FACILITIES/BUILDING MANAGEMENT
IMPROVING EFFICIENCY WITH BUILDING AUTOMATION
Mark Richards, sales manager at Beckhoff UK, examines
how manufacturers can more effectively optimise their facilities by looking beyond process control and adopting building automation
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anufacturers often understand that energy consumption is a major cost, but
overlook how much is spent on environmental control systems. But, heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC&R) systems can account for over 60% of energy consumption in UK buildings. Added to this, building occupancy can pose
challenges, with shift changes, partially-used zones and quiet maintenance periods resulting in differing energy uses. While ventilating and lighting unoccupied areas makes little sense, businesses often end up doing so because they rely on static timers. Indoor air quality (IAQ) is another important
consideration. Left unaddressed, poor air quality can impact product quality and regulatory compliance.
INTEGRATING DATA STREAMS This isn’t to say that industrial facilities aren’t
already tracking occupancy, monitoring energy use or measuring air quality. However, these systems are often siloed. They may be managed separately, logged independently in the building management system (BMS), and rarely brought together on the same dashboard. This fragmented approach can make it hard for
manufacturers and facilities managers to glean any meaningful insights from their building
data. Monitoring CO2 levels is important for SECR reporting, but if that data isn’t linked to ventilation and other control systems, it becomes unclear where the issues are in the building and where intervention is needed. By integrating these data streams, manufacturers
can uncover relationships between building usage, environmental conditions and energy demand. For example, linking occupancy patterns to ventilation rates could reveal opportunities to reduce airflow in
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low-traffic zones or to increase it pre-emptively during shift changes. With better data visibility, facilities managers can shift from reactive to proactive strategies, improving efficiency while ensuring compliance and occupant comfort.
DYNAMIC CONTROL Modern manufacturing is far from static. Equipment
ramps up and down, maintenance activities occur outside of working hours and production can intensify and vary across departments and shifts. Nevertheless, many building systems are still operating on fixed schedules, meaning spaces are being heated, ventilated and lit regardless of who’s around and what’s happening in that area. This is where dynamic control becomes
essential. Unlike static timers, which operate building systems based on fixed schedules regardless of actual conditions, dynamic systems respond in real time to changes in occupancy or environmental factors, making them far better suited to industrial settings. Air quality is a good example of why dynamic
control is so important. If a rise in CO2 or volatile organic compound (VOC) levels is detected in
an occupied zone, such as the factory’s offices, automated ventilation can kick in immediately. Similarly, if the space is unused for several hours, lighting and airflow can scale down. These adjustments may seem small, but over time, they contribute to significant energy savings and better working conditions for those onsite.
BEYOND THE PRODUCTION LINE In most industrial facilities, automation is focused
on the line. Manufacturers invest in sophisticated systems to ensure their machines operate at peak efficiency, with smart diagnostics, predictive maintenance and data-led optimisation. However,
ENERGY & SUSTAINABILITY SOLUTIONS - Autumn 2026
it’s important to look beyond the factory floor and to the wider facility. Here, you’d be surprised how much lighting, HVAC and energy infrastructure still use basic, schedule-based controls, disconnected from the intelligent systems driving production. The most efficient, future-proof factories are
those where process automation and building automation are treated as part of the same ecosystem, not as silos. By unifying control at the facility level, manufacturers can improve energy performance, reduce operational waste and create safer, more comfortable, working environments. This isn’t about gathering more data. It’s
about acting on it meaningfully. Using open, modular platforms, manufacturers can integrate building functions directly into their automation infrastructure. For example, Beckhoff’s TwinCAT suite of automation tools can transform almost any PC-based system into a powerful real-time control platform for building services, which can also interface with supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems for monitoring and management. Engineers can use it to collect and act on data from environmental sensors, occupancy detectors and energy meters alongside their standard control logic. Process automation is a staple of modern
production, but manufacturers should not stop there if they truly want to optimise their facilities. Energy, air quality and occupancy are just some of the parameters that should be tracked, and this data must be readily available in a meaningful format. Using this information, manufacturers can implement solutions like dynamic controls to ensure spaces aren’t being lit, heated or ventilated unnecessarily.
Beckhoff UK
www.beckhoff.co.uk
www.essmag.co.uk
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