Patterson is hired to do a Facebook job. I Google or Nick at Microsoft also understand we're going to get the same level of consistency in the industry.
[01:37:26] John Lutz: Well, I think we need to look at things a little bit differently right if we look at commissioning QA QC building envelope special material inspection all these things. So, rather than independent vendor services that we look at them as our supply chain. It helps to start create a space where we can look and see what those standards should be. Now, from the owners perspective, everyone has a little bit of a different approach right internally already, but the goal is the same. Honestly, we should talk more right, we should collaborate, we should share the dirty secrets be like wow I can't believe they did that kidding. No, we should talk about hey we're running into these problems here's what we did to fix it. Here's what the expectation is to get to that point it takes openness, the opportunity communicate and the willingness to communicate right. You know we were talking about level three, the same vendors are performing the exact same startup on the exact same equipment, maybe with a different color paint right on you know at different sites. Why are we getting different results. Yeah, if we look at it from a supply chain perspective. There is nothing but opportunity we just really we really need to come together. And we need to partner with these folks as well, to understand what the feedback is from the other side.
[01:38:56] Nick Zeis: Yeah, and I definitely agree with that I mean it's. You know like so that's why I like having Commission agents that cross that you know that spend time with other owners. Because they do bring some of those experiences, you know they don't necessarily say at Google we did this. They'll say hey on you know. On that other boat. This is what they would do, you know. We would always test to this, or we've seen it done this way in the past on the used to fish. But you're. So one of the things that we've done, you know, just in Microsoft to try to actually, you know, just like Brandon was saying what we go to one site. There's a different role than the other site, you know, go, you know, and sometimes you go to the same site twice and there's a different rule. Just depending on, you know, the time of day. So one thing we've started doing is we've started standardization of our entire program. We hand the commissioning agent standardized scripts for the equipment and say, okay, here's the baseline standard script. All right, this is your starting point, make it site specific, make it equipment specific. You know, we started doing things like that started, you know, taking all of these little, you know, pocket rules that only exist, you know, they only exist in one little tiny space and started making them into actual policies. Yeah, putting them in writing, we're, you know, we're bringing back our commissioning summits where we bring all of our commissioning firms that we use together into the same room. And I think having, you know, having conversations like what we're having now, I think this is key to getting that standardization across the industry.
[01:40:51] Derek DeJesus: Yeah, I think if we, you know, if we could, and I think I hate to say this, but I think the colo world is slowly eating away at that industry standardization, because they are more about speed, capacity and cheap, as opposed to quality end users. Right, you know, we go into some colos where there are no operations facility managers, right, we have to worry about the people that work in these buildings. So I think if we can at least start to maybe standardize on process, like the how, and less on the what, you know, I don't care if john's level four test is written certain way or not, but how did we get to that point. Right. Maybe that's maybe that's an action item that we can take as a as an industry, I would say from a philosophical standpoint.
[01:41:39] Speaker 8: If, if our brains are taken out of the commissioning process by by complete and total standardization. I think you're, you'll, you'll end up with box checkers only because, because I think as a CXA you want to be able to own, in the end, what you're doing. And I think that the, the, the one of the great things that that the industry, you know, people in y'all's positions could do is from a just from a philosophical standpoint. Tell, tell or standardize around what, what are, are the main characteristics and aspects of the equipment that you've got that you would like to make sure works during level four. What is, what is that, that, I guess, universe of, in which we are to operate and and I think you brought up earlier point to point testing I think some somebody brought that up. And, you know, for some clients, they want point to point they want us to do it and during level four, and in others, in other cases, no, and in both cases it's a level four test and but I don't think it would be good. If we completely take the ability of the CXA to make it and own and own what they're doing, because I think it would remove the their brains from from the process too much and. Anyway, I think it also robs them of the chance of understanding the deeper reasons for why things are the way they are when you sit with a submittal. If you have to come up with what you think is important and what is necessary to prove that piece of equipment and you understand all the pieces of it. It's totally different than if you walk in there, and you get it all if the recipe is handed to you, and you know you're there, you're a body on site and. But that all that being said, if I was an owner in y'all's position, and I have 50 buildings that i'm putting in, and I have this vast, you know, universe of of of you know, on one end we're doing this over here and on the other end you're doing this over there, I think that would be a nightmare. And so I, I think if you can have a hybrid between total standardization and and philosophical guidance, I don't know if that's the right word philosophical but but high level outline ish guidance for where you'd like us to focus. You'll get a CXA that's fully involved in the process and fully I guess plugged into it, and then you'll also get in large part what you want from a standardization standpoint.
[01:44:30] Derek DeJesus: So yeah, so I think there's also yeah go ahead, Nick.
[01:44:34] Nick Zeis: I was gonna say I agree and disagree. So I agree that you know that we do that the commission you just do need to have their, you know, you know, they need to be thinking and they need to own the scripts. One example that i'm going to kind of toss your way is that before we had some of the standard scripts which we consider pretty much the like the base guidelines, not necessarily, but this is, you know, you write it and you just look at the top and you scratch off. One manufacturer and put on another manufacturer before, you know, before we started doing that. We had an example, like, for example, static switch testing out of phase transfers. All right, we had one. We had one commissioning company that would do the out of phase transfer, and they would just switch it back and forth, but they wouldn't actually measure anything. You know, they didn't even hook up a PQM. We had another commission agent that was using the PQM that was built into the PDU or it was to be into the static switch. And then we had another community commission agent that they were using our PQMs that we provided to them. And so that's the kind of standardization that I'm talking about because john can remember back we had an issue with a with grounds on one site. The grounds were only there when you were on generator another site exact same design same manufacturers everything the grounds were only there when you were on utility. But we couldn't tell if it was a metering problem or not because the commission agents were hooking up their test equipment in different spots. So that's kind of what you know referring to. Someone's at your front door.
[01:46:16] John Lutz: Thank you, Alexa. Yeah, check that.
[01:46:18] Speaker ?: Yeah.
[01:46:19] John Lutz: So, Brandon, what I would say is, you know, it's not about over standardization, right? We want the brain, right, but the industry has changed the workforce has changed that brains and next point has now, you know, there's folks who have done stuff because they've been told to do things, not because they know the why. Of how to perform that commissioning how to do that commissioning and the underlying reason for performing that commissioning. I think what would really help our industry, and I think it's what Derek is getting at is minimum standards. I should not expect I'm happy to do it, but I should not expect to have to train a commissioning agent.
[01:47:03] Derek DeJesus: Oh, yeah.
[01:47:04] John Lutz: Right. And that that I think right there that baseline. These are the tests we do for this piece of equipment. And this is why this is how, you know, we can do the how, however, right, but it's the what we do. And I think that's where this industry would really have value because what we have, we have certain qualifications, et cetera. You can go to, you know, get a two week certificate and say, hey, I'm commissioning certified, right? That doesn't teach me how to commission. That doesn't ensure the standardized delivery of anything. And I think that's really what we're getting at because like that brain is absolutely required because you know what? Not everything works as much as we want it to. That's why we have jobs, right? So we still need that commissioning agent to be able to be that leader on site and help, you know, drive the team to solution. But we need to start from the same sheet of music.
[01:47:57] Derek DeJesus: And I think as we start to look at trying to define a commissioning standard commissioning is a part of quality. It all starts with quality, quality assurance, quality control. I know Steven and Jose, you would crave having a consistent quality expectation on your project sites, mockups, first of kind installs, an inspection process. How about a tool? How about we standardize on a tool, right? I mean, I think if we could talk about how we can focus on improving quality from level zero through level five, that's going to make everybody better. Steven, do you have anything?
[01:48:36] Steven Hodgins: Yeah, I think I was going to add on to that. Absolutely. We want more consistency and more standards. But I also agree with Brandon in the sense that if they aren't developing that or the teams aren't developing this together, you do remove some of that ownership. And people become robots. And so you're right, you know, benchmarking, setting expectations, having standard L three documents or having standard L four documents, nothing wrong with it. But you got to go make it specific with the team. You got to go work, develop it with the team. If you don't, you're just going to have people out there checking boxes. And that's not what you want, because you're going to run into problems and you're going to have to have those people that can go resolve and solve those problems. And if they're just checking boxes, well, breaker didn't do what it was supposed to. You know, that's a problem. So but to the point, we got to get more standards. It is very hard to go to project to project and then it changes each time. And on hyperscale projects, you don't want that. You got to move. You got to have speed. You got to have speed. So getting that consistency helps us create a good, awesome plan.
[01:49:44] Speaker 7: So I would like to get away from the word standards and just throw the word fundamentals. Right. So it's really important as we grow with our clients and with our partners that us as GCs are also growing and learning. I mean, at DPR, we proud ourselves of being technical builders and we'd like to build more robust teams that understand the cradle to grave from a quality perspective and commissioning perspective. And just giving those teams just a set of fundamentals that they can go and execute at any project and can be scalable is something that we're very closely looking at. Because we want to make sure that that we are not only quality and commissioning driven from the client, but we're also quality quality driven as as a partner as as a builder. Right. So it's me that that that is extremely important and not looking at it as standards because standards can convey very restrictive fundamentals is what I would like to throw out there.
[01:50:47] Derek DeJesus: Well, so I think I think there's a fundamental discussion here. One of these last questions we're going to get to is how do we involve our building operations team. Right. I know how each I know how all three of us do it and we all do it differently. You know, so what is your experience, John, you know, speaking from an owner's perspective as to what does the owner, the facility owner, the operator, do they play in the commissioning process?
[01:51:14] John Lutz: Okay, all right, so this is going to be fun one. So all of us know all of us have been in a job interview. When we talk about partnership. There's always the question of how did you deal with operations or how did you deal with construction. Right. Well, we flip the script on that one. We brought the two teams together what we've done in the quality and the commissioning space at Facebook. Is we've actually developed a construction facing operations team that are still operations folks. However, they are assigned to the construction team and are actually matrix with our QA QC professional in the space. What that has done has created a significant value add with regards to communication on the team and early feeling of ownership and expertise over the building and even stronger relationships with our third parties and the Facebook team themselves. And that's including the GC space that's including the CX, etc. It's actually been one of the most effective initiatives. I've seen rolled out at this level and it's created huge success as far as providing more eyes getting the experts involved. And what has happened also is it's streamlined the process as we approach each phase turnover and afterwards right working with warranty or working with closeout issues there. That has been a significant significant win.
[01:52:52] Nick Zeis: Yeah, I can definitely agree with the earlier, you know, the more involvement you have between construction operations, the, you know, the better overall. I mean, we've tried several different things in the past. Right now, our current model is, you know, 30 days before turnover operations shows up. And, you know, the problem is like they're so they're so busy trying to get ready to take over the facility that now they're, you know, they're scrambling, they don't have time to actually get out in the field. So we try to, you know, we, we do spend a lot of time, especially with some of the teams that are able to, you know, to come out early. We'll, you know, we'll have them say, hey, here's our level four schedule. Get out there and witness, you know, and, you know, ask questions. Don't interrupt the work, you know, but once they're done testing and they're kind of wrapping things up, ask questions. One of the big challenges that we've seen with, you know, having more operational visibility into construction is wishlist items. You know, that whole, well, I would, you know, this ladder is great, or this railing is great, but I wish you would wrap it in rope. Or, you know, you know, things like that, just little stuff that isn't a spec requirement, but it's a nice to have. And, you know, there are some cases where we've had an operations team come out and actually find really important things that nobody thought of because it was more of like a maintenance aspect that a lot of the, you know, a lot of the teams just kind of missed because, you know, they're just looking at it from a pure drawing standpoint. You know, and functionality. Yeah, so I definitely, I definitely agree with bringing the operations in, you know, early, having them being able, you know, making sure that you set guidelines and look on boundaries, I guess you could say. Is important, you know, expectations. You know, hey, if you've got a wishlist item, bring it up. But don't make it an issue. Don't, you know, don't put it on, you know, in with the rest of our list of our issues.
[01:55:19] John Lutz: I think the big thing there, sorry, Derek, but I think the big thing there is communication. It absolutely is, right, because like, that's always the worry as we get into the wishlist. Well, like, let's bring in the conversation and explain why it's not there, you know, hey, other people have thought about this. This has been, you know, we tried it, didn't work, et cetera, but that communication is so incredibly important.
[01:55:45] Derek DeJesus: Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, I know Brandon knows, you know, how we, how we do things with our operations teams, and they are very baked in to the process. On most, on most sites, but it also comes down to headcount in hiring, right, the industry as a whole is competitive. And just like on the quality or the construction side, operations is also starving for talent, and they can't usually get their headcount to fill their spaces in a timely manner to support design reviews, submittal reviews, inspections, startup commissioning, right? All of those activities where they would gain knowledge become hindrances that when they do engage, they're going back to the start one, asking questions that have already been answered. And now they become wishlists, they become issues that we need to deal with. And that's a hindrance to the schedule, that's a hindrance to the business model, or the goal, deliver capacity, the best as we can, as fast as we can. So I think we've answered a lot of these questions. There's a couple in here that I think we still have a little bit more time for. We have three minutes left. So let's see, what are, Nick, I'm gonna throw one your way. What are some best practices to ensure level four scripts are written to design SOOs and validating successful level four functional testing prior to the first level four? That's a lot of level fours in one sentence. Perhaps a comma or a semicolon would be useful. Did you understand that one, Nick? Yes.
[01:57:23] Nick Zeis: All right. No, it's a, it's a really good question. Like, so for, as far as like the verifying level four scripts are written to the design SOOs, all of our level four scripts would go to the engineer of record. You know, they go to our internal engineering group for, you know, for review and approval. You know, and then we'll also send them to, to some of the vendors to set, you know, to give them that chance to look at it and say, hey, that's not quite how our system is supposed to work. One of the biggest things that we've seen that helps is having, you know, not just your, your sequence of operation, but your, your DO, you know, how the, you know, have the controls vendors interpretation of how the sequence is supposed to work. I think that's, you know, that right there is an important important because your engineer record may interpret it one way and then your controls contractor interprets a completely different way.
[01:58:34] John Lutz: John. Yeah, I, I absolutely agree. Um, yeah. Some of it also has to do with a design philosophy. Uh, not all of us design and build the same thing every phase, but some of us do. Right. If we're designing and building the same thing with a few means and methods or local challenges, then 99% of the script should probably be the same. Right. Identify those deltas work with the team. You know, we run into issues during the execution of conditioning. We sure as heck shouldn't see it during the next phase. Right. Make sure that feedback loop is completed. And, you know, from an owner's perspective, it's my job to be that partner to help those partners communicate. Right. From an execution perspective, it requires the willingness to come to the table and have that conversation from our vendors. Yeah.
[01:59:26] Derek DeJesus: Yeah. Yeah. Brandon, I think this is leaning on that, that involvement at level three, successfully writing a functional test at level two and getting everyone to buy into it. What are some of the successes or challenges that you've had?
[01:59:40] Speaker 8: Um, so I, I would say getting a, um, an entity on the owner's side or whoever is doing the reviewing that really gives the, the script for phase one of a project, the proper level of review. Uh, oftentimes you, you get to, you know, like the third iteration or something. And, and that's when everybody has enough time to finally pay enough attention to say, you know what, we, we, we're paying our vendors to do this particular thing. And really, we don't want you utilizing your, your time doing that. You know, that's, that's one of the things that that's caused us, I guess, a little bit of grief, but the successes though, are, are when we do have good involvement from the owner, right from the start. And then we, we hit the ground running solid. And, uh, I mean, that, that definitely happens. And, and, and it tends to happen more now than it did in the past as, as you guys get better on your end as well.
[02:00:36] Derek DeJesus: So much, Brandon. And with that, that is our last question and our last discussion topic. We're right on time, four o'clock Eastern. So I'm going to throw it back to Sam. But before I do that, I'd like to sincerely thank all of our panelists. Um, we're taking two hours out of your time today. And I know we've been planning this for many months. So thank you for your participation and hanging on there. Uh, Jose, Steven from the contractor side, Brandon from the commissioning agent. Uh, John and Nick also from the owner side. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. Back to you. Thanks, Derek.
[02:01:10] Sam Schwartz: I definitely echo what Derek said. And thank you to Derek for moderating and also taking two hours of his time today. Uh, before everyone leaves, I just want to make sure that you keep an eye out for an email with information regarding your learning units from the ACG CX energy app. And while you're in that app, I just ask that everyone please take a moment to evaluate this presentation. We'll be continuing our webinar series next month, December 10th with conserving energy through building enclosure commissioning. So have a wonderful day. Thanks for stopping by and stay healthy, everyone.
[02:01:47] Derek DeJesus: Thank you, Sam. Everyone. Have a great day.
[02:01:50] Sam Schwartz: Thanks all.
[02:01:51] Derek DeJesus: Take care, everybody. Bye-bye.
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