INDUSTRY COMMENT: BCIA Wake up call


As a tough year draws to an end, Terry Sharp, President of the Building Controls Industry Associaon (BCIA), believes that now is a perfect me to reassess our approach to eecve building management.


1st January and forgetting this year never happened are far from realistic. The recent ‘Tier’ system brought in by the government in response to a new rise in cases is proof that we are a long way from being out of the woods. In many industries, including our own, trade shows are great places for sharing ideas, promoting our services, seeing what our


looking forward to next year and moving on quickly from 2020 which saw businesses closing, major events cancelled and restrictions imposed on what we used to call normal life. However, the uncomfortable truth is that many people have suffered with illness and lives have been lost due to COVID-19 and unfortunately diseases do not understand calendars and so any hopes of drawing a line under everything on


I


t is quite obvious that we will enter 2021 with a very different outlook compared to 12 months ago. During the Coronavirus lockdown there was much talk of


competitors are up to and discussing the latest trends and topics. With so many being cancelled this year many have taken place virtually, with discussions and debates taking place via online communication platforms. In October I chaired a panel discussion for the Smart Buildings Virtual Conference. On a theme about the effective management of buildings during lockdown and how building management might look in a post- COVID world - a subject I wrote about in this column back in July – I was joined by BCIA Vice-President Graeme Rees of Schneider Electric, Mike Brooman of Vanti and Jamie Finnan of TR Control Solutions. There were some very interesting points raised throughout but there was a general agreement that this year has been a wake up call for the property sector and that we should take this opportunity to ensure commercial


buildings are better prepared in the event they are left empty for a long period of time again in the future. Jamie Finnan initially raised the argument that many building management systems (BMS) are perhaps not working in quite the way some facilities managers and building owners believed they were. There is something of an assumption that a BMS will magically take care of the running of a building, whether it’s occupied or not, and Jamie believes that lockdown has exposed some of the disconnect between building control systems, occupation and comfort. Graeme Rees echoed this belief and drew attention to the number of unoccupied buildings that still appeared as though they were fully open for business during lockdown because they still had all of their lights on. In contrast, building managers with secure remote connectivity in place were able to make immediate adjustments and scale everything back to a more stable pattern based on little or no occupancy. For Mike Brooman, this underlined the need for greater engagement at all levels, between building controls specialists, facilities managers and landlords. Facilities managers with the ability to self serve without the need to call on systems specialists were able to


respond very quickly as they had the controls to put their building into setback modes or vacant modes easily. Clients without that level of integration had to call out different specialists in various disciplines. With an already heavy workload there were inevitably going to be delays in getting the required work scheduled. The same problem would also present itself when people start returning to work and they need to recommission the control systems and bring them back online.


Changing attitudes


Coronavirus has certainly emphasised the need for healthier and better ventilated indoor spaces, and these will be vital factors for building owners to consider going forward. At the same time we mustn’t lose sight of the long term aims of building controls as we look to reduce the energy wastage and carbon emissions from our built environment. Let’s use this time to simplify our buildings’ operation and change some attitudes towards efficient building management.


www.bcia.co.uk


BSEE


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BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER DECEMBER 2020 9


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