What Happened When a Major Research Hospital’s Original Vendor Had No Answers

Operating Room Occupancy Setback

When the original vendor runs out of answers, but not change orders

Case Study 002

An Automated NSW Smart Solutions Guide

Publish Date: 06/25/2026

The Customer

A major research hospital in California.

The Problem

The hospital had initiated an energy project to implement after-hours airflow setbacks in operating rooms. The project had been stalled for over a year due to technical problems with the building automation system. The original vendor requested a significant change order to continue troubleshooting. The hospital contacted us for a consultation instead.

We found two problems. The Siemens Insight Objectivity database was corrupted; two objects shared identical primary keys, one assigned to a scheduler object and one to a binary virtual point. Insight’s Scheduler would crash whenever any schedule object was edited. Separately, the program responsible for reading the schedule and executing the setbacks contained errors and did not function correctly.

The Operating rooms were in active clinical service throughout the project. Any work that carried a risk of altering room conditions required scheduling around the clinical calendar.

The Solution

The database corruption was resolved by correcting the duplicate primary key conflict in the Objectivity database, restoring normal Scheduler function. The setback programming was rewritten and loaded in a disabled state pending commissioning.

The project team assembled on-site during the next scheduled operating room shutdown. The program’s functionality and schedule were commissioned and proven to perform correctly. Air balancing and final closeout could finally be scheduled.

The Results

A project stalled for more than a year in a high-risk clinical environment was back on track. At 8 hours of programming and 16 hours of commissioning, the total cost came in below the original change order, which had not defined a clear path to resolution.

Do you have a project that has stalled?

Vendors lose interest in problems they cannot solve quickly while the change orders pile up. We work through difficult technical problems in complex environments. Contact us to discuss what you are dealing with.