maintenance matters More With Less MANAGING By: Juliet Pagliaro Herman and Dimitri Papadopoulos Less time, less staff and less risk are all achievable with building controls. B Before building automation systems, facility managers controlled various systems with-in a building by physically visiting pieces of equipment, turning them on or off and mak-ing the necessary adjustments to ensure a safe and comfortable environment. They were usually assisted by a staff large enough to perform the tasks required to properly operate and maintain the equip-ment and record data associated with equipment operations. Today, thanks to more sophisticated con-trol systems, those same facility managers utilize computers or use handheld devices to manage the equipment and systems operating in their facilities, while collect-ing a variety of data that enhances their decision-making process. As a result, fewer people are required to operate the equipment, and facility man-agers find themselves with more time to devote to other job responsibilities, using a wealth of information at their disposal to make better, more informed decisions that impact building operations and per-formance. What Is A Building Automation System? A building automation system (BAS) inte-grates building equipment and systems, using an information technology-based infrastructure to gather information, logi-cally organize it and deliver it where and when it is needed. Critical building systems, including heat-ing, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) and fire and security, operate and interface with each other to more effectively manage the energy, comfort and safety needs of the building and its occupants. The BAS serves as the hub of these systems. A more sophisticated BAS can also inte-grate data from other building systems, such as lighting controls, systems and energy meters and submeters. As a result, facility managers can use these systems as a single point of interface to interact with all of these systems, even on a global scale. The BAS should be able to collect informa-tion and provide an accurate picture of what is going on in a building at any given time. A system that can accurately graph a number of data points over time, detect patterns and provide trending information becomes critical to the decision-making process, particularly decisions regarding energy management. In addition, facility managers should look for a BAS that is capable of collecting and storing years’ worth of data and features reporting systems that help facility manag-ers mine that valuable data. A BAS allows facility managers to see where and when energy is being used, where it is being wasted and where improvements are working to save energy or increase comfort. Using the BAS as a tool, they can dig even deeper and search for the source of operational inefficiencies. Enhancing Building Operations The real power of a BAS lies in its features. Facility managers can use the BAS in its most basic functionality to schedule zones and turn equipment on and off as necessary. And, with the help of key performance indicators embedded into the system, they can analyze whether a building is perform-ing properly or if it is operating out of range at any time during the day. Alarm and trending features can be used to provide maintenance reminders and to troubleshoot equipment. In addition, facility managers can use advanced features to gain even more effi-ciencies. One example of this type of feature is demand limiting and load rolling. Demand limiting predicts potential ener-gy peaks by monitoring the building’s util-ity meters, then employing an appropriate control strategy to ensure that prioritized energy-consuming loads are curtailed until such times of the day when energy usage is billed at lower rates. Load rolling reduces total energy usage by continually turning off noncritical equipment. Even more efficiencies can be gained by integrating other building systems, such as lighting controls, into the BAS. For example, integrated lighting controls can use motion sensors to detect whether a space is occupied and turn lights on or off as needed. Similarly, thanks to system integration, motion or occupancy sensors can deter-mine whether a room booked for a meeting is actually being used. The BAS can be programmed to release a previously reserved room if after 10 minutes the sensors detect no motion in the room. Security badges or identification cards 44 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • October 2011 Image courtesy of Johnson Controls Inc.
CMM – Archives Oct 2011: 44
