“Many people assume they are bad at writing because it is hard. This is like assuming you are bad at weightlifting because the weight is heavy. Writing is useful because it is hard. It’s the effort that goes into writing a clear sentence that leads to better thinking.” – James Clear
Our blog reflects our experiences, opinions, and thoughts about how to improve the building automation industry, and why our work is important. Our years of experience have been shaped and informed by collaborations with other industry experts, engineers, system operators, and tradespeople. We want to keep this dialogue going, and we would love to hear from you. Our collective insights and exchanges will lead us all to clearer thinking and better solutions.
How to Proactively Diagnose and Optimize Your Building: 5 Reasons BAS Service Agreements Are Must-Haves
In today’s fast-evolving world of technology, Building Automation Systems (BAS) have become the cornerstone of efficient facility management. Whether it’s controlling HVAC, lighting, or energy systems, these technologies are crucial in ensuring comfort, safety, and sustainability within your buildings. However, to reap the full benefits of a BAS, it is vital to maintain it properly. This is where a Building Automation Service Agreement is a proactive measure to safeguard your investment and optimize your facility’s performance.
How Factory Mounted Controls Can Save Your Project Schedule
The call came in on a rainy Friday evening – the kind of call no project manager wants to receive.
“I have some bad news,” the voice on the other end said. “The new air handler is missing its supply air temperature sensor and the power supply for the controller is burned up.”
This was bad news, but we didn’t know yet that the onboard controller hadn’t even been configured to communicate with our networked control panel. The supply chain was already a mess, it was four days before Christmas, and the clock was ticking on our time-critical project.
The Day Their Alarm Started to Matter
In building automation and management systems, alarms are meant to serve as critical signals that demand attention and action. However, when systems are poorly configured, these crucial alerts can quickly become background noise, ignored and ineffective. This phenomenon, commonly known as “alarm fatigue,” creates dangerous blind spots in facility operations. Our team recently experienced a perfect example of this at a healthcare facility, where implementing proper alarm management principles improved system operations and potentially safeguarded patient safety.
Standardization, Shmandardization: When One Size Doesn’t Fit All
It might seem counterintuitive, but standardization holds no intrinsic value. While standardization can be beneficial, it’s not a universal solution. The perceived value often comes with hidden costs that can impact your overall efficiency and performance. Before defaulting to cookie-cutter repetition, carefully evaluate whether standardization truly serves your specific needs.
How to restore a field panel database on Siemens Insight
Has your building automation system been acting up lately? Are you dealing with unresponsive equipment, missing schedules, or points that mysteriously vanish from your graphics? The culprit might be a desynchronization between your field panels and the Insight database. This guide will walk you through one of the most powerful troubleshooting tools in your Siemens BAS toolkit: database restoration.
How to Streamline Greenhouse Irrigation Control on a Budget
We were recently asked to provide a customer with a control system for the feed-mixing side of a greenhouse irrigation system. Efficient irrigation control is critical for plant health and resource conservation in greenhouse operations, making this system’s reliability particularly important.
Writing a Useful Standard
The foundational requirement implicit in all standards is that execution teams will read, understand, and execute them. If they cannot do that, then the standard is not useful.
Train Better
Every organization knows they need to train their staff, but not all training is equal. In order to stay on the right track, training needs to be relevant, timely, repeated, and evaluated.
Failing a Good Test is Better than Passing a Bad Test
Acceptance testing is meant to confirm that your system operates the way you want it to, but poorly written tests will disguise mistakes and give you false confidence about the system’s performance.
Improve Zone-Polling Performance
Don’t look now, but your energy-efficiency programming isn’t saving you money anymore. The days of fixed setpoint air handlers are mostly behind us.
Your Document Control Process is Hurting You
Lots of sites don’t have good documentation, and many don’t have documentation at all. System owners often don’t receive the benefits of their documentation because their organization manages it incorrectly.
Alarm Management
At most sites, the alarms are specified by project teams that design the systems but never have to operate them.
Migrating from P2 to BACnet
BACnet is a very extensive protocol, covering not just communications but also data structure and behaviors. These subtle differences can have a big impact and require careful planning.
Not Sure How It Works? Get the SDS.
If you need a clear and current narrative of how your equipment is programmed, the document you need is a Software Design Specification.
Factory Mounted Controls Save Time
To help prevent long lead times from blowing your schedule, try starting your controls scope while the AHU is still at the factory.