Commissioning is the point where a construction job’s quality assurance record usually falls over. Inspection records, ITP sign-offs, test results and non-conformance reports sit in the builder’s construction platform, but formal commissioning generally runs in a separate commissioning system, so teams spend the final weeks before handover exporting files, reformatting them and loading the same evidence in a second time. Software firm Visibuild says it’s extending its platform to capture commissioning against each installed asset so that break in the chain closes.
The account comes from Inside Construction, which published the piece on 20 August 2026 and quotes three of the company’s co-founders. It’s a vendor’s description of a problem the vendor sells a fix for, and worth reading as such. The underlying gripe, though, will be familiar to anyone who has been chased for paperwork three days before practical completion.
Where the chain snaps
Commissioning runs through five levels, and only the first three, covering factory acceptance testing, pre-installation checks and system start-up, are typically documented through QA checklists during construction, Inside Construction reported in August 2026. Levels four and five, the formal commissioning stage, are where a separate platform enters the picture.
At that point somebody has to go back into the construction records, find the relevant checklists for hundreds of assets across dozens of subcontractors, and shift them across.
“It becomes cumbersome because the same evidence is handled twice,” says Shaun Phelan, co-founder and CPO at Visibuild.
“Gaps often surface at the end, as records are compiled for commissioning or handover, which can lead to rework. You end up with siloed data, duplicated effort and a broken chain of evidence across the project lifecycle.”
That’s the bit that stings on the tools. A gap in a checklist you filled out eight months ago doesn’t get discovered when the plant room is still open and your crew is still on site. It gets discovered when the compliance package is being stitched together, the scaffold is down and half your blokes are on the next job.
Why the owner cops it too
The problem doesn’t stop at handover. Asset owners get a package assembled from multiple contractors, consultants and platforms, and it can look complete right up until somebody needs something out of it.
Phelan puts the operator’s position bluntly: “Asset owners don’t have full visibility over what went into the project.”
“When they need to make decisions about whether to refurbish an asset or replace it entirely, they’re making those decisions with only half the data.”
The source uses the example of a chiller failing at year seven, with the operator trying to work out what was installed, who checked it and when, and finding the answer spread across disconnected systems.
Data centres and hospitals push it forward
Ryan Treweek, co-founder and CRO at Visibuild, says the scale of data centre delivery is forcing project teams to think about commissioning much earlier.
“You can’t commission a data centre and then go looking for the construction records,”
“You can’t commission a data centre and then go looking for the construction records,” Treweek says. “The information needs to be there, captured progressively, from the day installation starts.”
It makes sense when you look at what’s in the room. Power systems, cooling, backup generation and monitoring all have to perform together under constant load from day one, so a hole in the record for one switchboard or one generator raises a question mark over everything downstream of it.
Hospitals and pharmaceutical facilities land in the same bucket for different reasons: in a hospital the operator wants the full record behind every piece of mechanical and electrical plant, and in pharma the regulatory audit trail runs from design intent through to functional verification.
What Visibuild says it’s building
The development centres on native asset tracking. Instead of logging quality checks only by location or inspection visit, each physical asset installed on a job gets its own record, carrying its inspection history, test results and any defects or non-conformances through construction, into commissioning, and across into operation.
“The gap at the moment is commissioning,” Treweek says. “Records are exported out of Visibuild and moved into a separate commissioning platform, then teams come back into Visibuild once the project enters post-completion and operations. That break is what we’re working to close.”
Phelan calls the result a connected record, one view of what was planned, installed, checked, commissioned and whether anything popped up during the defects liability period. “If it’s a hospital, the owner should be able to look back and understand the full record behind every asset in that facility, from the day installation started,” he says.
Damien Quinn, co-founder and CEO at Visibuild, frames the payoff on the maintenance side: “A complete record helps owners and operators stay ahead of maintenance, rather than waiting for problems to appear. It helps keep assets in the best condition possible and gives them the strongest chance of reaching their intended design life.”
Quinn also argues the data compounds across jobs, with recurring failure patterns feeding back into pre-construction templates. “Each project informs the next,” he says. “That hasn’t really been possible before because the data collection technology wasn’t there to support it. We’re at the point now where it is.”
What it means on the tools
For a subbie, the practical read is this: the asset number is becoming as important as the level and grid reference. If your ITP for a switchboard, an air handling unit or a generator is filed against “Level 4 plant room” rather than against that specific piece of kit, somebody will have to reconcile it by hand later, and the person who gets called back is usually the one whose name is on the sign-off.
The licensing side of that doesn’t move regardless of which platform wins. Fixed electrical wiring requires a licensed electrician in every state and territory, and the record of who did the work and who checked it is what the owner is left holding years down the track. Regulators like the QBCC and the Victorian Building Authority deal in documents, not recollections.
So the thing to watch isn’t the software launch. It’s whether head contractors on the next round of data centre and health jobs start writing asset-level commissioning capture into subcontract scopes, because that’s the point where it stops being a vendor pitch and starts being a condition of getting paid.
Frequently asked questions
What’s the QA gap in construction commissioning that Visibuild describes?
Of the five levels of commissioning, only the first three, factory acceptance testing, pre-installation checks and system start-up, are typically documented in the builder’s construction platform. The last two levels usually run in a separate commissioning system, so teams re-export and re-enter the same evidence before handover.
Why does this affect asset owners after handover?
Owners inherit a package assembled from multiple contractors, consultants and platforms. Co-founder Shaun Phelan says owners often lack full visibility over what went into a project, which can leave them making refurbish-or-replace decisions with only half the data.
Does asset-level tracking software change who can do electrical work?
No. Fixed electrical wiring still requires a licensed electrician in every state and territory regardless of which platform records the job; the software only changes how the inspection and test records are stored and traced.
Sourced from Inside Construction. Original article.
