Intelligent Buildings for Intelligent Owners: the necessary convergence of control and management systems by PcVue & Siveco

Although the definition of an “intelligent building” varies, its main characteristic remains the use of advanced technologies to control and manage the facilities. The Building Management System is the core of the intelligent building, ensuring integrated management of all the technological functions of a building or complex, including physical security and access control, safety, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), fire detection and suppression, lighting, intelligent elevators, systems failure detection and reporting.

Founded in 1981, PcVue (www.pcvue.com.cn) is at the forefront of HMI/SCADA software development in Europe with its PcVue Solutions. With a direct international presence in the USA, Europe and Asia, PcVue primarily operates through a network of distributors and maintains OEM agreements with Jumo, Veolia Water, Quantum Automation, Schneider Electric and Yokogawa that allow these companies to ship versions of the PcVue Solutions under their own brands. To date, over 38,000 licenses have been installed worldwide.

PcVue’s cooperation with Siveco dates back from the mid-90s when both companies took part in a project to integrate supervision and maintenance management system for Singapore MRT (the City-State’s metro). Similar projects in buildings, infrastructure and industrial facilities were later implemented by the two companies in Europe, including most of Paris’ La Defense business district, R&D facilities such as those of automaker Renault, prestigious buildings like the Louvre Museum or the Eiffel Tower, international airports all over the world etc.

In the early 2000s, PcVue and Siveco have independently established strong customer bases in China and the region: PcVue Solutions for BMS run some of China’s most prestigious buildings such as the CCTV Towers in Beijjng and Guangzhou, the Taipei 101 tower; Taipei Metro stations also operate under PcVue’s control, while the system was also installed under OEM brands in countless other properties (Shanghai Expo’s Oil Pavilion, Suzhou Marriott Hotel, Guangzhou International Sports and Performing Arts Center, Shanghai Metro stations air cleaning system, etc.). Siveco, on the other hand, has delivered maintenance management systems and consulting services for property owners such as Auchan, Beijing Oriental Plaza, Ikea, the French Embassy, State Grid, Changcheng Property Group as well as major multi-site industrial facility owners all over the country; Singapore MRT remains one of the largest Siveco references in the region.

Today PcVue and Siveco are jointly promoting their solutions in China either directly to building owners or through PcVue system integrators. A joint technical support team was setup in Shanghai in 2007, aimed at training and assisting system integrators with the necessary know-how and technical tools.

Thanks to a strong government push in the last few years, most facilities built in China nowadays incorporate technologies to support sustainable development and energy savings initiatives: Building Management Systems (BMS) or Building Automation Systems (BAS) are almost always installed.

Energy efficiency is often at the top of the agenda, as it represents a major cost for the facility, but also because it is clearly identifiable (utility bills) whereas other indirect costs or losses may prove elusive for most owners or operators.

No single supplier is able to provide a total “energy efficiency” solution, hence the importance of system integrators to assemble the various pieces of technology:

PcVue provides most of the software pieces and works along system integrators to support the total solution:

For more information on the integration possibilities offered by the PcVue-Siveco platform, please refer to this previous newsletter article.

While the technology is constantly evolving, the hardware or control part of intelligent buildings is the best understood by owners and vendors alike. More often overlooked is the “soft” part of the intelligent building, both in the sense of computer software and management, i.e. what people, instead of machines, do: the Intelligent Owner.

This is where the PcVue-Siveco partnership comes into play and delivers most of its value.

As stated above, energy efficiency is often the primary concern. In the average commercial building, HVAC systems represent around 40% of the total energy consumption, making those systems the obvious candidates for energy savings efforts.

Design issues are an important contributor to energy inefficiencies: most HVAC systems are oversized in China, leading to higher electricity consumptions and operation issues. This can only be addressed by working with the design institute earlier on in the project or for retrofits.

For buildings already in operation, filters are the component with the most impact on the electricity bill. Often seen as a commodity, filters in fact control a major part of the energy cost in a HVAC system: the more resistance to the air flow, the more energy consumed. Facility managers should select filters based on their energy cost (by far the largest component in their Life Cycle Cost) which can easily be calculated, lower pressure drop being the main technical criteria to look for.

Experience shows that at least a 10% reduction in HVAC energy consumption can be obtained quickly through better maintenance – without any retrofit. Maintenance actions include regular cleaning of filters (delaying cleaning can have enormous impact on energy consumption and experience shows a lot of problems in this area) as well as coils and seasonal tuning of the systems (before summer and winter).

Operational issues include a general tendency to disconnect controls when problems occur, e.g. switching the HVAC on and off instead of adjusting temperature controls, faulty controls simply turned off instead of repaired. More often than not, such actions are caused by the building technicians being overwhelmed by the technical complexity of the installation.

Indeed, too much technology brings its own maintenance problems, usually more complex ones than with traditional systems: the example of faulty sensors in highly automated facilities come to mind, which can prove to be a show-stopper due to the technicians not knowing what to do, the high cost of replacement by specialists from the supplier, often resulting in a decision not to use the BMS the way it was designed to be.

The BMS remains an extremely useful tool to manage energy consumption, by better controlling the system based on actual usage requirements and by detecting inefficiencies, for the correction of which human intervention will always be necessary (e.g. the BMS may detect duct leaks or dirty filters after a while, but technicians will have to be dispatched to fix the problems). It is critical for the facility owner to understand what the BMS cannot do. Unfortunately, there is a clear tendency to perceive the BMS as a way to “replace” the people, often by relying on vendors and external supervision team (i.e. to instruct on when to fix a problem or to call contractors directly instead of letting site technical team do their work). Instead of improving the know-how of facility management teams, it takes responsibilities away from them and increases vendors’ dependency, which usually proves to be a bad idea. This “dumbing down” approach is obviously in total contradiction with our “Intelligent Owner” model.

It is in the area of energy efficiency that the PcVue-Siveco partnership shows all its value.

First of all, the overall design of the solution should take maintenance into account, mostly to avoid over-automation which is the natural tendency of both vendors (quite obviously) and owners (the motivating aspect of high technology, its perceived stability vs. the unpredictability of people).

The integration of the BMS with the maintenance system is good way to ensure that automation makes sense from a maintenance point of view, as it forces the parties involved to think about the usage of the system, e.g. what is the relation between regular preventive maintenance (filter changes etc.) and “predictive maintenance” (often used as a fancy name for “alarm handling” which is not exactly predictive), what is the relation between the control team, the help desk and the occupants of the building, etc.

In the execution of the project, PcVue provides the BMS platform and all related technical support for the system integrator, while Siveco holds a dual role both as maintenance platform supplier and maintenance engineering specialist: Siveco can advise on all aspects of the project from a maintenance point-of-view, such as dimensioning of the HVAC, filter selection based on life-cycle energy cost, definition of preventive maintenance plans, etc. While those aspects are most likely not in the scope of the BMS project, Siveco’s keen eye on maintainability and reliability issues adds tremendous value both in the design and long-term operation of the BMS.

Finally, both partners can assist in the optimization of the system over time, typically to add more controls in some specific area or process, based on cost/benefit analysis performed in the joint BMS/maintenance system (our usual recommendation is not to over-automate at first, but instead make sure the system can easily be expanded). For large property owners, such analysis will also provide valuable input for the design of new buildings.

In conclusion, the joint PcVue-Siveco approach enables the owner to make better decisions to improve its business, hence the term Intelligent Owner.

Tags： FM、integration、VAPP、PcVue、SCADA、energy、BMS