ASHRAE_Guideline_0-2019_ - Page 036
Extracted Content
(This appendix is not part of this guideline. It is merely informative and does not contain requirements necessary for conformance to the guideline.)
INFORMATIVE APPENDIX I OWNER’S PROJECT REQUIREMENTS WORKSHOP GUIDANCE
This appendix provides an example of how to implement part of Guideline 0. It is not intended to be a comprehensive representation or a best-practice example. Practitioners applying the Cx should carefully follow Guideline 0 and applicable commissioning technical guidelines tailored to their specific projects.
The OPR is considered the heart and soul of the Cx. When the OPR is not developed, the Owner, designer, contractors, and O&M personnel each interpret the building requirements, including their individual responsibilities, from the standpoint of their own specific needs. This often creates a range of diverse views of the constructed project’s needs. Unfortunately, while critical for a successful project, the OPR is rarely developed. Developing an OPR that reflects the actual needs of the Owner, the users or occupants, service and operating units, and sometimes the community is one of the most important aspects for successful implementation of the Cx.
The following sections detail an example format to follow in developing the OPR and a discussion of how to obtain the required information. Note that, historically, the OPR has often been referred to as “design intent” or “project intent.”
I1. FORMAT
While there have been many formats used for presenting criteria for the OPR, the OPR workshop is one that has been well received by Owners, designers, contractors, and O&M personnel. The workshop initially addresses general needs/requirements and progresses to specific requirements (i.e., moves from project needs to system/equipment/control needs). It is organized around and focuses on assemblies and systems that have been identified as targets of the Cx. The workshop needs to be well organized, and it is very desirable to have the results formatted for immediate input into a computer analysis program for rapid feedback on consensus of the group.
Information from the workshop is only one of various resources from which the OPR document is developed. Following is a description of some of the information that can be included in an OPR document.
Key sections of the OPR document are as follows:
a. Background—A narrative description to provide context
about the project. b. Objectives—For any project there are goals that must be
achieved for the project to be successful. Goals can range from first cost, to time schedule, to number of change orders, to life-cycle cost. Regardless of which goals are identified, they must be summarized up front to ensure everyone is on the same page. c. Green building concepts—This is an optional section for
Owners who wish to focus on the sustainability aspects of their building.
d. Functional uses and requirements—In addition to general
documentation produced by the architect on functional uses of the building (office, storage, kitchen, etc.), the specific requirements for each functional area must be documented. This can include such items as security, safety, comfort, energy, maintainability, and indoor air quality. e. Lifespan, cost, and quality—It is important to clearly doc ument the Owner’s expectations for lifespan of materials, cost of construction, and the level of quality desired. By providing this information, unrealistic expectations are identified and eliminated. f. Performance criteria—Often the most difficult-to-define performance criteria detail minimum acceptable performance benchmarks for various aspects of the facility. g. Maintenance requirements—The maintenance require ments are a mixture of the level of knowledge of the current O&M staff (what they can maintain) and the expected complexity of the proposed systems (what they can learn). If there is a significant gap between the two, no matter how well the building is constructed, it will not be maintained or operated properly.
The following are examples of OPR elements that are common to most of the technical Cx guideline topics:
a. Benchmarks for performance—Specific criteria for the
functional use of each space, assembly, and system must be defined. These include temperature, humidity, airflow, light, noise, durability, aesthetics (materials and colors), service life, reliability, redundancy, and the like. Typically, upper and lower limits are provided for general spaces, with exceptions noted as required. b. Problems to avoid—Because occupant/user/operator com plaints are common, it is important to identify and document those problems that have caused complaints in the past. If these problems are not documented and the situation recurs, the occupants often consider the entire project as a failure. c. Specific occupant requirements—Specific items that are
deemed important to the various occupants in a building must be identified and documented. In speculatively built buildings, this section would detail the limits to which occupants can make use of their spaces. For example, a chemical laboratory cannot be put in a space designed and constructed for general office use without significant changes to the systems and possibly to the building as a whole.
I2. OBTAINING THE INFORMATION
While it may be easy to obtain the information related to development of the OPR, it is difficult to obtain quality information that the Owner, O&M staff, service contractors, customers (i.e., students, patients, retail customers, renters), visitors, subtenants, occupants, and the community all agree on. In quality-based processes, it is critical that input be obtained from all the users (the various user groups) and that the consensus of and differences between the groups be documented. There usually are requirements for which users do not all agree. These must be documented as unresolved items.
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