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The Future Building Management System

Jim Sinopoli, PE, RCDD, LEED AP Managing Principal, Smart Buildings, LLC

As we transition to more complex, higher performing, and energy efficient buildings, it is

apparent that traditional building management systems are not up to the task of monitoring and

managing today’s building operations. What are the shortcomings of the legacy BMS? The list is

quite long but the major items include limited integration capabilities, inadequate and

elementary analytic tools, proprietary programming languages, a dearth of software applications

and legacy user interfaces.

Overview

To some extent, the BMS have gotten to this point because of the business and financial

aspects surrounding it. When a traditional BMS is sold and installed it’s usually a small part of a

much larger investment. The larger business piece is the sale of BAS controllers. It’s the

controllers’ need for service, parts and possible replacement over time that will generate

significant recurring revenue for the equipment manufacturer. So the main building management

tool, the one that provides the user interface for many of the building systems, often takes a

“back seat” to selling and installing the controller hardware. Why would manufacturers put a lot

of resources into developing a product that may be only a very small part of a total sale?

Major BMS manufacturers have made some incremental improvements to their products. They

may have added an “energy management package”, or re-engineered an industrial process

system for buildings or even bought smaller software companies thinking that would save the

day. Despite their efforts, the fact is BMS are well short of where they need to be as an industry.

Part of the problem is that BMS manufacturers are not good at IT and the BMS is an IT system:

it’s a server with a database, IP address and software applications, connected to an IT network.

What has developed at the industry level for building automation and IT is just a magnification of

what is happening in many facility management and IT departments, that is, the readjustment of

the roles of facility management and IT departments given the reality of the significant

penetration of IT into building systems. Some organizations have worked out those

organizational issues, but the BAS manufacturer and the IT industry is stuck in an “IT is from

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Mars, Building Controls are from Venus” mentality. The movement of BAS manufacturers into

IT, as well as IT companies into building controls has been feeble at best.

Escalated Complexity

The driver for improved building management systems is really the increase in the complexity of

the new buildings. From an equipment or hardware perspective we now have buildings with

energy and sustainability systems which are relatively new for buildings, systems that even five

years ago were not commonplace. These include systems such as rain water harvesting,

exterior shading, water reclamation, renewable energy, electric switchable glass, sun tracking

systems, etc. Maintaining and optimizing each of these new systems is a challenge, further

burdening and increasing complexity for facility management.

The other aspect of increased complexity is

related to management decisions regarding

building operations that now involve several

other variables. For example, let’s assume a

building manager wants to respond to market-

based energy pricing from a utility. In making a

decision on whether or how to respond the

building manager has to take into account

several financial and operational variables,

including tangible and intangible benefits and

costs. How much load can I shed? How can I shed it? What’s my typically demand profile during

the timing and duration of the event? How do I factor in the need to support the ongoing

business? How do I implement, monitor and measure? What’s the effect on occupant comfort?

How do I communicate to everyone affected by the event? Do I forgo the pricing signal to keep

the business operation as usual? Do I use auxiliary energy generation? What’s the maximum

demand I can curtail?

These types of challenges and decisions are way beyond the typical question of “What should

the set point be?” Obviously, some of these issues can be studied and a policy or program can

be implemented but eventually a final decision would have to take into account real-time

circumstances. This is where analytic and automation software tools and applications can

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support the operations and facility personnel, yet traditional BMS systems aren’t capable of

providing those applications.

Specifications for the Future Building Management System (FBMS)

Some innovative medium-sized companies around

the globe have made the first significant steps in

providing building management systems that are

beginning to meet today’s challenges in building

operations. What follows is a list of “must haves” in

the FBMS:

The platform for the FBMS must be similar

to that of smartphones and tablets. The base FBMS platform will have an operating

system, much like Apple’s IOS or Google’s Android, where third parties provide the

applications. Everyone is familiar and comfortable with that model.

The base operating system for the FBMS will to do the heavy lifting: acquiring data from

different building systems, standardizing or normalizing the data into an open or

standard database, possibly using something like XML/SOAP. This is really extensive

middleware, in that the operating system can not only deal with the BAS

communications protocol standards and data formats, but also non-standard data (i.e.

some PLCs), as well as other facility management and business systems, such as work

order systems, asset management and incorporating data from BIM files.

The FBMS must allow third-party applications for specific manufacturer equipment.

Given that, every company that manufactures a valve,

fan, sensor, etc. will create an app for their equipment,

much like they have for product objects in BIM. These

apps are likely to be much richer in monitoring and

managing the equipment and will create a burgeoning

marketplace.

Third-party analytic software applications to optimize

the building’s performance are critical as they will keep

high performance buildings performing at their peak.

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Recent industry experience with fault detection and diagnostics have been very positive

and provide a rationale for similar analytics in many other building systems. Applications

that can consolidate issues and functions across systems, such as alarm management

and master scheduling will become popular. Building managers will be able to test,

compare and pick and choose the applications they need from a variety of third-parties.

The integration capabilities of the FBMS must be extensive. It has to go beyond the

typical fire, HVAC, access control and elevator integration domain, and progressively

integrate any building system, facility management systems (work orders, preventive

maintenance, inventory, etc.), business systems, the smart grid and external data such

as weather and energy markets.

The FBMS must be an open and secured system. That doesn’t mean it’s free, but it does

require the tools and rules that program the FBMS be transparent so the building owner

has options and choices in maintaining and programming the FBMS. System security,

which is almost non-existent on traditional BMS, is a must on an open FBMS and

probably best dealt with via IT security appliances and software.

The FBMS must be able to “data mine” a user’s use of the FBMS to identify their

preferences and particular data that appears to be important to that user. Each

dashboard is meant to convey important information and key indicators and requires an

examination of the needs of individual and group audiences. FBMS analytic tools of

users’ routines, usage and interactions with the FBMS will help in determining what the

user really needs to see.

The future building management system will change and reinvent what currently is a lethargic

industry. It’s also likely to spawn new companies and manufacturers, provide more choices for

users and the buyers of such products, and do so at lower costs.

For more information, write us at info@smart-buildings.com.

*Photos courtesy of Google Images.