As economies adjust to ever-rising demand for and costs of energy, an increasing range of enterprises are focusing on intelligent-building strategies. Globally, commercial buildings currently consume just fewer than 25 percent of all electricity production, making intelligent, automated management of those resources critical not only to enterprise efficiency, but also to global energy-allocation challenges.
While energy exigencies may explain, in large part, the “why” of the growing emphasis on intelligent-building design, the “how” is increasingly influenced by trends that emphasize converging building-control and -data systems into enterprise information-technology systems, whether as dedicated or fully integrated networks, sharing infrastructure and protocols with ubiquitous IT systems. Meanwhile, intelligent-building and building-management systems are succumbing to the same interoperability pressures that I discussed in a previous blog entry, while programmable logic controllers give way to distributed-intelligence microprocessors.
The Industrial Arena utilizes Intelligent Building because it provides immediate ROI due to an increase in employee productivity and reduction operating expenses. When designing an Intelligent Building, it’s necessary to create an optimal product and not sacrifice quality due to cost associated with the project.
Intelligent Buildings address the following aspects of automation:
- Integrated and Intelligent Systems; which include fire protection, voice communication, security & access control, car parking & ticketing and industrial control & instrumentation.
- Energy Management System & Services; which involves energy audits, conservation studies, overall plant performance, energy savings findings and implementation of energy-saving practices.
- Service Support & Maintenance; which will address maintenance and facility contracts, monitoring and management.
At the end of the day, how can a manufacturer accomplish the tasks listed above?
The one clear answer I have is Advantech’s intelligent building solution (AiBS) software, WebAccess.
WebAccess is a graphical control SCADA/HMI software package providing remote control and management functions, a front-end platform and a user-friendly interface to configure, operate, maintain and manage the entire system.
I will talk more about in my next blog article. In the meantime, let me know your thoughts on intelligent building in the comments area.
Update: Here is my next blog article on Advantech’s WebAccess.