Helping You Maintain Your Building and Site - RS IE

Smarter,
More Connected
Buildings for a
Greener Future
With climate change firmly on the news agenda, ever increasing
energy costs and a target to reach net-zero carbon emissions by
2050; the need to run or construct buildings in an environmentallyfriendly
way is prevalent across all industry sectors.
18
For many businesses, corporate social
responsibility is an important consideration,
coupled with commercial demands for buildings
to operate more efficiently, and has led to various
standards and rating systems emerging.
New standards for a new approach
The ISO 14000 ‘family’ of standards are a
recognised accreditation for companies, and
widely adopted, however there is now growing
momentum around the Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design (LEED) - a green
building rating system developed by the United
States Green Building Council (USGBC). Interest
around LEED is growing in the UK and Ireland,
with an increasing number of LEED Accredited
Professionals working in the industry.
So, it’s evident that change is coming fast. If you’re
not yet well on the road to implementing the
right products to help with effective building
management - a critical element in the
performance of any business, and a key
factor in its carbon footprint – then it’s worth
exploring further the concept of the Internet
of Things (IoT) and the increasing availability
of connected devices within buildings.
When you do so, you will quickly realise the
benefits of embracing the industrial IoT for
buildings are hard to ignore.
Challenges and solutions within
building management
BMS – Building Management Systems –
have existed for years, but often work
in isolation using a building network
with limited intelligence and often no
connectivity to the world external to that
building.
With the unforeseen being the real
enemy, such as an HVAC malfunction or
a power failure, detecting or predicting
potential failures can save the business
time and money. Implementing IoT to
connect equipment in buildings - from
elevators and HVAC, to backup power and
building management systems - is now easier
than ever.
There are a variety of solutions to help you connect
products and systems and harness data that
can be used to help with predictive maintenance,
reducing unplanned maintenance and therefore
downtime and disruption.
For instance, the forth-coming RS Industria
platform is an open cloud-based IoT solution which
collects data from control systems and sensors
to provide maintenance insight. It allows a wealth
of data to gathered, remotely analysed and used
to provide actionable insights for your business –
paving the way for predictive maintenance to be a
key part of your building maintenance strategy.
Throwing a light on energy efficiency
Of course, as well as reducing unplanned
maintenance and the associated disruption and
cost to the business, implementing energy efficient
systems will yield further savings, and help you
meet environmental goals.
A huge area for potential savings is lighting. Energy
efficient lighting - particularly in a manufacturing
setting and during the winter months when
daylight is minimal - can have a significant impact
on the bottom line. LEDs use far less energy than
other lighting types and the lifespan is significantly
higher - reducing maintenance burden. Add
intelligent options to this already reduced energy
solution, to ensure lighting is only on when needed,
and the savings can be dramatic.
And there’s no need to worry about light levels, as
advancements in LED technology means brightness
has evolved significantly, while the price has
reduced over time as LED manufacturers operate in
a competitive, demand-driven market.
Using connected solutions to monitor heating,
lighting, power consumption and occupancy
will help keep building maintenance lean and
operations smooth, saving money and time.
It’s a real step in the right direction that LEED is
gaining recognition in the UK and Ireland – and will
only result in better, more efficient, greener ways
of building management. However, an important
enabler to LEED is a greater level of building
connectivity, creating a building ecosystem which
supports the sustainability and efficiency goals
of LEED. So, getting to grips with the connected
products and solutions available on the market
today is certainly the way forward.
19