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CU Anschutz Broke a 319-Valve Vivarium Upgrade Into 30 Phases and Used Distributed Commissioning to Keep Research Moving
CU Anschutz, the largest academic health campus in the Rocky Mountain Region, could not afford to lose precious lab time while replacing 319 end-of-life venturi air valves. Instead, the team front-loaded planning, factory testing, and room-by-room functional testing so active research spaces could come back online after each phase rather than at the end of the job. Â
The mechanical contractor, MTech Mechanical, was responsible for the air valve replacements. They were only able to take three to five of the 100+ lab rooms offline at a time and had to turn them back on within less than three weeks across roughly 30 phases.
The teamâs first move was a one-month mock-up in a non-critical procedure room. âOur answer was setting aside one month at the start of the project to complete a mock-up phase,â said Scout McCamy of MTech Mechanical. That dry run let the team refine checklists, testing sequences, remote notification, alarming, and system mapping before repeating the process at scale. Â
CU Anschutz also required factory-preprogramming and testing of the venturi valves, then used SkySpark to distribute commissioning across the project rather than saving it for the end. âSkySpark made an enormous difference as it distributed the commissioning throughout the project,â said Joe Kimitch, CU Anschutzâs owner representative.
Grace Gillenwater of Group 14 Engineering said the remote testing approach âalmost eliminatedâ at least 32 coordination efforts across 16 operations by allowing hour-long heating and cooling tests, live trend review, and same-day retesting. Â
The team still found room to tighten the process. Gillenwater said earlier diagnostics in SkySpark could have exposed faulty reheat valves and out-of-calibration room sensors before shutdowns started. For service providers, the operational point is straightforward: when downtime windows are tight, pretesting and distributed commissioning become part of delivery, not punch-list work.
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CU Anschutz, the largest academic health campus in the Rocky Mountain Region, could not afford to lose precious lab time while replacing 319 end-of-life venturi air valves. Instead, the team front-loaded planning, factory testing, and room-by-room functional testing so active research spaces could come back online after each phase rather than at the end of the job. Â
The mechanical contractor, MTech Mechanical, was responsible for the air valve replacements. They were only able to take three to five of the 100+ lab rooms offline at a time and had to turn them back on within less than three weeks across roughly 30 phases.
The teamâs first move was a one-month mock-up in a non-critical procedure room. âOur answer was setting aside one month at the start of the project to complete a mock-up phase,â said Scout McCamy of MTech Mechanical. That dry run let the team refine checklists, testing sequences, remote notification, alarming, and system mapping before repeating the process at scale. Â
CU Anschutz also required factory-preprogramming and testing of the venturi valves, then used SkySpark to distribute commissioning across the project rather than saving it for the end. âSkySpark made an enormous difference as it distributed the commissioning throughout the project,â said Joe Kimitch, CU Anschutzâs owner representative.
Grace Gillenwater of Group 14 Engineering said the remote testing approach âalmost eliminatedâ at least 32 coordination efforts across 16 operations by allowing hour-long heating and cooling tests, live trend review, and same-day retesting. Â
The team still found room to tighten the process. Gillenwater said earlier diagnostics in SkySpark could have exposed faulty reheat valves and out-of-calibration room sensors before shutdowns started. For service providers, the operational point is straightforward: when downtime windows are tight, pretesting and distributed commissioning become part of delivery, not punch-list work.
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This is a great piece!
I agree.