As a facility manager, you need to plan strategically for the long term, consider external factors and mitigate any risks they may cause.
The old ways of operating buildings have shifted, and the digital transformation is accelerating within the built environment. Hence, you need to keep up with technology and understand how you can use it to your advantage.
This is what can transform you from a good facility manager to a great one.
Building Management System role in facility management
For a facility manager to monitor a large facility, he needs a building management system to decrease the burden on him. This is a web-based control system implemented to control a building’s mechanical, electrical, and technical systems and services. More particularly, it links the functionalities of individual equipment to make them monitored and controlled at the same time, as one whole piece and a complete integrated system.
Benefits of Building Management System
This type of software has enormous benefits in managing large facilities. It permits facility managers to reduce operational costs, save efforts, and win time.
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BMS vs legacy systems
There is a major gap between conventional systems and BMS. Conventional systems have no interaction between units and are less flexible. However, the BMS supervises all the systems and subsystems and interacts with all units thanks to networks and communication. For instance, when installed in large facilities, the BMS can interact and integrate with many other systems and services, such as life and safety systems.
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Easy managing of day-to-day operations
With such a system, facility managers can manage the day-to-day operations of a building very well, including performance, energy management, and general maintenance. The BMS controls a building’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems (HVAC). It also monitors application programming, as malfunctions and performance of all the facility systems. For example, it offers the equipment of alarm and fault notification, which is a malfunction alarm to the staff. It runs automatically in case of any failure or need for maintenance in the system.
This application decreases downtime maintenance, and it can also automate the switching of failed equipment by a backup one.
Thus, the BMS advanced defect detecting and lowered risks of small problems transforming into disasters.
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Decreasing operational costs
Since decreasing operational costs in a hundred-room building is a hard mission for a facility manager, it is crucial for him to control the energy and timing management of building systems to reduce consumption.
The BMS can perform an automatic selection for parameters. As in cooling rooms based on tenants’ schedule, the ThermAssure feature guarantees the convenient temperature is attained automatically. It examines the historical data and chooses the most convenient pattern, such as an automatic seasonal selection and periodically temperature setting adjustments.
Avoiding overcooling is a must to limit energy waste. A moderate temperature in buildings is around 22.5 and 25 degrees C. However, split units permit to do immoderate settings by the users. This can raise cooling costs by a minimum of 15%, which turns on into a heavy burden.
As a facility manager, you can know now where all the energy in your building is going. In APM-3200, the 3D Sense creates a detailed energy usage, temperature, and time report. Thus, it’s the best way to understand energy waste to reduce consumption.
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Better user experience
Furthermore, the use of animation in facility management boosted the user experience.
The BMS allows you to adjust and monitor your whole building performance and parameters directly through one dashboard. It gives you a clear visual interface for the whole facility through the Graphical User Interface (GUI). Unlike conventional methods that require daily manual configuration, the BMS also allows remote configuration.
In fact, the current generation of BMS is web-enabled, as the BMS-3000. A communication network links all these systems and functions. All data are stored in one database as well.
Now, you can enter your whole building data through your smartphone, from one or thousands of devices, at any location worldwide. This helps the staff to access data easily, exchange information in real-time, and decrease their physical presence, particularly during the pandemic situation.
Conclusion
In conclusion, BMS systems control buildings’ technical systems and services, such as air conditioning, ventilation, lighting, and hydraulics. Also, they link the functionality of individual equipment to operate as one integrated system in harmony.
Thus, the BMS provides facility managers with the necessary tools to manage the performance and energy efficiency of their facilities.
The future of facility management is experiencing constant adjustments. Solutions will convert facilities into smart and flexible networks according to the users’ growing demands.
A building management system integrates technology to guarantee comfort, safety, and efficiency of the built environment to achieve sustainable facilities.
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