How BMS Improve Commercial Building Sustainability

The latest integrations improving sustainability

Building management systems

In our first edition, we spoke about getting started with sustainability. It’s a major focal point right now and a conversation that won’t be going anywhere, anytime soon. So today, we’ll be going through how our latest BMS integration, Siemens Desigo, helps hit sustainability targets.

Not all BMS are created equal. They can be a closed off system without standard protocols, they might not have web-based APIs that programmers can use to easily communicate with it, sometimes there is no documentation, and they have security through obscurity (don’t get us started on signing NDAs).

There are a few BMS that do it well though, Siemens Desigo, our latest BMS integration is one. It’s reliable, well documented, and has a REST API meaning we can spend more time working on creative and efficient solutions rather than trying to figure out how to communicate with it in the first place.

Where this becomes relevant for sustainability is user experience. If PlaceOS can put more effort into the automation of workflows, then that means everything is running more efficiently. Here’s an example with one of the most important stakeholders:

Facilities Managers

It's a lot to keep the building running smoothly, but let’s say there’s a meeting taking place and someone decides to contact facilities because the room’s too cold, that’s taking time out of their day to make those changes. Now multiply that by however many meetings a single building can have in a day, then throw in flexible working arrangements where spaces are increasingly becoming more dynamic. It gets complicated quickly and is a complete waste of time doing this manually.

This is where PlaceOS comes in, adding an extra layer of intelligence to not only lighten the load for facilities but improve the experience for the people in the room. PlaceOS can adjust the amount of energy required to keep the room at a comfortable temperature based on how many people are in the room. Rather than just switching on or off, it uses a percentage. It's this level of interoperability between sensors, cameras, and the BMS that provides better user experience and efficiency which is not possible using the BMS alone.

This is just one example use case, you can extend this to any workflow. Which is why the platform approach is so good, it’s about the integrations providing data and context, then adding the ability to automate workflows resulting in improved user experience. It simply comes down to what you want to happen.

Thanks again for joining us on the journey to a better place. Let us know what your thoughts are by adding them in the comments below! If you’d like to learn more, get in touch.

‍