Integrated Building Management Tody

Integrated Buildings

Integrated Building Management Systems

Modern commercial buildings today contain diverse technical subsystems to automate or monitor the different aspects of the building. Most common subsystems include

  • Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning systems (HVAC) to maintain a comfortable indoor climate
  • Fire and smoke detection systems to ensure safety of the building users
  • Intrusion detection and video surveillance systems to prevent unauthorized access to the building
  • Access control systems to grant or revoke access of building users to defined areas of the building
  • Lighting and blind control systems

In the past, BMS systems focused mainly on the HVAC aspect of the building or were limited to solutions from a single manufacturer, for various reasons: Proprietary protocols did not allow the easy integration of systems. Additionally, in some countries, different systems are parts of different trades, which follow separate tendering processes (e.g., HVAC versus electrical installation channel). Even in such non-integrated installations, systems linked to a BMS typically represent 40% of a building's energy usage.

If lighting is included, this number approaches 70%, which makes modern integrated BMS systems a critical component for managing the energy demand. Today's markets are therefore moving towards integrated BMS solutions. CentraLine with its Niagara-based BMS system uses modern IoT technologies to provide significant value add to the customers through cross-system integration. The benefits extend beyond just the management of energy while providing comfortable indoor conditions. The table below shows a few of many examples realized by CentraLine partners.

Benefit

Examples of how this can be achieved with a CentraLine BMS system

Reduction of operating cost through energy optimization across sub-systems
  • Integration of blind and shutter control in the building management strategy to manage sunlight transmission to rooms for the purpose of reducing heating / cooling cost.
  • Integration of sub-metering and analysis of the energy signature of a building to evaluate optimization potential.

Reduction of operating cost through minimizing maintenance spend
  • Automatic checks for lamp failures instead of manual checking saves service time.
  • Tracking of component life cycle (e.g., light bulb operating hours) to enable preventive replacement.
  • Control products designed for minimum recurring maintenance cost (battery-less, no moving parts such as hard disks).

Reduced service cost through increased staff productivity
  • Reduction of training and service personnel through integration of information from fire, HVAC, lighting systems into a single common supervisor with a consistent operating philosophy.
  • Enabling mobile management of installations from a smart phone or tablet.

Building Tenant Safety
  • Automatic opening of shutters when fire is detected facilitates building access for the firefighters and opens additional evacuation routes.
  • Redirecting CCTV cameras towards the location of the fire detector helps determining a suitable fire-fighting strategy before accessing the area.
  • Monitoring of escalators and elevators and automatically switching them to evacuation mode in case of fire.

Building Tenant Security
  • Integration of video surveillance systems into the BMS allows easy supervision of small to large facilities from a central supervisor.

Investment safety
  • "Smooth," selective upgrades of installed systems to new IoT technologies through legacy system integration.
  • Open, extensible system architecture, supporting standard as well as proprietary protocols from diverse manufacturers and customer specific extensions.

Extended plant and equipment lifetime
  • Early detection of misconfiguration (e.g., oscillating actuators).
  • Automatic tracking of performance degradation (e.g., by monitoring the energy input vs. output).


The CentraLine team and its partner network are happy to explain to you many more benefits of our Integrated BMS solutions!

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