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Most commercial buildings are comprised of several standalone subsystems — lighting, security/access control, energy management, power, safety, and HVAC to name a few — that are central to a building running at its full potential. But when these systems are operated independently, facility managers are restricted in their role to make the building function as a whole.
By consolidating the above systems into an integrated open building system, benefits such as lower installation and lifecycle costs, greater expendability and flexibility at a lower cost, and vastly improved energy efficiency can be obtained.
Paul Oswald, president of Environmental Systems Inc., explains that by providing a system that will accommodate devices and subsystems from a variety of different manufacturers, without dependency on any single manufacturer for design, application, or function is one of many benefits derived from open building systems. This gives the design team the ability to choose best-in-class devices and components that serve the best interest of the customer both now and throughout the lifecycle of the system.
Also many options are made available relative to procurement and purchasing.
"No single vendor will have the best feature/performance to price ratio throughout the life of a project. Therefore, it is imperative that the system design provide the ability to choose that which is deemed best for the application at any given point in time, yet works seamlessly within the overall system framework," said Oswald.
"One of the most important aspects of the system's design is sustainability; the ability to keep the system current throughout the system's life cycle. With the rapid changes in technology, it is highly unlikely that any single manufacturer can ensure that their system, devices and applications can stay current throughout this life cycle," adds Oswald.
Another added capability is that facility managers can easily monitor and control these subsystems onsite or at a remote location, 24 hours a day from a single PC screen. This allows them to manage resources, improve building safety and reduce energy costs.
"Building automation systems provide a single interface for scheduling and control, which reduces the amount of time it takes to manage and maintain systems. Features such as set-point schedules, occupancy sensing and demand control ventilation help to reduce energy costs and improve efficiency. Additionally, facility managers only have to learn to manage a single system, improving overall employee productivity," said Nitin Lamba, product manager, Honeywell Environmental & Combustion Controls.
Oswald cites that the combination of smart devices and the Internet allows companies to remotely manage buildings and factory operations, actively govern their energy usage patterns and energy sources and administer global resources from virtually any location. For example, systems can monitor real-time consumption of energy across hundreds, even thousand of facilities, shed load by turning off non-critical pieces of equipment during peak demand and activate on-site generation resources when economically prudent.
