Development of an integrative commissioning methodology for new-building construction

Commissioning (Cx) is a quality process for building construction used to verify that the owner’s project requirements (OPR) are being met by the final design, construction, and operations and maintenance. The goal is to confirm that each phase of the project is linked back to the OPR through quality assurance methods. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification is an OPR which contributes to difficulties within the design and construction (D&C) process. Though LEED certification is only part of the OPR, too often the design drifts from the OPR and simply focuses on meeting the LEED certification. Quality function deployment (QFD) has been successfully used in product development to capture the voice of the customer (VOC) and translate it into engineering characteristics. QFD then carries these parameters into production and service to ensure the VOC is being met with the final product. The House of Quality (HOQ), a tool within QFD, can provide a means for comparison of OPR and the proposed design, along with identifying how the design decisions impact the LEED scorecard. QFD can effectively link the project phases through design and construction and into operations and maintenance to ensure the OPR is met with the final building. The primary objective of this research is to develop an integrative and systematic methodology that utilizes the QFD four-phase model in the commissioning process of new-building construction to ensure the OPR is met. The purpose is to provide practitioners the steps to take the QFD four-phase model through the entire Cx process to use as a means to oversee the entire design and construction quality process.