The Problems With Construction Quality In Life Sciences

By Richard Tree

In the mission-critical construction industry, quality management is underperforming. The evidence supporting this assertion is readily apparent when you look at the commissioning of a data center. During functional performance and integrated systems testing, hundreds or even thousands of issues arise, and the root cause of most can be traced back to human errors from the construction period. ASHRAE defines commissioning as “a quality-focused process for enhancing the delivery of a project” and that “it is not an additional layer of construction or project management.” Although this may be the vision and intent of commissioning, in practice, data center owners have come to rely on the commissioning authority as an additional safety net to identify and rectify issues overlooked during the earlier phases of construction. To reverse this trend, owners must build quality into the project from the first moment of construction.