Managing Smart Infrastructure Risks by Using Standardisation
Published on : Thursday 07-07-2022
The Connected Buildings dream shall only be possible through the Connected People concept, says Rajesh Adhangale.
The Building Automation Industry has significantly evolved over a time period, it is no more a set of BMS PC and proprietary microcontrollers placed within some secluded BMS room, attended by a bunch of naïve operators and technicians.
The transformation of the Building Automation Industry from standalone, proprietary control and monitoring to open platform based, cloud integrated, energy efficient and scalable technology, is impressive. Technology has expanded its wings from control and monitoring of equipment in a standalone mode to remote monitoring of equipment and systems at distant locations and buildings, connecting cities and nations. Thanks to open solutions, integration is possible across all different systems and functions, from single-room control and window control to shading, lighting, HVAC control, smoke and heat extraction systems, access control, safety and security surveillance and energy monitoring and visualisation. Open and scalable solutions also offer a flexibility to integrate all the technical services and systems on to a single platform.
The futuristic vision is to have a technology where every device and equipment is intelligent enough and capable of decision making without any dependency on intermediate layer, that means a smoke detector may directly communicate with fire damper or access door lock, elevator or escalator and take appropriate action in case of fire situation, or temperature setting of HVAC equipment self-adjusting based on ambience/space condition, fresh air dampers modulating open taking direct command from CO2 sensor to pump in more fresh air.
It also means:
a. Integration of city weather monitoring stations with building automation to take early preventive action in case of storm or heavy rainfall
b. Opening up integration possibilities of different systems spread across multiple locations, buildings, cities and even nations; truly barrier free integration across systems over cloud
c. All the subsystems and equipment seamlessly interwoven, coordinating and communicating all the time and correcting themselves if required, and
d. The technology has self-storage, self-diagnostic and analysis features, which shall allow the system to retrieve, store, compare and analyse data parameters across different buildings, locations and cities and use this data for energy optimisation and predictive maintenance.
This surely shall benefit all the participants in building the value chain. Consultants shall enjoy maximum creative freedom, OEMs be allowed to improvise on their products and offerings, system integrators may benefit from simplified engineering and increased process reliability, operations team reap benefits by minimising their operating costs and maintenance work and end users and investors are provided with greatest possible investment return – a win-win situation for all.
So, are we ready for future building challenges, is infrastructure ready to adopt future trends and technologies? Though the journey has begun, there is still a long way to go. Within the journey of connecting buildings and technologies, first we must identify, connect and take along likeminded, technically oriented people who desire to embrace these future developments. The ‘Connected Buildings’ dream shall only be possible through the ‘Connected People’ concept.
But most importantly, before commencing our journey on this path of connecting people we must work on educating them and work towards creating guidelines and benchmarks that shall continuously monitor the progress and take corrective measures as and when required. It is not necessary to invent these guidelines, these are already present and being used at some or other place within the country or globally. We look forward to collaborating with correct organisations and individuals and work closely with them to adopt and adapt to these changes, modify them as per Indian context and suggest alterations if required. The entire journey must be process oriented rather than manually driven.
As a part of INBAC standardisation committee we are working on creating guidelines which are useful for all the stakeholders of buildings. These guidelines shall provide a great deal of ideas about engineering practices. The outcome shall improve:
1. Workmanship
2. Installation procedures
3. Testing-commissioning procedures
4. Handing over procedures
5. Improve overall implementation timelines, and
6. Provide cost effective solutions.
The final output shall be a quality product and a solution envisaged by end user and consultant during ideation stage, leading to customer satisfaction. We need people from the automation industry to join our movement, people with fresh ideas and innovative concepts to come forward and be a part of this techno social movement.
INBAC is a people movement, for the people and by the people!
Rajesh Adhangale, Chairman, INBAC Standardization Committee, is a Building Automation professional with over 25 years of experience. He has worked in all domains of Building Automation right from Design and Commissioning, Project execution, Project Management, Sales and Business Development. During this period Rajesh has contributed to several prestigious projects in India like Herdelia Chemicals, ICMR, Lehman Brothers, Hyderabad Airport, IBMS at Wankhede Stadium, IBMS at Mumbai International Airport, among others.
