Project Overview
The Challenge
At the IPC Blackrod SAGD facility in northern Alberta, the commissioning team faced a challenge common to large capital projects: ensuring that hundreds of vendor-supplied instruments and safety devices were installed, verified, and documented correctly before first startup. With paper-based check sheets, discrepancies could go undetected until they became costly and potentially dangerous problems.
How Arbiter Was Applied
The team deployed Arbiter's SoftChecks across all flame detector verification workflows. Each instrument was tied to a digital check sheet that required photographic evidence, technician sign-off, and model-number verification against the approved instrument list.
During a routine SoftCheck on a bank of flame detectors in the production facility, a technician flagged a model number that did not match the specification. The discrepancy was instantly logged as an Action, assigned to the responsible vendor, and escalated to the commissioning lead, all within the Arbiter platform.
Without Arbiter, that discrepancy might not have surfaced until after first fire. The digital trail gave us the proof we needed to hold the vendor accountable on the spot.
Commissioning Lead, IPC Blackrod
The Outcome
The vendor was required to replace the incorrect units before the startup sequence could proceed. Because Arbiter captured the full timeline: detection, assignment, rectification, and re-verification, the project team had a complete, timestamped audit trail ready for the regulatory review.
At project handover, the Dossier feature auto-compiled every check sheet, action, and attached document into a single digital turnover package, delivered to the client in hours rather than weeks.
Results
Download the Full Case Study
The full IPC Blackrod case study PDF contains additional detail on workflow configuration, the commissioning team structure, and recommendations for applying the same approach to similar SAGD projects.
Download PDF Case Study