Consulting engineers and owners may wish to specify “factory witness testing.” This witness testing permits the consulting engineer or owner to perform preinstallation inspection of the equipment and request simulated functional testing performed by the manufacturer. Often, witness testing is only required for large or complicated electrical equipment and for mission critical projects. Witness inspections can include confirmation of equipment dimensions and weights, proper nameplates and labels, locations and sizes of conduit openings, communication wiring points, and cable lug configurations. Functional witness testing may include simulated sequences of operations, such as start-ups and load transfers, fault conditions, load loss, and alarms and display information.

Common challenges for the busy engineer and budget-constrained owner is the time and cost for the travel to the factory—and deciding who from the team should attend. Praetorian Power Protection will assign a full time FWT Manager to your project that alleviates the need to send onsite resources. This individual will work together with the Project OFE Manager to ensure your project stays on schedule with limited to no equipment delays.

Depending on the awarded manufacturer, the factory may even be located outside of the country where the engineer or project resides. In these cases, the option of “virtual factory witness testing” is a possibility using video conferencing. This allows our team to participate remotely in witness testing and pre-installation inspections.