Commissioning and Decommissioning

Commissioning proves that a newly installed or repaired machine is safe and runs to its specifications before production takes it. Work from a checklist built from the maker's manual, the drawings and the regulations.

Mechanical and fluid-power checks

Safety components

Prepare before power goes on:

• Have the written release in hand and every checklist finished.
• Flush the lines and install the pump start-up screens.
• New piping holds weld scale, spatter and thread chips. Flush new hydraulic lines through a fine filter until an oil sample tests clean, before the valves and cylinders work: a return filter only catches dirt after it has been through them.
• Guards are fitted ahead of any test run, after alignment, couplings and lube are finished.
• Rotate every shaft by hand: rubbing or binding shows up now, not under power.
• Re-check the lubrication.
• Warn everyone working nearby.

Then run it in stages:

• Connect power and run the prime mover on its own first: check its rotation direction and load.
• Wrong rotation does damage. A screw-on pump impeller can unscrew itself.
• Never start a pump dry. Prime it first: a mechanical seal needs liquid from its first turn.
• Connect the drives, lubricate couplings and chains, install guards and platforms, then test-run the machine.
• Run it, usually with the engineer, watching for temperature rise, vibration, noise and leaks.
• Afterward, re-check alignment and lubricant.

Run-in (break-in) is the first stretch of running, while new parts bed in and settle. Watch closely and adjust as you go.

Baseline readings capture the new machine's normal running condition:

• Vibration at each bearing: horizontal, vertical and axial.
• Temperatures, fluid levels and ultrasound, plus pressures and flows.
• Read under steady, normal running, at the same spots each time.
• Take them once the run-in is over, and write the speed, load and temperature down with them. Numbers from the first start, or from running unloaded, aren't normal running and would mislead every later comparison.
• Filed in the machine history, they are the yardstick for every later survey. A reading that climbs from baseline flags a developing fault early.

Production takes the machine only when every checklist item has passed and the paperwork is complete. The handover package holds:

• The signed commissioning checklist, with every safety-device test recorded.
• Installation records: elevations, final alignment readings, anchor-bolt torques, soft-foot checks.
• Baseline readings and the run-in adjustments made.
• The maker's manuals, drawings and parts lists, with operating and wear limits.
• The PSR report, where one was needed.

In the CMMS:

• Open the equipment record: make, model, serial and inventory numbers, ratings, suppliers.
• Set up the PMs and lube routes from the maker's requirements.
• List the spare parts and where they are stored.

Decommissioning is the formal process of taking equipment out of service, whether it will be scrapped, sold, moved or stored. Plan it from the maker's manual, the drawings, the SDSs and the site's environmental rules.

• 1. Lock out: isolate the electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic supplies, then release or block stored energy (raised parts, counterweights, spring brakes, accumulators). Verify zero energy.
• 2. Drain oil, hydraulic fluid and coolant into labelled containers. Discharge accumulators.
• 3. Decontaminate: clean out process material and residue. Flush lines that carried acid or chemicals, guided by the SDS.
• 4. Dismantle: match-mark and tag parts, inventory the components, protect machined surfaces, then rig and remove.
• 5. Sort the materials: used oil, filters and hazardous waste go out under WHMIS, TDG and environmental rules; scrap metal is recycled.
• 6. Record it in the CMMS.
• Keep each drained fluid in its own closed, labelled container: mixing them spoils the used oil for recycling and can make the whole lot hazardous waste. WHMIS applies in the plant; on a public road, the Transportation of Dangerous Goods (TDG) Regulations set the safety marks, shipping papers and training.

Isolation and entry

• Pulling a coupling isolates nothing: the motor is still live, and gravity or belt tension can still turn the driven end.
• Hydraulic units going for reuse: with the pressure bled off and the accumulators at zero, tag each hose and its port to match as it comes off, and cap both at once. Dirt that gets in now reaches the pump and valves at the next start-up.
• Treat a closed tank or vessel as a confined space.
• Drained isn't clean: residue in the seams gives off vapour as the steel heats. Before cutting or welding on a tank or drum that held a flammable product, clean it out, ventilate it (never with oxygen), have the inside gas-tested, then work under a hot-work permit with a fire watch.

The CMMS record

• Mark the asset out of service. Keep the record and its repair history; never delete them.
• Deactivate its PMs, or the CMMS will go on scheduling jobs on equipment that no longer exists.
• Log where the machine ended up and where its spare parts are now, so the crew on a sister machine can find them.
• Write the replacement machine's PMs from its own maker's manual, not from the old machine's list.

Stored machines and spares rust from condensation, and parts that never turn lose their oil film. Preserve them, and give them PM tasks so the turning and checks get done.

Gearboxes and machines

Spare parts

• Bearings: lightly oiled, in acid-free wrapping, tagged with the bearing code and the machine.
• Rubber belts: cool and dry. Synthetic belts: cool and humid, but not touching water.
• Hang endless belts in loops, with no kinks.
• Oil drums: keep the bung clear of moisture, and tilt drums stored outdoors.