Employee spotlight with Erin Rowe, Commissioning Project Manager

For this month’s Employee Spotlight, we talked to Commissioning Project Manager Erin Rowe. Erin was based in Shanghai, China, working within our APAC (Commtech Asia) division. Erin is currently based in the Netherlands and supporting Logi-tek projects in EMEA.

Erin, describe Logi-tek in Three words?

Dynamic, diverse and fun!

Would you mind telling us something interesting about yourself?

I was a Science & IT Secondary school teacher in Guyana, South America, for a while. I took a two-year hiatus from the grind and had a great experience in this profession.

We would love to hear about your journey into commissioning?

While in university, I started my journey as an intern at a commissioning company in New York and a pharmaceutical validation company in New Jersey. I got to see some fascinating innards of buildings, such as the old PAM AM building and the Lincoln Center mechanical rooms.

Being a slightly ‘clueless’ new graduate, I wanted to better understand the design side of buildings, so I got my first job as an HVAC design engineer.

I eventually made my way back to commissioning, initially in retro-commissioning. While living in Asia, I started working more in Data Center commissioning. I enjoy learning something new from every project I work on, and there is rarely a dull moment.

Previously, you worked in the APAC (Commtech Asia) division; what are you enjoying/finding interesting, now working in EMEA (Logi-tek)?

On the APAC side of the business, I primarily worked on the project management side of commissioning projects. At Logi-tek, I enjoy getting into the nitty-gritty of the commissioning process and understanding how to streamline it for clients or make it more efficient. For example, I’ve been working with clients on investigating how to commission earlier, particularly for pre-fabricated systems or modules.

What has been one of your proudest moments working at Logi-tek?

I’ve recently been working on streamlining and standardising the Logi-tek commissioning delivery process to serve our clients better. This project has enabled me to meet several new people within the company and understand what tools and deliverables they want or need to manage a commissioning project efficiently.

While it’s still in progress, it has been rewarding working with a few new projects to pilot the process, deliverables, and templates I’ve developed. I look forward to rolling them out on a companywide scale soon.

How would you like to see Commissioning change in the next five years?

I would like to see an increased use of automation and data analytics in the Cx process as we advance. Monitoring-based commissioning has been a credit for LEED projects for some time. Still, few projects fully utilise the benefits of setting up and monitoring trend data via the BMS or EPMS.

The data is valuable and can be used within the commissioning process to validate whether a system or piece of equipment is performing correctly. Automating this process, utilising the data early, and engaging with the operations team will ensure that as-commissioned systems continue to perform post-occupancy and allow the operations team to identify underperforming systems quickly.

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