The First Facility Management Blog

This Web Exclusive article was contributed by Brad Lynch of Wright Line, a Worcester, MA-based manufacturer of products for technology intensive environments. Lynch leads Wright Line’s Technical Environments Business Unit, and he can be reached at (508) 926-6022 or Brad.Lynch@wrightline.com.

Rethinking Off-The-Shelf Console Design

The selection of command and control consoles for mission-critical facilities has traditionally occurred late in the planning and construction phases of a new facility or the expansion/renovation of an existing one. Until recently, off-the-shelf console templates have been employed and have met the needs of most applications.

The advancement of new command, control, communication, and computer (C4) technology is driving the need for a new approach to console design. Generic, off-the-shelf templates are no longer viable solutions to meet the demands of today’s C4 environments.

These environments include a variety of 7/24 workplace functions, such as network operations, 911 centers, incident command, emergency operation centers, process control, medical imaging, security/ transportation management, and many other types of command and control operations centers. These centers now require higher performance levels from their consoles

High performance console design is an integral element of the overall facility design, and will reap productivity benefits when centers are brought on line. The console must be viewed as much of an integral part of the technology solution as the hardware/software solutions being deployed. When executed correctly, this console perspective positively impacts how each employee interacts with the technology, the enterprise infrastructure, and the rest of the working team.

New Dimensions in Design Methodology

As technology transition expands its reach within C4 operations, the challenge of achieving a balanced integration of people, technology, workspace, and workflow becomes increasingly difficult. Architects, designers, engineers, and facility planners need to consider each of these four dimensions as an integral element of the overall operational system and peel back predetermined concepts of traditional console design methodology.

People: In C4 environments, people operate at high emotional states, often in anticipation of a critical event taking place. Understanding how people interact with other elements of the system within the environment is the basis of high performance console design.

It’s very important to understand who will be interfacing with the console. This information is integral to the design process as business productivity is directly correlated to individual productivity. One must consider the operator level—the individuals in the seat—as well as secondary levels of the operation including supervisors, system or network administrators, facilities engineers, technicians, and even systems integrators who come into contact with the console on a regular basis. The ability to service the technology and infrastructure, while maintaining operational uptime, is directly impacted by the console design and configuration.

Technology: Technology and its supporting infrastructure are the backbone of C4 operations. High performance console designs efficiently and effectively store, cool, power, manage, and secure the technology housed on or within the console.

As the primary human-machine interface, the console can essentially be described as the point at which the data center and mission critical personnel meet. Consoles tend to house technology locally. Because of this, safeguards must be designed into the console to avoid accidental power or data loss, equipment overheating, or other unintentional consequences resulting from human error.

Power and data cables must be neatly managed and provide easy access for IT and facilities personnel. Yet, they must also be out of reach to avoid accidental disconnection. Airflow management solutions that include material selection must also be in place to ensure that higher density computer and network gear is adequately ventilated. In C4 applications, these measures should not be afterthoughts, because data and power downtime can result in life and death consequences.

Workspace: Physical space is, by far, the most constraining and least forgiving of the four dimensions. The space must be examined independently from the operation and from the console itself. Space planning identifies the space available for console design.

Additionally, physical and conditional attributes of the space, such as cable cut-outs in raised floors, power drops from ceilings, ADA requirements, and other local building codes, also play an important role in the design of a high performance console for a C4 environment.

The main objectives in space planning are to ensure that the space can support the appropriate number/types of consoles and that the consoles can be adequately located to meet the workflow demand of the overall operation. Cabling, data, and power distribution requirements of the operation must also be accommodated appropriately. In addition, it’s important to build in as much modularity or scalability—to allow for future system upgrades and equipment transitions—as operational needs change and technologies evolve.

Workflow: Workflow is the integration of people and technology working collaboratively in the physical workspace, as well as individuals in various operations center job functions interacting seamlessly while functioning at peak performance.

It’s important to understand the relationship between the work types within the center. This includes managers, supervisors, operators, engineers, risk managers, and each employee seated at the consoles.

Additionally, the interaction of all people who may not be seated at a console must be clearly understood. These can be technical or administrative staff, facilities or support personnel, or even in some cases, the general public.

Is an uninterrupted sight line to the entire facility required by a supervisor or manager? During critical events, will supervisors or managers need to have remote access or need to monitor an operator station? Are there specific times or physical points where there is interaction between supervisors, office administrators, other center personnel, or the general public?

In C4 environments there are two distinct work flow modes: normal day-to-day operations and critical event or crisis mode. The interdependencies of all the personnel working within any mission critical C4 environment need to be considered and evaluated to ensure that operator consoles are designed to meet these requirements and optimize operations.

Visit this link for questions that can help address the challenges of your C4 environment.

Transitioning to High Performance

As the primary human-machine interface, today’s sophisticated consoles play a central, critical role in mission critical C4 environments. Console design has evolved to the point at which it is as effective a contributor to operational performance as are the people and technology that work at them.

Higher levels of ownership and buy-in are achieved when the mission critical team has greater input into the four dimensions of the discovery process. This detailed input ultimately enables higher performing people and more efficient operations during normal operational periods, and especially, during periods of crisis management.

Understanding the four dimensions of high performance console design provides the necessary freedom to deliver a high return on investment and a lower total cost of ownership in the mission-critical environment.

(All images provided by WrightLine.)

Public input to help shape the technical requirements in Standard 90.1 is being sought through 21 proposed addenda, which could become part of the 2010 standard. ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-2007, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, provides minimum requirements for the energy efficient design of buildings except low-rise residential buildings. The proposed addenda cover a range of topic areas, including daylighting, air leakage, EER and IEER values, and requirements for VRF air conditioners and heat pumps.

“Our goal is to produce a standard to increase energy efficiency in buildings,” Mick Schwedler, Standard 90.1 committee chair, stated. “Public input from the industry into development of the standard has proven invaluable since it was first published 35 years ago.”

Daylighting image courtesy of Sunoptics

If no comments are received on the addenda, they likely will be incorporated into the 2010 version of the standard slated to be published this fall. If comments are received, the substance and volume of those comments will determine whether they are incorporated into the 2010 standard.

Daylighting And Computer Rooms Among Possible Changes

Among the proposed addenda are two that deal with daylighting. Addendum cu, which would control the “night lights” that are part of the emergency system when there are no occupants in the space. Today, generally by default, lights are kept on even if buildings are unoccupied. Therefore, there are savings to shut them off. Addendum ct would reduce the threshold for daylighting to 250 square feet from 1,000 square feet.

In another area, addendum bu would modify computer room efficiency requirements based on comments from an earlier public review.

“The 90.1 committee worked closely with manufacturers, designers, and owners of computer rooms to address comments and produce the language in this addendum,” said Drake Erbe, Mechanical Subcommittee chair.

The public review and comment period for this first group of 12 addenda runs from March 5 to April 4, 2010:

• Addendum bb would modify Appendix C and Appendix A in response to comments received on the previous version of the addendum, which modifies all fenestration and opaque assembly requirements in the standard.
• Addendum bf would place performance requirements for air leakage of the opaque envelope. Performance requirements have existed on fenestration and door products to date, but evidence suggests that the opaque envelope is the source of the majority of air leakage in buildings caused by lack of attention in the design, construction and enforcement process due to the absence of performance criteria.
• Addendum bz addresses the comments received during the first public review calling for clarification of the requirements to reduce misinterpretation on the proposed monitoring requirements.
• Addendum ce would clarify the requirements and avoid conflicts with other existing requirements for lighting space control.
• Addendum cs originated with a continuous maintenance proposal to address information received on addendum bs on receptacles after the public review period closed and which the committee found to have merit.
• Addendum cu would control the “night lights” that are part of the emergency system when there are no occupants in the space. This has definite energy savings and is not prohibited by the electrical codes.
• Addendum cv would add energy efficiency requirements for service water pressure booster systems.
• Addendum cw would address corrections and clarification necessary to Section 11, Table 11.3.1 section 11 Service Hot Water Systems.
• Addendum cx would allow a 40 percent window wall area path within the prescriptive Tables 5.5-1 through 5.5-8.
• Addendum cz would incorporate bi-level control for parking garages to reduce the wasted energy associated with unoccupied periods for many garages and allows an exception for lighting in the transition (entrance/exit) areas to accommodate IES recommendations.
• Addendum da would establish that an Appendix G baseline shall be based on the minimum ventilation requirements required by local codes or a rating authority and not the proposed design ventilation rates.
• Addendum dc: The conditions and common practice that existed to create the need for this requirement on tandem wiring are no longer practiced primarily with the new Federal efficacy requirements and products available on the market.

The public review and comment period for these nine addenda runs from March 5-April 19, 2010:

• Addendum bu would modify the computer room efficiency requirements based on comments received during the first public review.
• Addendum cd would strengthen the language to actually require exterior control rather than just require the control capability; add bi-level control for general all-night applications such as parking lots to reduce lighting when not needed; and add control for façade and landscaping lighting not needed after midnight.
• Addendum cn would add two versions of a combined advanced control to the control incentives table.  These control system combinations involve personal workstation control and workstation-specific occupancy sensors for open office applications. The control incentive will apply only to the particular controls when they are applied in open office areas.
• Addendum co would make three major amendments to Table 6.8.1A: update EER and IEER values for all condensing units and water and evaporatively cooled air conditioners with cooling capacities greater than 65,000 Btu/h; establish a separate product class for evaporatively cooled air conditioners with different energy efficiency standards; and replace the IPLV descriptor for condensing units with the new IEER metric and amends the EERs with more stringent values.
• Addendum cp would establish, for the first time in Standard 90.1, efficiency requirements for VRF air conditioners and heat pumps, including heat pumps that use a water source for heat rejection.
• Addendum cq would modify the duct sealing requirements in 90.1.
• Addendum cr would set a definition for an unmet load hour currently lacking a throttling range or limit to the setpoint. It was decided that the baseline and proposed shall have the same thermostat throttling range. This required additional language in the unmet load hour definition as to how throttling range effects determination of an unmet hour along with additional language in Table 11.3.1 and Table G3.1, Design Model sections.
• Addendum ct would reduce the threshold for daylighting from 1000 square feet to 250 square feet.
• Addendum cy would make several revisions to the economizer requirements in section 6.5.1 and in section 6.3.2

The proposed addenda to ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1 are available for comment only during their public review period. To read the addenda or to comment, visit www.ashrae.org/publicreviews. The addenda for Standard 90.1 can be found under the heading: 45-Day Public Review Period from March 5, 2010 to April 19, 2010.

Secure Path Networks (SPN), a telecommunications consulting company based in Pelham, NY, offers a Contractual Audit Service to assist companies, educational institutions, and government entities in identifying overbilling related to voice and data services. According to Tom Gesky, SPN’s founder and chief executive officer, the service was introduced [in July 2009] in response to demand among Fortune 500s and institutions to reduce overspending related to telecommunications.

“In today’s recessionary environment, companies are focusing on potential areas for significant overbilling, and telecommunications has emerged at the forefront,” said Gesky. “SPN’s Contractual Audit Service is designed to help clients not only recover what they are entitled to, but educate them about future red flags and common areas for mistakes.”

SPN’s analysis involves evaluating previously billed costs and comparing them to the original service contract with the existing carrier or carriers. The process requires the client to only provide SPN with one or two months of previous bills. Once the in-depth audit is completed, clients are presented with an overview and recommendations for recovering payments.

The compensation to SPN for the service is a percentage of the savings based totally on results from the evaluation—significantly reducing risk to clients. “In almost 100 percent of audits, the client derives some level of savings ranging from 20 to 60 percent,” added Gesky.

The contractual audit service is an extension of SPN’s primary business service—to identify new carrier options that can enhance a client’s voice and data services while reducing costs. Established in 2001, the company primarily serves as a liaison between carriers and businesses to evaluate, analyze, identify, negotiate, and implement the best telecommunications solution available.

The Planon Group, a global provider of enterprise real estate and facilities software, recently unveiled Planon Green Intelligence for Facilities, a solution that gives facility management executives the tools to measure, monitor, and act upon collected property and asset data to achieve both cost savings and corporate sustainability goals.

Available as part of the company’s core suite, Planon Green Intelligence, the energy management component of Green Workplace Economics, offers facility executives a practical way to jumpstart environmental sustainability programs by transforming aggregated asset level to property level data into actionable information.

Planon can then generate corrective work orders to quickly diagnose and correct overconsuming facilities assets. Planon Talk, Planon’s integration application, also ensures full connectivity with existing building technology and energy measurement facilities, giving organizations a fully integrated solution.

With Green Intelligence, facility executives gain a global view of their real estate portfolio and assets and gain the ability to automatically issue corrective or reactive action within one seamless solution. With Green IT for Facilities, organizations can:

• Cut costs through reduction of energy consumption
• Extend the efficiency and lifespan of facilities assets through planned maintenance
• Reduce carbon footprint
• Manage energy supply and costs
• Comply with organizational and federal environmental mandates
• Track LEED certification status across an entire real estate portfolio

Earlier this month, Planon was named the recipient of Frost & Sullivan’s 2010 Product Leadership of the Year Award for the Real Estate and Facilities Management software market. The award recognizes Planon’s portfolio of real estate and facility management software solutions for its broad array of features and functionality, high quality, innovation, market acceptance, and for providing its customers with valued enhancements. Planon announced the latest version (2010.A) of its software last week.

(Image courtesy of IBM)

IBM and Johnson Controls have formed a new relationship to provide a Smart Building Solution that can improve operations and reduce energy and water consumption in buildings worldwide.

Building on an existing relationship formed in 2007 to create energy efficient data centers, this new offering can benefit any building or portfolio of buildings. Johnson Controls will combine its experience in energy efficiency and sustainable services and technologies with IBM’s experience in software, hardware, and services. The result will help facility management professionals address the growing pressure to improve energy and asset management performance across their enterprises.

Key elements of the offering are designed to address critical building performance areas including systems integration, energy management, enterprise reporting, space utilization, and asset management.

• Systems Integration: The integration of building systems, business systems, and smart grid technologies using Johnson Controls’ EnNet and IBM software offers increased information on the performance of buildings to reduce operating costs and keep occupants safe, comfortable, and productive.
• Energy Management: Energy management offerings that use energy waste detection, reporting, and intelligent control capabilities have proven potential to drive between 10% and 20% energy savings across an enterprise. The Johnson Controls Metasys Sustainability Manager, combined with IBM business analytics software, provides actionable information to help reduce energy consumption and waste.
• Enterprise Reporting: The Johnson Controls’ Energy and Emissions Management System, with IBM enterprise reporting capability, provides organizations with the capability to calculate greenhouse gas levels by measuring, managing, and forecasting activities related to energy cost, consumption, energy efficiency projects, fleet emissions, and waste.
• Space Optimization: Johnson Controls’ Visible Living Lab tools and services, combined with IBM building space management solutions and advanced analytics, provide visibility across a building or building complex, driving between 10% and 20% improvement in space utilization. Underused space can be identified and more efficient options defined, including footprint consolidation, divestiture, and relocation.

The Johnson Controls Metasys Building Management System integrated with the IBM Maximo asset management solution provides tools and services that deliver between 10% and 20% savings across enterprises by enabling visibility across a building portfolio, boosting the efficiency of facility operations, and improving occupant safety and comfort, use, and lifecycle management.

Core solution components include IBM Tivoli Monitoring for Energy Management, IBM Business Services Manager, and IBM Maximo Asset Management, IBM Maximo Asset Management for Energy Optimization; and Johnson Controls’ Metasys Building Management Solution, Metasys Sustainability Manager, Energy and Emissions Management System, EnNEt middleware, Visual Living Lab and Technology Contracting services.

EnOcean, the inventor of self-powered wireless sensor networks, is sponsoring four time Olympian, Catherine Raney-Norman. The sponsorship celebrates the achievements of the U.S. speed skating record holder and contributes to her continued success in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.

The Olympic Winter Games Opening Ceremony takes place today, February 12, 2010, at Vancouver’s BC Place. The Closing Ceremony on February 28, 2010 will also be held at BC Place.

“As the inventor of self-powered solutions, EnOcean has a keen eye for performance derived from ambient sources of power. Catherine skates at world class speeds using power generated from sources available to her— years of practice, sustained hard work and focus at every step,” said Troy Davis, representative of EnOcean North America.

“Our intent is to help Catherine build upon her outstanding body of work and help sustain the levels of excellence she has earned,” added Davis.

Catherine is focused on medalling in the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia. She will compete in the Ladies’ 3000m speed skating event on February 14th. Catherine’s presence on the Team Pursuit team improves America’s chances for medalling in the event on February 26th and 27th. She is the U.S. record holder in the 3000m and 5000m races. Her profile can be viewed here.

About EnOcean
The inventor of energy harvesting wireless sensor networks, EnOcean manufactures the self-powered radio and energy harvesting modules that enable OEMs to develop wireless sensors & switches for new and retrofit BAS (Building Automation Systems). The batteryless radio modules convert ambient solar, thermal, and motion energy into useable electrical energy that powers building energy management communications. These “peel-n-stick” devices reduce the time, cost, and occupant disruption of energy conservation retrofits; and provide flexibility in new construction. The company is a spin-off of Siemens AG and U.S. operations are based in Boston, MA.

At ASHRAE’s 2010 Winter Conference held recently in Orlando, the BACnet committee approved final publication of eight addenda to the ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 135, A Data Communication Protocol for Building Automation and Control Networks. The addenda are expected to be available by the end of February.

The addenda include a specification for a standard way of representing data in XML that will give BACnet new capabilities for communications between a wide range of applications. The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a popular technology in the data processing and communications worlds, due to its capability to model complex data and its flexibility to be transformed and extended.

“With this new IT-friendly way of representing building data, BACnet will open up new ways to communicate. XML can be used for exchanging files between systems, communicating with the Smart Grid, and expanding enterprise integration with richer Web services,” said Dave Robin, chair of the BACnet committee.

The XML syntax is intended to be the core data representation for a variety of uses:

• New Web services that are capable of efficient exchange of complex structured data.
• An electronic version of a BACnet PICS document, consumable by workstations and other tools, to describe the capabilities of a device.
• An “as built” description of a deployed device, distributed either as a separate file or as a BACnet File object resident in the device itself.
• Descriptions of proprietary objects, properties, and data types, which may be simple for basic data sharing purposes, or extremely rich, providing complete descriptions of the meaning and usage of the data in multiple human languages.
• An export/import format for tools and workstations to publish their knowledge of a complete system of devices and networks.
• An XML version of an EPICS, including the complete test database and other test-oriented data.

In addition to the new “computer language” of XML, another addendum has added an important new capability for human languages as well. When the Unicode character set was created many years ago, it was constructed to be universal set of characters to support most of the world’s languages together in one stream. However, its original 2-byte encoding caused trouble with many existing systems that were designed to process only the 1-byte characters common in Western languages. The “UTF-8″ encoding was created to solve this problem and quickly became a very popular method of conveying international text on the World Wide Web. BACnet has also embraced this standard and uses it in a way that fully takes advantage of its compatibility with the existing and ubiquitous ANSI/ASCII character set.

BACnet has also added support for more data types as well. A set of new “Value” objects rounds out BACnet’s ability to represent different data types in a uniform and standard way. Added to the original Analog, Binary and Multi State Value objects, are new Value objects for every primitive datatype that BACnet supports, including support for character strings and large numerics.

A new textbook designed to double as a reference manual that allows engineers to build on their knowledge of HVAC design procedures and methods has been published by ASHRAE. Principles of Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning builds on much of the basic information in the 2009 ASHRAE Handbook—Fundamentals and contains the most current ASHRAE procedures and definitive, yet easy to understand, treatment of building HVAC systems, from basic principles through design and operation. Co-authors are Ronald Howell, Ph.D., P.E., William Coad and the late Harry Sauer Jr., Ph.D., P.E.

The book may be used for/by:

• Undergraduate engineering courses in the general field of HVAC;
• Similar courses at technical institutes;
• Continuing education and refresher short courses for engineers; and
• Adult education courses for non-engineers.

There are several significant changes in the new edition, including new values for climatic design information; new values of heating, wind and cooling, and dehumidifying design conditions; improved values of thermal conductivity and resistance for common building and insulating materials; and an extensively revised chapter on residential heating and cooling load calculations.

Additionally, the chapters on system design and equipment have been significantly revised to reflect recent changes and concepts in current heating and air-conditioning system practices.

Also available is Principles of HVAC Solutions Manual, which contains revised solutions to most of the problems in the Principles book.

The cost of Principles of HVAC is $89 ($76, ASHRAE members; $58, ASHRAE student members), while the cost of the solutions manual is $59 ($50, ASHRAE members).

To order, visit the ASHRAE.org Bookstore.

VFA, Inc., a provider of end-to-end solutions for facilities capital planning and spend management, has announced a new Seismic Assessment solution to provide organizations with a cost-effective, flexible approach to mitigate seismic risks.

VFA’s Seismic Assessment Service helps organizations identify seismic-related components within their facilities using an industry-accepted methodology based on guidelines published by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA), the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), and the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP). With this critical data captured in VFA.facility®—VFA’s capital planning and management software—organizations are then empowered to make the best strategic decisions to improve the overall seismic performance of their buildings.

VFA’s Seismic Assessment solution collects and analyzes seismic risk-related data on both the structural and non-structural components of a building. When facility professionals capture seismic-related risk data, there is a tendency to focus on the structural aspects of a building—those that resist gravity, earthquake, wind, and other types of loads. While this is important, non-structural components (such as light fixtures and vending machines) are often associated with the greatest level of damage and need to be incorporated with the same level of priority. Risks of seismic damage include life safety, property loss, and the possibility that a facility may not continue operations.

VFA’s Seismic Assessment Service has been deployed at customers such as a large state agency and healthcare system.

APC by Schneider Electric recently announced two new series of APC Smart-UPS® models designed for use in server rooms and network closets. Based on nearly 20 years of design experience, these new uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) systems offer time saving, user friendly features:

• An LCD interface with diagnostic capabilities
• Advanced energy management that delivers clear and timely energy consumption metrics
• A “green” mode that can help managers achieve efficiencies of more than 97%

Built on the same standards as the award-winning Smart-UPS family, the new models include an intuitive, customizable LCD interface to provide local and remote configuration capabilities, accurate power status information, diagnostics, tests and activity logs. Information is clear and concise and displays a breadth of information, from product serial number to APC support information in a multitude of languages.

An intuitive, customizable LCD interface displays a breadth of information.

Additionally, APC Smart-UPS are the only units to offer advanced energy management to notify users of a recommended battery replacement date. This technology adjusts a battery’s lifetime based on environmental conditions to provide advanced notification.

In conjunction with the new interface, the Smart-UPS models offer increased capabilities for users to monitor and control their energy usage. Each model includes a “green” mode that automatically bypasses unused components, allowing for reduced energy consumption without sacrificing protection or system operation. Further, the units have built in energy and efficiency meters to help monitor power usage. New switched outlet groups provide additional control to allow for non-critical load shedding, sequenced start-up/shutdown, and the ability to reboot single or multiple devices independent of the UPS.

The new APC SmartUPS models include a three year physical warranty and a two year battery warranty with extended warranty options.