12/06/2009 by David Slade.

 Your current real estate property management software, which has served you well in years past, has now run its course and is clearly unable to support the demands of enterprise real estate management. At some point, the only option is to upgrade, David Slade of Davmark explains.

“Industry-wide, more and more real estate data is managed using software, and the system that has been your friend for all those years can no longer handle all the new tracking, reporting, and transparency requirements that your business demands.”  “Your bottom line is starting to suffer for it. What’s more, your competitors are already sizing up cutting-edge solutions and many have already upgraded. Sticking with your existing system would be like riding a horse and carriage in a high speed car race, and that’s too high a price to pay for loyalty.”

Once the need to upgrade is acknowledged, the big question is, “Which system will improve efficiencies, minimise risk, maximise returns and improve my competitive edge, and client services, all at a reasonable price?”

Initial research will reveal that the most advanced software packages feature fully integrated solutions that consolidate portfolio, financial, lease, and other information into one database, giving all network users instant, secure access. That means a new suite of tools can help you maximize efficiencies and accuracy, streamline workflow, mitigate risk, create transparency for users and investors, improve communications among stakeholders, and deliver enterprise-wide solutions.

Continued growth and increased revenues are critical to your business, upgrading therefore represents the smart strategic move. All that remains is to follow eight simple rules to make your purchase and subsequent upgrade smooth, profitable, and trauma-free:

1. Plan ahead

The complexity of software systems means it’s critical to approach implementation in a comprehensive manner. Creating a viable roadmap with a clearly defined purpose and anticipated outcome will minimize disruption to your operations. That involves defining and prioritizing your technical and functional requirements, and separating need-to-have features from nice-to-haves. Also, seek expert advice. Admit you don’t know everything and ask the hard questions: What should I upgrade, and why? What are all the options, and which best meet my needs? Should I implement in phases or all at once?

2. Evaluate potential suppliers

Who has the best record of success? Who offers the best value for your money? Who’s well-established, financially stable, and experienced in the real estate industry? When you ask how much disruption, training, and other adjustments a new system entails, do you get straight answers? Do any of your candidates have a history of making midstream changes to the implementation scope or cost estimate? And, most important, as technology advances continue unabated in this industry, who can act as your technology partner as your business needs expand?

3. Prioritise low risk

Keep in mind that well-designed management systems diminish risk in multiple ways. Comprehensive system transparency gives managers a complete picture of investment activity across their portfolios, helping them anticipate and avoid high-risk situations. Such transparency is within your reach. For example, dashboards can improve asset management by offering every real estate practitioner—from property and maintenance managers to top executives—an unprecedented degree of operational visibility. Likewise, automation of accounting processes eliminates errors common to outdated accounting practices, such as multiple spreadsheets and manual data entry, and provides accurate, up-to-date information for reliable risk analysis.

4. Seek versatility

Your upgrade might well need to handle remote users, multiple real estate market segments, differing investment types, a diverse array of clients, different sets of accounting rules, multinational portfolios, and other complex requirements of your business. Also, can the software scale to meet your needs as they grow? How flexible is the software in terms of ability to configure or customize?

5. How deep can I drill?

First-rate real estate software systems allow drill-down into financial data and review of accounting practices at the transaction level. Always important, this capability has assumed new urgency with Sarbanes-Oxley requirements and increased scrutiny of corporate practices. The most advanced software solutions on the market take these factors into account and track every aspect of even the most complex transactions.

6. Hosting—your place or mine?

Are your IT staff up to handling the complex new software? If not, consider choosing a supplier that offers application hosting services. Many client companies consider this choice much more cost-effective than maintaining their own IT network infrastructure and handling licensing, disaster recovery, network security, and so on.

7. Consider external stakeholders’ viewpoints

Which solutions enable you to provide the best reporting and services to your tenants, suppliers, and investors? Remember, your competitive edge is driven by more than best operating practices. Other key factors include your ability to provide online access for tenant rent payment and ledgers, electronic payables and investor reporting, as well as impressive, dynamic marketing presentation on your website for availability, online application and leasing. Choosing the right solution will drive solid business performance, service, and transparency; it will also shape the perception of you among clients and prospects as a technologically advanced, reliable, and efficient business. The more dynamic your new system, the more you’ll be appreciated by its users and stakeholders, both internally and externally.

8. Prepare your employees, brief your clients

It’s important to remember that rolling out a new enterprise-level software requires time and resources commensurate with the size and scope of your business. Furthermore, your users might also be comfortable with and loyal to your old system, making change management essential for a smooth adoption. Educate them about the advantages of a new system and help them understand how it will improve business and enhance their daily routine. Alerting your stakeholders about your new system and how it will create a better experience for them will also build enthusiasm for the project.

Plan carefully and do all of these things, accept that a new system implementation will require time, resources, and change management, and your implementation should roll out with a minimum of hassle. For assistance with assessing your new enterprise management system, talk to Davmark www.davmark.co.uk

Posted in Software | No Comments »

12/06/2009 by David Slade.

Property owners face steady pressure to stay ahead of competitors, to grow or diversify their portfolios, to full fill varying reporting commitments and accounting practices, to satisfy senior executives, tenants and other stakeholders, to stay abreast of industry best practices.

How can those leaders reconcile so many demands into a coherent business strategy that drives efficiency and profitability?

Much of the answer lies in a technology strategy?

Specifically, the adoption of advanced business systems that comprise a central element of a strategic business plan.  Technology solutions allow a comprehensive visibility that gives a complete picture of a portfolio, illuminating a path to organizational growth, efficiency and profitability. Heeding demands from property owners and managers for these advantages, leading software providers consistently deliver innovative solutions that give rise to the next wave of real estate best practices, including the latest in operational efficiencies and sustainable initiatives.
When all the crucial elements of an integrated, business-wide solution are present, the benefits become clear: better-informed decision-making and immediate access to a broad spectrum of relevant information.  The strategic payoff: risk mitigation and competitive advantage arising from cost savings, efficiency and economies of scale, and effective portfolio management and growth potential.

Consolidation into one solution

How do Internet-based software packages work to property and asset managers’ advantage?

They consolidate portfolio, financial, lease and other information into one database, while extending the solution to automate business processes and encompass all factors in the real estate lifecycle.  These factors include capital formation, investment management, acquisition and development, leasing and property management, electronic transaction processing, tenant services, portfolio analysis and reporting, and valuation and forecasting.  This kind of business-wide solution gives all network users instant, secure, real-time access to a single global repository of information from which all of these functions can be integrated and automated.

Integration of multiple management systems into one means that managers’ access to source data is immediate, avoiding the costly, time-consuming process of summoning ledgers and other reports from other data systems.  CFOs seeking underlying financial data, for example, can access that information in real time, rather than endure the costly, time-consuming process of requesting ledgers from a separate program.

Electronic processing drives efficiencies

Also crucial in such end-to-end technology is the capability to achieve operational efficiencies through systems that enable electronic transaction processing for both invoicing and payment processing.  Capability to scan mass invoices into digital images, automatically send them through the approval workflow electronically according to custom approval rules, and activate an electronic transfer of funds to the vendor?

With bank accounts is built into the most advanced business solutions.  Other characteristics of such systems including allowing residents and tenants to pay rent online using a credit card or ACH; and the mass-scanning of checks into digital images, the auto-application of these payments to charges, and deposit of the payments using electronic file transfer.  In such systems, images are stored in the central operating database, and processes are digitized and streamlined.  Meanwhile, the elimination of paper and paper handling introduces a more sustainable business practice.

MRO purchases standardised

Another potential element of an integrated technology solution for real estate properties includes online purchasing of building MRO supplies.  This practice ensures corporate-wide standardization for those items, along with integrated spend management.  In addition, procure-to-pay systems, in conjunction with systems described above, can eliminate paper invoices and reduce the costs of storing, sorting and printing invoices.

The routing and synchronization with various accounts payable systems across an organization that arises from centralized invoice processing cuts invoice-handling cycle times and costs and enforces consistent processes.  And again, if your company is interested in sustainability, such an e-procurement solution offers the opportunity for customizing green catalogues for your sites.

Portals extend dynamic access

Another of the latest strategic elements in an integrated real estate management solution is portals, which delivers the ability to extend dynamic access to services and information to external stakeholders such as tenants and residents, prospects, owners and vendors.  With its dynamic marketing capability and online resources, portals promise clear competitive advantage to property managers who leverage them.

Testaments to integration benefits

Users of an integrated property management software system validate its benefits.  “A principal benefit of a unified system is getting answers quickly and being able to discern, in real time, what the good and bad business decisions are,” said David Hott, CIO of the commercial and residential real estate owner/manager Legacy Partners.  “It’s also highly efficient to have one point of entry, without having to reload data from one platform into another or hiring extra staff to do that.”

Ken Kalman, Director of Information Services for the commercial real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield, Inc., added, “Our centralized system allows us to extract data for clients who might want two hundred general ledger accounts, for example.  Along with portfolio-wide information, we can access repair and maintenance information at the building level when we need it.”

Real estate technology has fully matured as a strategic element of a business plan, providing superior service, risk reduction, business-wide visibility and many other benefits.  Fully integrated systems with capabilities that were virtually unthinkable even 30 years ago are now within easy reach.  Companies are well positioned to achieve their strategic priorities across the full real estate lifecycle for their entire portfolio.  By adopting integrated technologies, real estate business leaders can reap the rewards of a more efficient, agile and competitive enterprise.

Posted in real estate management, information-technology (IT), Integration, IIT | 1 Comment »

12/06/2009 by David Slade.

DMX512-A is an EIA-485 based communications protocol that is most commonly used to control stage lighting and effects and LED lighting control.

Developed by the Engineering Commission of USITT, the standard started in 1986, with subsequent revisions in 1990 leading to USITT DMX512/1990. In 1998 ESTA began a revision process to develop the standard as an ANSI standard, including a Public Review process. The revised standard, known officially as “Entertainment Technology — USITT DMX512–A — Asynchronous Serial Digital Data Transmission Standard for Controlling Lighting Equipment and Accessories”, was approved by ANSI in November 2004. This current standard is also known as “E1.11, USITT DMX512–A”, or just “DMX512-A”, and is maintained by ESTA.

DMX512 was originally intended as a ‘lowest common denominator’ protocol for use between interfaces supporting proprietary protocols. However, it soon became the primary method for linking not only controllers and dimmers, but also more advanced fixtures and special effects devices such as fog machines and moving lights. DMX512 is unidirectional and does not include automatic error checking and correction, so it is not safe to use for applications involving life safety, such as controlling pyrotechnics or laser lighting display where audience or performer safety is involved. MIDI is sometimes used for this task.

Posted in ESTA, DMX, Lighting, Lighting control | No Comments »

12/06/2009 by David Slade.

The increasing strength of a new Solid-State Lighting technology that could eventually take its place alongside conventional LED technology. However, will AC driven LEDs actually displace DC driven LEDs – that is the real question!

The impact of Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) on the general lighting industry has only just started with tremendous revenue growth seen during 2007 for white LEDs. However the rapid pace of LED development continues unabated in early 2008 with the release of Seoul Semiconductors Z-Power P7 single LED emitter package emitting up to a maximum of 900 lumens from just 10 electrical watts and up to 995 lumens maximum from a 15W device from LEDEngin Inc.

The latest LED emitter packages to be launched onto the lighting market include the new class of AC driven LEDs that do not require AC/DC LED drivers and offers the promise of simplifying LED luminaire design.

The latest LEDs are more efficient, usable and environmentally friendly than CFLs.

At the end of the first quarter of 2008 several manufacturers have launch new LED emitter packages onto the market all exhibiting common characteristics of increased light output, greater efficiency and lower LED thermal resistance. Indeed, these latest “digital” LEDs have now exceeded the raw lumen output of most typical Compact Fluorescent Lighting devices and at a much higher efficacy at much higher levels of light quality and with a lower carbon footprint meaning LEDs should now become the light source of choice.

The P7 Series compared to general 60-watt incandescent lamps, which provides an efficacy of approximately 11 lumens per watt, emits light at up to 900 lumens and has a maximum efficacy of 90 lumens per watt. The colour temperature of the P7 is 6300K meaning that it is only available in cool white and the colour rendering index (Ra) is low at 70. However this lighting breakthrough is happening at a time when oil prices have exceeded $107 per barrel and the environmental waste aspects are fuelling interest for energy efficient systems all around the world.
In addition, the P7 Series shows remarkable performance compared to compact fluorescent lamps with a typical CFL consuming 15 watts and emitting light at 930 lumens delivering an efficacy of 62 lumens per watt, while the P7 Series’ efficacy is nearly one-and-a-half times higher at 90 lumens per watt. Therefore, for the first time a single LED emitter package in a space of only 18.4mm x 12mm x 6.54mm can produce the same raw lumens as a 15W CFL bulb which is pretty impressive!

As known by many in the lighting industry, the maximum performance of a P7 (derived from a manufacturer’s datasheet) should not be used to predict the total system efficacy due to thermal performance in standard operating conditions but even the typical luminous flux for a P7 is rated at 700 lumens providing a typical efficacy of 70 lumens per watt (still better than that of a CFL).  The data sheet gives the total forward current as 2.8A, with forward voltage of 3.6V, so one can assume each chip is driven at 700 mA (or around 2.5W). When the device is driven at 1400 mA (forward voltage = 3.3V), or 350 mA per chip, the typical output is 400lm, corresponding to an efficacy of around 86 lm/W.

The configuration of the LED chips within the P7 is structured so that they operated in parallel, which is rather unusual for two reasons:
1. Running LED chips in parallel without any voltage or current balancing can create uneven current paths that could result in a variety of issues from uneven chip illumination where one LED has more current flowing through it so it has a high lumen output compared to the others through to rapid failure if one LED chip fails because the current through the other 3 LEDs has to take the current meant for 4 LEDs.
2. There is currently very little choice for high current LED drivers especially those that can drive currents up to 2.8A so the industry will need to wait until a large number of drivers become available at these higher currents.

Perhaps, it may have been more prudent to design the P7 so that all of the LED chips were connected in series which would mitigate any of the issues highlighted and would provide a choice of drivers from 350mA up to 700mA. In fact, the LEDEngin LZ4 10W and 15W LED devices have gone one further by providing direct access to each LED chip, within the package enabling the lighting manufacturer to decide whether to control each LED individually, connect them in series or similar to the P7 in parallel.
Although the luminous efficacy of the LEDEngin product range is lower than that indicated by the P7 it offers a smaller package of just 7mm by 7mm and comes in a wide range of colours and cool, neutral and warm white colour temperatures with a CRI as high as 90 as shown in Tables 2 and 3.

Referring to P7 4 chip LED emitter with the equivalent sized single chip emitters there is clearly a significant step change in performance. This performance increase is due to improved LED packaging resulting in a lower thermal resistance of just 3°C/W for the P7 and the LED chips are operated at a lower forward current.
It is clear that the P7 will create a new trend of multi-die, high luminous output emitter packages at affordable costs and it is certain other LED manufacturers will follow with low-cost variants ensuring the rapid deployment of LEDs in general lighting markets.

AC LEDs – What are they?
The vast majority of LEDs sold in the market place are DC driven LEDs however a new class of LEDs that are driven directly from the mains supply are being touted as an alternative to traditional DC LEDs. DC-driven LEDs have several disadvantages including:

• AC/DC power supplies add extra cost and require more space.

• Design difficulties to accommodate space and thermal dissipation requirements for DC-LEDs make it less viable as a replacement for conventional incandescent bulbs or building structure lightin

• Waste materials from the converter causes environmental pollution

• 80% efficiency of AC/DC converter causes 20% of electricity loss

• When using an AC/DC converter in small or enclosed area the heat from LED and converter interaction can accumulate heat causing a reduction in lifespan

• Overheating can cause a fire concern which will require safety plans

• Cannot be easily configured or linked together in long chains

While the lifespan of DC-driven LEDs sold in the market is 50,000 to 100,000 hours, the AC-DC converter needed for its application to lighting fixtures only has a lifespan of 20,000 hours. The need to change the AC-DC converter several times over the life of the LED is a major shortcoming of DC-driving LED technology, and can limit its appeal for lighting fixtures.
In classic textbooks on electronics or physics it will state all LEDs are DC devices, so how can an LED be driven directly from an AC supply at  220-240V? The answer is fairly straight forward; the AC LED device is actually made up of two strings of series-connected die, connected in different directions; one string is illuminated during the positive half of the AC cycle, the other during the negative half. Thus, the device is essentially non-polar. Since the strings fabricated on the substrate are formed from many p-n junctions in series, the total forward voltage of each string is very high, and approaching the AC mains input voltage.
Therefore, an AC LED must be designed for a specific voltage range and at this stage cannot be interchangeable between say 110V or 220V.
Like any LED, proper mounting to a thermally conductive surface is critical. You’ll also need to be mindful that the leads and traces will be carrying high voltages and so care must be taken for fixture design.
The reason AC LED emitters have not been successful to date is due to several factors including:

• Not as bright as DC LEDs

• Not as efficient as DC LEDs

• Low number of manufacturers so reduced availability and choice

• Reliability is susceptible to voltage variations

• Intensity variation with over or under voltage on AC mains

• Switching frequency is limited to mains frequency (50/60Hz) so not suitable for many applications eg; TV lighting

• Systems are designed around mains voltages

• The AC LEDs cannot be dimmed easily

• Available in only low wattage emitters (<10W)

Due to significant research by two companies, Seoul Semiconductor in Korea and Lynk Labs in the US, several of the disadvantages holding back AC LEDs are now being addressed. For example, Seoul Semi announced in February that their AC LED known as the Acriche, had achieved a lumens per watt efficacy level of 80 lm/W although the system is still only available in 2W or 4W versions.
The high reliability of the Acriche AC LED is shown in figure 5 where 70% of initial lamp lumens is reached after 20,000 hours of operation at a junction temperature of 80°C. Similarly to DC LEDs the lifetime of the AC LEDs increases as the junction temperature decreases.
A second company Lynk Labs offers a range of AC driven technology evolved from a core technology layer called No Return Path “NRPTM” technology. NRP and other AC LED technology has been integrated into Lynk Labs AC-LED devices, assemblies, drivers and system solutions for solid-state lighting applications.

Conclusions
The rapid increase in LED luminous efficacy is continuing unabated and today the total light output from a small 10W LED emitter package is essentially equal to that of a 15W Compact Fluorescent ensuring that it is a matter of time before the LED will displace the majority of conventional light sources. The technical barriers are rapidly being overcome one by one and soon a single emitter package will break the 1000 lumen output in a cost effective manner (eg; <$5).
It is less clear to predict the impact of AC driven LEDs against a market dominated by DC LEDs especially as the technology is still so young however AC LEDs are ideal for applications where LED drivers are impractical to install, quality mains voltages are available and no dimming is required such as signage illumination.
The future will see both AC and DC LED systems co-exist within the general lighting market as both techniques have advantages and disadvantages however as the market has already adopted DC LED systems it will be a significant time before AC systems can claim the number of AC LED shipped.

Posted in Lighting, colour rendering index (Ra), LED Lighting | No Comments »

12/06/2009 by David Slade.

British government LED adviser, Dr. Geoff Archenhold, reports on new government initiatives that will speed up the progress of LED fixtures in the commercial market. Unfortunately, the lighting industry is getting to grips with the start of what seems to be a long recession. However there are significant opportunities that point to success for the near-term future of lighting, one of which is high quality LED lighting fixtures.

2009 is a pivotal year for the lighting industry where traditional lighting companies need to invest heavily in the technology to provide quality light for lighting designers. This may not be an easy task for the larger lighting players as they focus on near-term issues such as how to restructure or close conventional product line rather than invest in developing the next generation of technologies – this is an ideal time for innovative newcomers to make big strides in delivering innovative lighting solutions.

An update on Government legislation and support for new technologies
Unless you were without a TV and didn’t read any newspapers or websites you will have seen the European Union have agreed to finally ban the incandescent light bulb. Although this is a very positive step, it is no doubt a very small one mainly due to the fact that several inefficient or environmentally unfriendly light sources such as Halogens and CFL lamps are essentially left untouched. In my opinion there are many reasons why you have legislation but the key aims should always be to ensure safety (whether its product safety or environmental safety through reduced carbon emissions) and to stimulate an improvement in technology which provides an economic stimulus. Unfortunately, banning the incandescent on its own will not achieve significant gains on either front mainly due to the fact that CFL and Halogens are the main products marketed today. One only needs to go to any of the top five supermarkets in the UK to look at the lighting section to see that it is dominated by CFL’s from two or three companies along with a low cost supermarket own label version.

What does this EU directive actually mean for the Industry?
The EU directive sets minimum requirements for domestic lighting so that from 1 September 2009, high-energy bulbs can no longer be circulated in the EU for use in private households. These bulbs will gradually be withdrawn until 2012. The EU directive defines exactly which bulbs will no longer be able to be sold and when. For example, as of 1 September 2009, there will be no more frosted lamps, except for frosted energy saving lamps (CFLi) with energy efficiency class A. Also light bulbs with 80 watts or more will be banned as of this date.

This new EU directive is part of a package of measures from the EU which aims to significantly reduce the energy consumed by electrical devices. The primary aim of this directive is to protect the environment by reducing CO2 emissions.

It is important to note that these regulations apply to non-directional lamps. Directional (reflector) lamps such as spots will be covered by a dedicated measure at the end of 2009 or in 2010. These new regulations could be an opportunity to start phasing out CFL’s especially those used within directional downlight fixtures where such light sources where approximately 50% of the lamp lumens are lost in the fixture design.

Providing LED fixture manufacturers continue to improve light output quality and consistency then the EU directive will become the first step to banning the CFL’s and Halogens within the next 2-3 years as LEDs become more cost effective especially as they are already proving to be more efficient in certain applications.

What will actually change?
As of 1 September 2009, the first styles of light bulbs (80 watts or higher) will disappear from the shelves. Every year after that, in steps of twelve months, further bulbs and wattages will be affected by the ban. By 2012, all light bulbs of greater than 7 watts will be withdrawn from sale except for certain special applications such as ovens or fridges, traffic lights, infrared lamps.

Also halogen lamps with the efficiency class D will be gradually phased out step by step according to their watt and lumen value from 2009 until 2012.

An update of the lamp energy label (Directive 1998/11/EC) is also planned in 2009 in order to redistribute the energy classes after the phasing out of classes D, E, F, G and also to integrate low voltage lamps and reflector lamps, which are currently not covered by the label.

Energy Savings Trust – Starts a 2-phase LED Lighting trial
As part of the UK Government’s £400m Environmental Transformation Fund (ETF) setup in April 2008 and designed to bring forward the development of new low carbon energy and energy efficiency the Energy Saving Trust (EST) has secured funding for LED-based project over the next three years. The first of these projects are the planned field trials of LED lighting technology in communal areas of social housing to begin before April 2009.

The attraction of this type of housing is that the lighting is on 24 hours per day, 7 days a week resulting in high energy costs with traditional lighting and considerable potential savings using LED technology.

A previous study undertaken by the Lighting Association for Aberdeen County Council concluded that the new LED products were suitable for installation in the dwellings, replacing either fluorescent or incandescent lighting yielding several benefits such as reduced energy consumption, reduced carbon emissions and reduced maintenance costs.

The new ETF/EST field trial will seek to install LED lighting in a number of communal housing locations throughout England and the phase 1 locations have already been selected.

The first phases of this field trial are important as there are over 4 million dwellings in England owned or managed by Local Authorities (including ALMO’s and RSL’s) and Housing Associations. This represents approximately 26% of the English housing stock so is a considerable market for LED lighting companies to focus upon.

The interest to participate in phase 1 of the trial was substantial with more than 110 housing managers and over 30 LED companies requesting further information.

In Phase 1, the Energy Savings Trust will fund up to a maximum of 80% of the costs of the proposed replacement LED fittings and has a total fund size of ~£350,000. Expressions of interest to take part in Phase II trials (a much larger trial) will commence in April 2009.

The sites will be fully monitored before, during and after the installation of the LED replacements so that a complete and robust case study for each site can be published in the future. This will be one of the first times data in the UK will be published by an unbiased source and so will provide a good comparison between conventional and LED equivalents in certain applications.

In addition, the Energy Saving Trust will be adding a performance requirement for domestic LED lighting into the EST’s lamp specification version 6. The first three classes of LED lamps to be endorsed under ESR are:

• Mains voltage reflector lamps such as GU10 replacement lamps ie; 240V and power equivalents to a 20,35 and 50W halogen having a minimum life of 25,000 hours.

• Low voltage for incandescent reflector lamps such as MR16 lamps ie; 12V 20, 30 and 50W LED equivalents having a lifetime in excess of 25,000 hours.

• External LED luminaires to replace typical 250W and 500W Halogen floodlighting.

the work EST are undertaking is vital and exactly what the consumer and lighting industry need. Quality and unbiased performance data on LED fixtures and supporting innovation through the ESR programme.

Further information and presentations on the EST LED initiative can be downloaded from www.nwda.co.uk/photonics

LED efficiency is continuously improving
The leading manufacturers are continuing to rapidly improve production LEDs enabling high efficiency LED fixtures to be developed. For example, both CREE and Lumileds have single-die LED products that are readily available with minimum luminous flux that are approximately 100 lumens per watt.

It is clear that there is not much between the leaders of LED manufacturing except for the Warm White Colour Temperature range where Cree has an obvious lead today.

Importantly, there will be some changes during this year and Philips are working on a new technology that is incorporated into the manufacturing of LEDs which will not impact on the total light emitted from an LED die but will significantly improve the efficiency.

It is clear that excluding the great LED improvements will continuously see White LEDs approach the 120 lumen per watt mark at 350mA in the next year which is a significant increase in performance.

In terms of fixture design, this means less number of LED’s are required for a given light output and the thermal management can be much simpler making the heatsinks for the LED lighting smaller which also increases flexibility and reduces cost.

Further improvements of LED dies are continuing at pace in the R&D world and recently Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) have developed and demonstrated a new type of LED with significantly improved lighting performance and energy efficiency. The research shows that a polarisation-matched LED exhibits an 18% increase in light output and a 22% increase in wall-plug efficiency compared to currently constructed LEDs.

Importantly, the new LED device achieves a notable reduction in ‘efficiency droop’, a phenomenon that allows LEDs to be most efficient when receiving low-density currents of electricity, but then to lose efficiency as higher density currents of electricity are fed into the device. Essentially, this type of new research would enable LED manufacturers to build LEDs that are highly scalable in terms of driving them at higher forward currents whilst still maintaining the lumens per watt efficiencies. Current LEDs can lose up to 30% of the increased light output when they are driven at 700mA rather than 350mA. This research will help LED manufacturers make up the 30% loss when driven at high currents.

Further Fixture Level Improvements have just a significant role to play as LED emitters in the latest high quality LED fixture design. Today, thermal management is one of the most important system design issues so any new technologies that come along which can reduce the issue enables improved performance.

Once such new technology is graphite PCB’s which can replace the more commonly used Metal Core PCB (MCPCB) adopted by the high power LED industry. Strictly speaking graphite PCB’s are not new technology and they have been used in military applications for many years however their costs have made them rather exclusive in application. However a new Taiwanese company, Polo Tech, is now marketing graphite PCBs (GPCB) for the LED industry.

The new GPCB contains 99.5% graphite and offer a thermal conductivity greater than 400w/mK which is better than most MCPCB’s. Another advantage of GPCBs are they are very lightweight with a density of 1.5 g/cm3. The improved thermal performance means that more heat is transferred from the back of the LED to a heatsink potentially reducing the junction temperature of the LED die and so improving performance and efficiency.

Remote Phosphor Technology – the potential and pitfalls
LED technology that is starting to penetrate the current LED marketplace known as Remote Phosphor Technology (RPT). RPT was first pioneered in the LED sector some nine years ago but it was researchers at the Lighting Research Centre, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the US that provided a practical way forward. They developed and patented a new packaging method for white LEDs called Scattered Photon Extraction (SPE) which enables higher luminous efficiency by placing the phosphor at a remote location from the die by shaping the lens surrounding the die to extract a significant amount of the back-scattered light from phosphor before it is absorbed by other components within the LED emitter. Even back in 2005, the SPE technique showed a 20-25% improvement in efficiency compared to standard white LEDs which was an incredible feat considering how bright LEDs have become in four years!

The most popular way to create a white LED is to use a Blue LED chip which is coated with a phosphor and there are several common methods used in production as shown in figure 2. Referring to figure 2, the majority of LEDs are created using either (a) or (b) where the phosphor is either conformally coated around the LED chip or dispersed throughout the coupling medium respectively. Conformal coating is considered the better technique as the quality of light output is improved and there is less of a CRI or CCT variation with beam angle.

Philips Lumileds have recently developed a new method, Lumiramic, mentioned in previous articles where the phosphor is placed within a small disk above the die to improve quality and consistency.

The first iterations of remote phosphors placed the phosphors away from the LED chip but still within the emitter package. Although this showed an improvement there would still be significant issues with LED temperature especially as phosphor efficiency and lifetime degrade as the ambient temperature increases.

A further issue is that when blue light which is absorbed by the phosphor it converts the light into a different wavelength commonly know as phosphor conversion. Unfortunately, phosphor conversions scatters light in all directions (not just forwards) and hence studies by the Lighting Research Center (LRC) have shown that up to 60% of the lighting created by the phosphor is scattered back toward the LED die and lost due to absorption.

Even when there is a highly polished reflector used the arrangement did not show much of an improvement in terms of extracted light output over traditional packages where the phosphor was placed close to the die. The LRC uses the SPE technique to extract the back-scatter light from the remote phosphor before it is absorbed by using a secondary optic that efficiently transferred the blue light to the remote phosphor whilst recycling the back-scattered white light from the system so it is not lost.

The SPE technique shows a 60% improvement in light output and efficacy compared to similar commercial white LEDs, where the phosphor is placed close to the LED die. Although this research was undertaken in 2005, when traditional white LEDs had an efficacy of 30 lumens per watt at 350mA, the SPE system showed an efficacy of approximately 50 lumens per Watt. If we applied the SPE or similar light recycling techniques to the latest blue LEDs we would be looking at efficiencies of 150-160 lumens per watt!

More recent studies by the LRC indicate how the CCT of an SPE fixture varies with different phosphor densities.

The variation in phosphor density and thickness is one of the key issues for RPT based white LED fixtures hence why manufacturers have taken a long time to begin to introduce such products to the market.

There are several research groups around the world that have been working on RPT technologies where they have mixed two or more different phosphors together enabling a variable colour temperature or CCT to be achieved by using the relative intensities of two different wavelength LEDs. One company that has commercialised this into a product (KPT of Korea) and it has impressed all that have viewed it.

The early-to-market RPT products such as the Philips Fortimo and the much advertised alphaLED products need to be effectively tested for CCT and CRI consistency between fixtures and their lifetime and performances monitored especially if they are using standard blue LEDs illuminating a single phosphor plate.

It is very difficult to ensure the phosphor materials are placed across a 25mm to 100mm plate with a homogeneous density and consistent thickness. If either of these variables change significantly then the CCT and CRI of the light fixture will vary and although it is possible to replicate one or two samples for research it is much more difficult to scale up for higher volumes.

This said, the possibility of significantly improved white LED luminaire efficacy and lifetime which certain remote phosphor technologies have shown, paves the way towards the 150 lumen per watt LED fixture using today’s LED technology.

It will be a matter of time before high quality, consistent and efficient RPT LED fixtures will reach the market with the majority of research required being in the production capability of producing thin consistent layers of phosphor on plates.

The LED fixture manufacturers need to be honest
One of the largest issues that the LED industry needs to face in 2009 is the misleading use of data on specifications sheets. Every time I speak with lighting designers they say that they are constantly being disappointed by LED companies that claim a certain light output and fixture efficacy but when they see the technology it falls way too short.

The main issue is that most of the LED manufacturers quote LED lumens on their datasheets that does not account for thermal degradation, optical efficiency or LED efficiency. For example, I see many specification sheets that claim a fixture with 9 White LEDs can produce 810 lumens ie; 9 x 90 lumens minimum = 810 lumens. Then the manufacturer will state that the fixture takes, for example, 12 watts of power so that the fixture luminaire is ~70 lumens per watt which is totally misleading.

All LED fixture manufacturers to state realistic and actual operational figures on their datasheets so that the industry maintains a professional standard. There is a call for the UK Government to adopt a strategy similar to that employed by the Caliper programme in the US which tests commercially available lighting products and compares their actual performance against their datasheet stated performance. This way we are able to name and shame organisations that set out to mislead purchases!

Despite this plea, we will see LED fixtures accelerate into the general lighting market and system costs will drop as the new technologies in R&D filter through in one or two years!

Posted in Remote Phosphor Technology (RPT), Metal Core PCB (MCPCB), LED Lighting | No Comments »

12/06/2009 by David Slade.

Real-time Location System (RTLS) now installed at the Rebecca and John Moores UCSD Cancer Center (http://cancer.ucsd.edu). This deployment adds a third UCSD Medical Center hospital RTLS coverage, which currently includes the system’s Thornton and Hillcrest campuses. The enterprise RTLS installation has now been expanded to include nearly 1.5 million square feet with more than 2,000 assets under management, covering three hospitals across nearly 14 miles.

UCSD Medical Center’s deployment includes a multiplicity of RTLS tag types to support a variety of business applications at the hospitals. The tags broadcast low-power radio messages which allow users to quickly locate specific equipment or people and provide information about their movement and status throughout the enterprise. Each tag features unique functionality and a specific form factor to support an array of applications: 1. Standard T2A RTLS Asset Tag Each tag features a unique indicator switch. When triggered, the system sends an alert which can be configured for specific use cases (e.g., “I’m ready to be used again,” or “I need maintenance”).

2. Sterilizable T2S RTLS Asset Tag The T2S Tag is the industry’s first steriliable RTLS active RFID asset management tag and is clinically tested for product-specific cleaning, sterilization and disinfection. Without removing it from equipment, the T2S Tag endures standard autoclave cycles at temperatures up to 135°C, as well as immersion in the most common liquid sterilization methods.

3. Temperature Monitoring T2T RTLS Asset Tag The T2T incorporates reporting and alerting capabilities including monitoring of temperatures ranging from -28°C to +90°C +/-1°C and automatic notification alerts if temperature is above or below pre-set thresholds for a user-specified amount of time.

The Moores UCSD Cancer Center is using RTLS for the same standard asset management challenges faced at UCSD Medical Centers’ Thornton and Hillcrest facilities, including: 1. Reducing equipment inventory requirements 2. Lowering equipment rental costs 3. Reducing staff time spent searching for equipment 4. Minimizing equipment theft and loss Because one of the most challenging and expensive equipment categories to manage is surgical instrumentation trays, availability of T2S sterilizable tag was one of the primary RTLS drivers for the Moores UCSD Cancer Center installation. On average, UCSD Medical Center processes 4,000 - 5,000 instrumentation trays every month, many of which are shared between three campuses. Identifying the location and status of these trays maximizes their usage and lowers the need for additional inventory, while at the same time reducing surgical case delays, and worse, cancellations — which can cost the hospital thousands in surgical team idle time, decrease operating room utilization and impact the efficiency of patient care.

As with most facilities, careful budget management at UCSD Medical Center is essential. “We could not afford to continually stock all 3 campuses with duplicates of each and every one of the assets they may need — particularly costly items such as medical instrumentation tray sets,” said Tom Hamelin, director of perioperative services at UCSD Medical Center.

Shared inventory allows UCSD Medical Center the opportunity to see more surgical cases and utilize each of their operating rooms to its fullest capacity. “This would pose an inventory management nightmare if I didn’t have true enterprise-awareness across all buildings,” continued Hamelin.

With ZigBee (www.zigbee.org) sensors are deployed in standard electrical outlets to cover the entire enterprise. Using underlying ZigBee technology and patented computational algorithms, Awarepoint provides true enterprise-wide awareness — not only room-level, but persistent accuracy across the entire hospital footprint. Alternative RTLS systems, like infrared (IR) or ultrasound, require signal containment (within four walls) to effectively locate transmitting tags. The accuracy of these systems is highly dependent on number and placement of receivers and line of sight between the tag and the receiver.

“With IR or ultrasound systems, customers would need to deploy a dense and expansive infrastructure to truly cover an entire enterprise.” “In addition, with these alternative technologies, signals can be blocked by normal hospital processes. Equipment in areas like closets, drawers, case carts, wrapped assets, etc. will be ‘hidden.’ This is particularly critical in open areas like the Sterile Processing Department (SPD), and for assets like instrumentation trays that are housed in case carts, wrapped trays or Tyvek® Peel Pouches.” The Real-time Location System was selected because it offers UCSD Medical Center persistent room-level location accuracy on an enterprise-wide basis while providing a 100% wireless, non-disruptive installation. Dedicated, but interoperable, 802.15.4 ZigBee network maintains separation from Wi-Fi and eliminates interference and security concerns that can adversely affect mission-critical applications running on the hospital’s Wi-Fi infrastructure.

“Awarepoint’s RF-based technologies not only provide room-level accuracy, they also guarantee enterprise-wide awareness without interference or security risks,” added Perkins. “Awarepoint’s business model provides the hospital a fully managed service that allows easy scalability on a per asset per month basis.” About Moores UCSD Cancer Center University of California San Diego (UCSD) operates San Diego’s only academic medical center system of hospitals, clinics and regional specialty centers. Established in 1979, the Rebecca and John Moores UCSD Cancer Center is one of just 41 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the United States. Such centers are prominent among the leading institutions in the nation dedicated to scientific innovation and clinical excellence. UCSD is the only Comprehensive Cancer Center in San Diego and Imperial counties to have earned this honor. For more information, visit http://cancer.ucsd.edu About Awarepoint Awarepoint’s real-time location systems (RTLSs) include its real-time awareness platform, firmware, active RFID tags, sensors, and bridges.

Awarepoint’s technologies collect raw sensor data and transform that data into high-value positioning information that can be used to add location awareness to a variety of healthcare, manufacturing, security and other applications. Requiring no hard wiring, Awarepoint’s “plug and track” ZigBee-based wireless sensor network is a fully managed service, including hardware, software, remote monitoring and maintenance.

About ZigBee: Control your world ZigBee is the global wireless language connecting dramatically different devices to work together and enhance everyday life. The ZigBee Alliance is a non-profit association of more than 300 member companies driving development of ZigBee wireless technology. The Alliance promotes world-wide adoption of ZigBee as the leading wirelessly networked, sensing and control standard for use in consumer electronics, energy, health care, home, commercial and industrial areas. For more information, visit: http://www.zigbee.org

Posted in Real-time Location System (RTLS) | No Comments »

12/06/2009 by David Slade.

The Environment Agency and Partnerships for Renewables has urged public sector organisations in the UK to consider using their land and property to generate renewable energy, which has the potential to provide power for over 1.5 million households.

The two organisations used World Environment Day (5 June) to encourage the public sector to tackle the impending crisis of climate change and set an example to others by taking positive action.

The organisations have calculated that public sector organisations in the UK could generate up to some 3 gigawatts of power - enough to power all the households in Newcastle, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool and Doncaster combined and save 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year - by installing renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines and hydropower schemes on their land.

Public sector bodies own more than 10 per cent of the land in the UK including tens of thousands of buildings and over one million hectares of land. Despite this, only a tiny fraction of the total amount of green energy which the UK is capable of producing comes from renewable energy projects on public sector property.

Although many public sector bodies are already beginning to investigate how they can utilise their land to generate renewable energy, the Environment Agency and Partnerships for Renewables are calling for more organisations to install clean energy technologies to help reduce carbon emissions in addition to generating revenue from the sale of electricity and saving the taxpayer money.

Last year the Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, and environmental groups highlighted the need for public sector bodies to take a lead role in the fight against climate change and promote green energy.

The Environment Agency is urging other public sector bodies to follow its example after its announcement in November 2008 to build up to 80 wind turbines on Environment Agency owned land across the country, developing around 200 megawatts of renewable energy capacity - enough to power 90,000 households and save around 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. In addition the turbines will generate up to £2.4 million of revenue every year - money that will be ploughed back into protecting and improving the environment, and adapting to climate change. Other organisations such as British Waterways have also announced similar plans.

The Environment Agency recently ranked as the top green UK public sector organisation in the annual Sunday Times Green List. 99 per cent of electricity used by the Environment Agency is from renewable sources and stringent targets are in place for reducing energy and water. Recycling facilities are available in the offices covering 20 different types of waste. The organisation’s green travel policies have led to a mileage reduction of some 8.9 million miles over the past two years alone and in three years, the Environment Agency has managed to reduce its overall carbon footprint by 14 per cent and water use by ten per cent.

Environment Agency Head of Climate Change and Sustainable Development Tony Grayling said: “Investment in green technology such as wind turbines not only help cut carbon emissions and secure more home grown energy - they also make financial sense to those involved and ultimately save the taxpayer money.

“The pressures businesses and the public sector are facing may tempt them to cut corners and spend less attention on environmental improvement programmes, but it is now more important than ever before that we look to alternative sources of energy to meet our demands.”

Stephen Ainger, Chief Executive of Partnerships for Renewables which was established by the Carbon Trust in 2006, said: “By embracing and fulfilling its renewable energy potential the UK’s public sector has the opportunity to not only demonstrate strong leadership domestically, in the fight against climate change, it has the opportunity to set the standard for public sector organisations to follow globally. The role of the public sector organisations leading this movement, such as the Environment Agency and British Waterways, should not be underestimated”.

Friends of the Earth’s Executive Director Andy Atkins said: “The public sector has a key role to play in cutting emissions by harnessing the UK’s vast renewable energy potential. Developing green energy could create tens of thousands of new jobs, reduce our dependency of the tyranny of fossil fuels and give this country real influence in the global battle against climate change”.

Posted in Renewable energy, Energy | No Comments »

12/06/2009 by David Slade.

Methods of reducing unwanted sound associated with mechanical systems in commercial buildings

Though intended to provide comfort, HVAC systems often are a major source of noise in buildings. While the primary focus of designers understandably is temperature and humidity control, the more experienced among them know the importance of keeping sound and vibration in check.

This article provides an overview of acoustics as it applies to HVAC-system design.

Fundamentals

Sound levels are expressed in decibels (dB). Decibels cannot be added traditionally. For instance, 50 dB plus 50 dB plus 50 dB does not equal 150 dB. It equals 54.8 dB. To add decibels, one can go through the calculations of logarithmic addition or use Table 1, which provides reasonably accurate results.

TABLE 1. Simplified logarithmic addition.

Decibel values must be considered two at a time. Using the example of 50 dB plus 50 dB plus 50 dB:

1) The difference between 50 dB and 50 dB is 0 dB. Following Table 1, add 3 dB to the higher value:

50 dB + 3 dB = 53 dB

2) The difference between this result and the remaining 50 dB is 3 dB. Following Table 1, add 2 dB to the higher value:

53 dB + 2 dB = 55 dB

A difference of 3 dB barely is detectable by humans, while a difference of 10 dB is perceived as twice or half as loud. Therefore, a 60-dB source typically is perceived as being twice as loud as a 50-dB source of the same frequency.

When dealing with undesirable sound, a designer must consider (Figure 1):

FIGURE 1. Source, path, and receiver.

• The source of the sound. In HVAC systems, air-handling units are common culprits. Each of any other components contributing to noise should be considered a separate source.

• The path of the sound. A single sound can have many paths (Figure 2). Different paths present different problems and, thus, require different solutions. This article focuses mainly on the path associated with ductwork.

FIGURE 2. Paths of sound and vibration.

• The receiver of the sound. For this article, that is the person or persons occupying a building.

Weighting

In general, the human ear is less sensitive to low- and high-frequency sounds than it is mid-frequency sounds. Weighting is a method of reducing the contribution of low- and high-frequency sounds to attain a value corresponding approximately to what the ear perceives. The most common method of weighting is performed using the “A” scale, which produces values in units of dBA.

Table 2 shows “A” weighting for the center frequencies of the eight octave bands typically associated with HVAC-system acoustics. The more negative the “A” adjustment, the less sensitive the human ear is to the corresponding frequency.

TABLE 2. A-weighting scale.

Where HVAC is concerned, “A” weighting more often is used for outdoor sound calculations than it is indoor sound calculations. For indoor sound calculations, Noise Criteria (NC) is the more common method.

The NC method is fairly straightforward. Sound-pressure levels at eight octave-band frequencies are plotted on a family of curves defining the maximum allowable sound-pressure level corresponding to a chosen design goal. An NC rating is determined by the lowest curve exceeding the value at each octave band.

The downside of the NC approach is that the shape of a sound curve is not evaluated as a whole, and lower frequencies (below 63 Hz) are not evaluated at all. Still, the NC method is the most widely used basis for sound criteria for indoor HVAC applications. For office buildings, NC 35 usually is acceptable (Table 3).

TABLE 3. Sound-pressure levels for NC 35.

Room Criteria (RC) Mark II is the method recommended by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). This is a relatively new method that evaluates an overall sound curve. Using this method can be difficult because information for the lowest octave band is not readily available from manufacturers. (To learn more, see Chapter 7 of 2005 ASHRAE Handbook–Fundamentals.¹

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12/06/2009 by David Slade.

Varying perspectives of usefulness of increasingly common practices

For more than a decade, many in the buildings industry have been envisioning a day when building-automation systems (BAS) would become fully integrated with communication and human-interface practices and standards widely employed for information-technology (IT) networks. With the number of those individuals growing and their dream coming closer to reality, five-question survey with the intent of gathering the varying perspectives of a control-system designer, a controls manufacturer, a controls integrator, and an advanced controls user on practices becoming increasingly common in development BAS.

The Survey Participants

THE DESIGNER
A senior partner of New York-based Lehr Consultants International and a member of HPAC Engineering’s Editorial Advisory Board, Valentine A. Lehr, PE, FASHRAE, is noted for innovation in high-rise construction, hotel design, and master planning of complex projects. He has led design efforts for numerous award-winning environmental projects.

THE MANUFACTURER
The vice president of sales and marketing for Reliable Controls Corp., the Victoria, British Columbia-based designer and manufacturer of Internet-connected building controls and green building-automation controls, Tom Zaban, P.Eng., has a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Waterloo and a family-business background in electronics manufacturing.

THE INTEGRATOR
As the vice president of sales and marketing for Delta Controls Inc., the Surrey, British Columbia-based developer and manufacturer of building-automation systems, Brian Dutt is responsible for the company’s product-strategy, marketing-services, and global-sales teams. He has an MBA from Simon Fraser University and a diploma of technology in electronic engineering.

THE ADVANCED USER
H. Michael Newman manages the energy-management-and-control system at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. The system extends to some 150 major buildings, includes equipment and communication protocols from more than 10 suppliers, and incorporates several thousand field devices and hundreds of thousands of sensors, actuators, and data points.

Following are the questions and the responses they elicited.

1. In this age of universal graphical user interfaces (GUI), is there any reason to continue using a BAS manufacturer’s graphics instead of Web-browser-type operator interfaces?

“In general, no,” the survey’s designer participant, Valentine A. Lehr, PE, FASHRAE, a senior partner of New York-based Lehr Consultants International and a member of HPAC Engineering’s Editorial Advisory Board, said.“There is no reason for the manufacturer’s graphics.”

The survey’s advanced-user participant, H. Michael Newman, manager of the Utilities Computer Section at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., agreed: “If by ‘manufacturer’s graphics’ you mean a client GUI application used for the run-time operation of a BAS that must be installed and maintained on every potential workstation, as opposed to an application used for BAS setup, configuration, or commissioning, then the answer clearly is no. The software tools available to GUI designers for BAS, such as JavaScript and other scripting languages, supplement HTML (HyperText Markup Language) display technology to permit controls, such as buttons, scroll bars, sliders, and other user-input devices, to be displayed and actuated, thus, allowing operators to interact with the BAS through a Web browser with nearly the same look and feel of traditional client GUI.”

One should not be so quick to dismiss the value of manufacturers’ graphics, the survey’s manufacturer participant, Tom Zaban, P.Eng., vice president of sales and marketing for Reliable Controls Corp., said.

“Just because browser-based technology is ubiquitous does not mean that content (i.e., graphics) no longer is needed …, Zaban said. “The more people go online, the higher their expectation for quality information becomes.”

As the survey’s controls-integrator participant, Brian Dutt, vice president of sales and marketing for Delta Controls Inc., explained: “Manufacturers often create higher-quality interfaces for use with their products. It is quite simple for a manufacturer to create additional properties and functionality within their controllers that go beyond those defined by open standards. This added functionality … is available to the end user only when utilizing the manufacturer’s software interface.”

One could argue, Zaban said, that: “Theoretically, there are enough image assets on the Web to make any manufacturer’s library redundant …, and maybe in time that could become true, but good luck. Try putting that into practice today. You would have to cope with the lack of images and the inconsistency in colour, texture, camera angle, and resolution — all necessary to deliver a professional-looking end product. I would expect for the time you would spend piecing together a functional public-domain library you could hire a team of pimply faced kids to make a new library from scratch and do it cheaper with a better result. Then, you will need the animations. Forget it — game over.

“There is an intimate tie-in to each manufacturer’s product and the behavior of any animation of modest complexity,” Zaban continued. “The frames of the animation are ‘coded’ to behave according to the bits set within the object, which, in turn, are based on values/states measured and/or calculated by the controller or derived by direct operator input. There is no consistent standard in the industry describing that relationship that I am aware of. … The nature of animations is just too creative to nail down to a standard that would cover a wide variety of cases.”

Summary. There seems to be agreement among the survey participants that the industry is moving toward browser-based graphics. Because such graphics require special objects and support features developed by direct digital control (DDC) system manufacturers, the creation of generic graphics is seen as expensive.

2. Is there a good reason not to consider using multiple vendors’ products in a single system?

“There are several reasons to avoid mixing and matching, although the technical barriers essentially have been eliminated in recent years through the development and widespread adoption of standard networking protocols …,” advanced user Newman, who chaired the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers’ BACnet committee from 1987 to 2000, said. “The most significant impediment would be the need to become proficient with the configuration, programming, commissioning, operation, and maintenance of equipment from different manufacturers. This involves training, documentation, the need to have spare parts for each system, and so on.”

That does more than increase cost, controls integrator Dutt said.

“Developing intimate knowledge of a single manufacturer’s product is spread across multiple individuals within a value-added reseller’s (VAR’s) technical team,” Dutt said. “If the VAR chooses to support multiple manufacturers, it typically will develop knowledge specialists for each product family. This increases the risk to the organization should the specialist choose to leave the organization. It also causes risk to the service and support of the project longer term.”

Varying perspectives of usefulness of increasingly common practices

In the absence of operation-and-maintenance personnel with the requisite level of knowledge and skill, “You would need to be sure that you have the necessary support from the different suppliers to avoid finger-pointing in the event the systems don’t cooperate as expected and required,” Newman said.

Summary. Despite improved capabilities for developing multivendor networks, the survey participants urge caution.

3. Is it practical to remove GUI development from a controls contract and employ someone who specializes in developing GUI using standard server-based tools?

“Yes, that is the preferred approach …,” designer Lehr said. “We are using it on larger projects.”

Controls integrator Dutt sees it as practical only in situations in which an owner is seeking competitive bids.

“If the owner is happy with the current solution they have, then it is better to leave the interface and controls to be supplied from a single vendor,” Dutt said. “In my experience, most building managers are looking to work with controls contractors they can trust to do a good job.”

Manufacturer Zaban said he can think of only one case in which it would be practical: “A university has multiple vendors supplying various automation systems to its campus. The contracts call for basic graphics to be created and commissioned. Then, after the job is done, the university retains a different company that re-uses the graphic annotations of the base contract, but slides in a completely new graphic and gussies things up using the tools of that specific vendor so that the final graphics are very consistent with all of the previously completed buildings on campus. The university gets the value it wanted in the graphic (a relatively intuitive collection of dynamic data on one screen), but tosses out the base image because it is not worth the money and time fighting the original contractor because they used the wrong shade of gray.”

The tools used to create the content of interactive Web-accessible displays are almost entirely manufacturer-specific, advanced user Newman said.

“Some suppliers use commonly available software, such as Microsoft Visio, (Lonworks) to develop their system graphics, while others use entirely proprietary applications,” Newman said. “Even if the format of the graphic is ‘standard,’ the display of real-time data, archival trend data, or other database information requires manufacturer-specific ‘callback’ routines to collect the data and present it to the server. If, as is common, the graphic is stored in a proprietary format, it is the job of the manufacturer’s server to interpret the graphic file, render it into Web-displayable form, and ship it to the browser. All of this is not to say that there are not contractors who are competent with vendor XYZ’s GUI-development tools. If your server is from XYZ, you certainly do have the option of hiring a third-party contractor to develop or extend the GUI.”

Summary. The survey participants have mixed opinions as to whether it is preferable to have the manufacturer supplying the controls for a project also provide the graphics because proprietary display-development tools will have to be employed no matter how a graphical interface is procured. The opinion appears to be that there is rough equivalency among the capabilities of various manufacturers’ graphics software.

4. How far down into control-system architecture should designers push to replace specialized HVAC control components with more-standard general-purpose IT products?

“There is some argument to say the marketplace should determine this issue,” designer Lehr said. “However, in response to the question, if pushed, it should be down to the router (Ethernet) level.”

Because of current building practices, replacing specialized HVAC components with more-standard general-purpose IT products is practical only to the building-controller level, controls integrator Dutt said.

“Most application controllers are required to be commissioned before the end of a project,” Dutt explained. “This makes it difficult to cost-effectively deploy IT-based controls at the application level. If the owner of the project is a stakeholder in the IT-based solution, then it is possible, but it will take a significant amount of effort to ensure the design survives the construction phase. Currently, it is cost-effective to deploy IT networks to the building-controller level, as this network typically can be installed during construction and can be used during system commissioning.”

Manufacturer Zaban believes: “We’re already ‘all the way down’ from an architecture perspective. … Most designers just don’t know it yet.

“Now that we have a decent standard open protocol — ‘decent’ meaning well-defined, popular, and, most importantly, extensible — we can go ahead and write BIM (building information modelling) algorithms that would fully specify all aspects of building controls,” Zaban explained. “That means controller profile, network, sequence, interoperability, database, alarm, commissioning, wiring, documentation, service information, and even part numbers.”

A BIM BAS model is a “pet project” Zaban said he has been “threatening to do … just to shake up the industry a bit. …

Varying perspectives of usefulness of increasingly common practices

“It would represent the Holy Grail of DDC implementation …,” Zaban said. “It also would put a lot of frustrated consultants out of their misery because it would minimize their exposure to the technology. … The means already is there; you don’t need to ‘push’ any further. … We have general programmable controllers that can be applied to highly specialized applications, and the protocol provides deep integration into IT models.”

Summary. It appears there are no restrictions as to where a BAS network can be connected to a larger building or campus IT network. Indeed, on some projects, a stand-alone BAS network is connected to an IT network for local- and remote-operator oversight, while on others, components down to terminal-unit controllers are connected directly to a standard IT network. How a BAS network is configured in association with an IT network largely is determined by physical access, bandwidth, and network integrity/responsibility.

5. Should designers promote Web-enabled access for multiple buildings?

“Yes, this is an excellent approach …,” designer Lehr said. “The only limitation is reluctance to add cost.”

In the building-management industry, an increasing number of people are being asked to do more with less, manufacturer Zaban said.

“For example, one health-care manager I know who is doing a great job at tracking his facilities’ energy performance is facing a significant expansion of the hospital, but there is no budget to hire additional resources to keep up with the additional paperwork,” Zaban said. “Another property manager I know who is responsible for several large properties in downtown Vancouver is happy his company is growing. But they just acquired a new significant property downtown, and he does not have additional staff to delegate fuel purchases, energy tracking, and comfort-tracking reports to.”

The bottom line, Zaban continued, is that, “Property managers must become more efficient and organized to cope with their expanding workload, and we need to be there to help them.”

That may not necessarily be through a Web-accessible control system (WACS), controls integrator Dutt said.

“The designer should first understand the true needs of the building owner and then, based on his past experience, make a recommendation that will suit that particular situation,” Dutt said. “While most facilities can easily justify a WACS, there may be situations in which individual platforms and operators make business sense.”

Advanced user Newman sounded a word of caution regarding Web-enabled access for multiple buildings: “If the GUI servers are from different manufacturers, the operator will end up being in different operational environments for each system. That means the operator will have to learn different ways of performing the same function on each of the systems. The steps to access and change a temperature set point, for example, may be very different from one system to the next. Still, having to maintain only one operating system and browser at each operator site is a big advantage over the old days.”

Summary. The survey participants seem to agree that multiple-building access is a reasonable expectation, although it must serve a basic need and employ a common interface platform to be truly useful.

CONCLUSION

The responses of the four experts surveyed for this article indicate that the future of BAS lies in building-system components with on-board digital controls integrated into WACS with standard network connections. There are differences, however, about how open or selective the platforms used to integrate building-system components will be. Whatever developments occur, the buildings industry generally seems to have embraced standards employed in IT networks to the point multi-manufacturer digital control networks can be supported. What happens next, as one of the survey’s participants noted, is a matter for the market to determine.

The question of operator interfaces continues to vex many in the industry. That problem may be solved with building-system components with not only on-board controls, but on-board graphics, trends, and other features that can be integrated into standard Web front ends. If, however, data required for day-to-day operations need to be stored in servers, then, as another of the survey’s participants pointed out, the different operational features and environments could make such networks unmanageable.

In any case, the march toward standardization appears more robust than ever. Not long ago, building-automation graphical interfaces employed almost no Web-browser techniques and technologies; now, Web approaches are the basis of many such packages. How close we are to a complete convergence of BAS and IT is difficult to tell, but it is not too much of a stretch to say that when the convergence is complete, there may be nothing to distinguish one from the other.

Posted in HTML (HyperText Markup Language), direct digital control (DDC), BIM (building information modelling), Web-accessible control system (WACS), GUI, information-technology (IT), Intelligent building, Lonworks, BACnet, building-automation systems (BAS), Integration | No Comments »