6 Steps to Creating and Increasing Building Efficiency

Aging building stock, a shortage of skilled workers, and persistent cost pressures are just a few of the challenges that building owners and operators face daily. Managing energy usage can also add to the complexity of maintaining operational efficiency.

There are ways to make buildings more efficient that don’t require reconstruction, expanding headcount, or breaking out the checkbook.

Here are six tips:

1. Integrate Systems

Buildings contain multiple systems, from heating and lighting to security and safety. Unless they work seamlessly together, inefficiencies are likely to arise. Integrating multiple systems onto a unified platform provides greater situational awareness to help improve operational response and staff productivity.

Accessing multiple building domains—including fire and life safety, security, building management systems, and more—in one universal dashboard enables building operators and their teams to see everything at a glance, saving time and improving efficiency and removing the need to “swivel chair” from screen to screen to monitor the performance of different systems.

2. Leverage Existing Infrastructure

With multiple building systems in play, simplifying system design to make it easier to install, commission, and maintain solutions is essential. Modern building management systems are now designed to connect either wirelessly or wired using twisted pair T1L technology, which allows you to upgrade your building management system to IP without having to rewire your network. This means you can transfer your HVAC data without disruptive upgrades and combine older technology with IP controlled solutions.

3. Be Proactive About Maintenance

Clear operating parameters are also vital for predicting when maintenance interventions are necessary. Raising alerts as soon as an abnormal operation is identified helps enable a flexible and responsive approach to servicing and maintenance. Through an edge-to-cloud approach, data from multiple systems can be analyzed 24/7, with an alert raised if irregularities arise. These alerts can be prioritized and coordinated to minimize the number of callouts and reduce downtime. Performance data analysis tools enable timely and planned interventions that support a more proactive and predictive maintenance regime.

4. Consider the Occupant Experience

Occupant needs must be considered when deciding what building efficiency looks like.

The exact requirements will depend on whether you are running an airport, a hospital, a factory, or an office space, but general levels of comfort and wellbeing are a minimum requirement. Aspects including life safety and security expectations also need to be maintained, while simultaneously managing energy costs and improving uptime. Select automation technologies and building service partners that can help you meet occupant expectations as well as manage system performance to achieve optimum efficiency.

5. Take a Total Technology Approach

There is a wealth of technology available today that can help save time and money and deliver insights based on real-time data to improve overall building efficiency. Improved use of technology may be as simple as equipping operators with mobile capabilities or opting for a fully integrated building operations platform. These technologies are constantly evolving, so to maintain optimum efficiency it is essential for building operators to keep their technology stack up to date.

A holistic, tech-forward approach where IT and OT are bought together in a truly interoperable way is essential to effective building automation that can make vital information more accessible and allow faster, more accurate decision-making based on real-time data.

6. Upgrade to Digital Documentation

Procedures and workflows tend to evolve and are often based on manual documentation. When reliant on outdated practices, building operators must remember the steps to take in different scenarios and make decisions without immediate access to relevant information. Manual documentation can lead to several missteps, including inefficiency created by human errors that could result in ambiguous processes and potential safety hazards. It is also inherently time consuming to both create and maintain, particularly with complex workflows. Limited access to paper-based manuals or static digital documents can create “knowledge pockets” and make scaling processes and workflows more difficult. Knowledge pockets can also lead to lost knowledge as more experienced staff leave, and new employees join an organization.

Besides the practical difficulties that manual documentation brings with it is the additional dimension of security risks. Paper-based manuals can be lost, stolen, or damaged. They also require secure storage to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information. When manual documentation is amplified across multiple workflows and procedures, the approach is, at best, inefficient and, at worst, potentially dangerous. Swapping manual documentation for digital solutions helps enable the integration and standardization of workflows that can help remove human error and deliver more consistent, secure results.

The challenges facing building owners and operators are multifaceted, ranging from aging infrastructure to the need for greater operational efficiency. As buildings become more complex, owners and operators need better technology to deliver the insights they need to gain full visibility into how their buildings are performing. This does not have to be complicated if you implement effective changes.