The primary goal of this paper is to familiarize the reader with the building commissioning concept. Building commissioning gets its name from the process in which the Navy commissions ships and submarines by ensuring the vessel performs properly as intended before they are put out to sea. It is also similar to processes used in the Pacific Northwest and Canada as well as in the construction of factories and industrial facilities. Designing, specifying, and ensuring performance are the keys to realizing the benefits of building commissioning. Building commissioning is a relatively new process just coming into focus in the 1990's. The first National Conference on Building Commissioning was held in Sacramento in 1993. It developed out of a 1992 Commissioning Roundtable meeting, sponsored by the Bonneville Power Administration, among Pacific Northwest and California utility representatives, federal and state government personnel, and energy professionals. Participants at the Roundtable agreed that the industry needed to establish a regular, national forum for the discussion of building commissioning. The driving force behind the insurgence of building commissioning has been the lack of "quality" from decades of low-bid, lowest-cost, corner cuffing. This current philosophy of shortsighted practices continues to produce mediocre, minimum code buildings that really ended up costing more to build and even more to operate. "Total" or "Whole" building commissioning is a proven process to replace these unreliable construction practices of yesterday by basically insisting on quality assurance
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