Data Center Journal

Volume 30 | February 2014

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D o you feel like your controls system under- performs? Does it nega- tively impact reliability instead of bolstering it? Common frustrations expressed by datacenter owners are that they feel shortchanged by their controls system and are held hostage by it. It is quite possibly the single area of greatest opportunity to improve reliability, ef- ficiency and performance. Sure, this has something to do with selecting the right equipment and integrator, but of equal importance is applying the right controls commis- sioning process. is article outlines the elements that we have found most important about controls system commissioning, a true full project lifecycle integration process. plan eaRly anD thoRoughly e first critical aspect is thor- ough upfront planning. Too oen controls are considered deferrable dur- ing the initial push to design and build a facility. Identifying what is important to your business with respect to con- trols should be an early priority during the project's programming phase. Controls commissioning is not a brief endeavor that occurs at the tail end of the project. If you wait that long you're selling yourself short and risking a poor return on your investment. Too much opportunity is lost when controls requirements are not considered and defined in the midst of other project planning / engineering. Your commissioning agent should help drive this process by look- ing at operational considerations and ensuring that those project require- ments are captured when controls integrators and their systems are being evaluated. To setup the project for suc- cess, the commissioning agent should work with the controls integrator to define milestones and checkpoints. Inevitably, when checkpoints are not established, important programming decisions and equipment integration are delayed. e result is a mad dash to com- plete the installation which regularly results in inadequate testing and subse- quent problems carrying over when the facility goes live. Your operations team will forever suffer. THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL | 7 www.datacenterjournal.com

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