Have you ever wanted to have more control over your building’s infrastructure and thought your organization would benefit greatly if you didn’t have to spend so much time managing the facility?
Maybe you’ve thought to yourself that if only you could automate some functions of your facility, you’d save a lot of money and resources that can be devoted to your organization’s core mission.
With building control systems and automation technology, those thoughts can become a reality, according to Terrill Laughton, vice president and general manager for energy optimization and connected equipment at building control solutions company Johnson Controls.
Time
According to Laughton, both facility managers and occupants can save valuable time that can be redirected to their organizations core mission.
Manually taking chiller data or searching through hours of surveillance footage can be extremely time consuming and take employees away from more important, profitable tasks.
Automation and control systems take those duties away from your personnel and shifts those tasks to machines and software.
For occupants, they can be handed the controls to their own working environments and change settings like temperature, lighting and even locating other people in the building.
“Through integrations with smart device apps, occupants can effortlessly adjust their space to the perfect working conditions, adjusting temperature, lighting and even using the app to locate colleagues in their building,” Laughton says. ”The minutes a day each employee saves ultimately add up, resulting in countless hours that can be redirected back into revenue-generating activities.”
Cost savings
According to Laughton, automated systems can better streamline operations and save your organization valuable resources.
Integration systems can not only do a better job of managing rooms or spaces when they are occupied, but they can also improve the performance of the space when its being used.
These building control systems also provide facility mangers with unprecedented knowledge on usage, which provides valuable insights that managers can use to better allocate energy and resources to areas in the building when its in high demand.
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On the flipside, systems can be turned off automatically when they’re not in use in particular areas.
Not only can smart building systems save you money on utilities, but can save your organization in other departments, like human resources.
“With better information on occupancy and indoor and outdoor conditions, smart buildings can improve many aspects of indoor air quality which has an immediate impact on occupant performance and a long-term benefit of improved health,” Laughton says. “We are getting to a point where we can understand and start to measure these benefits.”
Employee satisfaction leads to retention and having a positive impact on employee health can reduce sick days and help your organization become more productive.
Sustainability and efficiency
With HVAC, smart lighting, access controls, fire and life safety systems all integrated into one easy-to-use building management system, organizations can create a sustainable smart building that is built to last, Laughton says.
“By connecting previously disparate systems and technologies onto one streamlined network, it’s possible to gain unprecedented control over building environments,” Laughton says.
When all technologies and building control systems are connected through a smart building management system, facility managers have advanced access to the operational data generated by their building within one interface.
“They are empowered to leverage their facility analytics to identify opportunities to improve performance, reliability and efficiency with granular insight,” Laughton says. “Building integration ultimately supports better and faster data-driven decision-making, allowing facility managers to make the right call every time and occupants to direct their energy to what matters.”
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