Intelligent Buildings
Intelligent use of a building’s network infrastructure is vital
Government’s changing energy reduction targets. This is a particular challenge because not all building managers are able to work with the benefit of state-of- the-art premises, where these demands have been factored in from the start. For the vast majority of these building managers (over 90% of commercial buildings are over 10 years old), the daily task is to make established buildings operate well beyond the standards they were originally designed to meet.
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The technology used in a building, whether serving an office or a production facility, should primarily be aimed at creating an environment that helps optimise the working conditions for the employees who set foot in it every day. In this article John Kovacs, Network Solutions Manager, EMCOR UK, suggests that greater use of more integrated data and intelligent use of a building’s network infrastructure is essential to obtaining the efficiencies building users seek and are requesting. Such “intelligent buildings” are able to store compliance and cost data, monitor and regulate themselves to predict when maintenance is required, and decrease consumption of energy and water. Further, the cost saving potential is significant: “intelligent buildings” can reduce water consumption up to 20 per cent, energy usage up to 15 per cent, and labour costs up to 17 per cent.
34 intelligent buildings
This means that most building managers must forensically focus on managing the necessary functional detail whilst implementing new and innovative methods, which might require the building users to act in a different way. For example, for a government department, this meant that working patterns were reviewed, leading to more cleaning services being fulfilled during working hours, as opposed to when the building was empty, which meant that lighting and heating could be turned down or off earlier. Therefore, building managers must not only possess up-to-date technical expertise, but also have a developed understanding of behavioural change too.
Facilities Management (FM) professionals are often ideally positioned to help to balance these two responsibilities. This is because of the breadth of the remit they can be involved in, their understanding of how the building works, and their ability to access and interpret the required data. Facilities managers are often involved in security, through cleaning, to front of house, and onto waste and energy management and service repair – a true blend of both hard and soft functions. The detailed and sustained management of each of these specific functions—and beyond – is essential to achieving client objectives.
Sometimes organisational cultural or other human factors can slow or impede progress and attempts to help maximise efficiencies across the whole operation becomes more challenging – especially if it is multi-site. In most instances this is not because of a lack of the organisation’s willingness to
n the UK, many building managers aim to help employers keep operational costs under control while concurrently adhering to the
change or engage but because the data gets managed in silos and, therefore, problem solving is approached on a function by function basis and not in the round. However, a building can only be intelligent if there is a continuous exchange of information. In order to lead efficient practice in buildings, access to, and the comprehensive management of, data has to be at the forefront of leading efficiency change.
In recognition of these challenges, and via successful ways we’ve addressed in the past, EMCOR UK has developed considerable capabilities in this field, working on the premise that individual functions may require specific expertise to truly understand the technical issues involved – mostly dependent upon scale and complexity. But we always look, where possible, to ensure that each of these functions reports into one central point so that we can set efficiency goals and strategies that impact upon every aspect of the management of the building. By employing this approach we can really help to make the management of buildings “intelligent”.
As an example, EMCOR UK is currently working with a public sector organisation, a borough council, to take the logic behind this approach to the next level. The borough council has set itself the goal of achieving 20 per cent efficiency savings from its buildings, across the board, and is working with EMCOR UK to develop a flexible network infrastructure. The infrastructure will be used by a number of systems in differing technologies but importantly allow the assimilation of data from all of the building functions in real time. This will allow EMCOR UK to develop cohesive FM strategies that ensure that improvements in one function are not gained at the expense of another, thereby ensuring cumulative progress. We believe the benefits of this integrated management system will be immediately apparent and in preparation for it we are carrying out detailed energy use surveys of the three main buildings included in the scope of the project. This process will set the benchmarks for future evaluation. In the case of the borough council, return on investment is expected within a five year period and we are very confident of delivering on this.
www.emcoruk.com
Building & Facilities Management – March 2015
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