The Five Levels of Commissioning Revisited From Building Startup to Organizational Memory More than a decade ago, we introduced a concept called the Five Levels of Commissioning. At the time, the objective was straightforward. Owners were frequently told that a building had been commissioned, yet there was little consistency in what that actually meant. One […]
Preserving Operational Intelligence
Preserving Operational Intelligence Why Buildings Drift, and What Can Be Done About It Most buildings begin their lives with a remarkable amount of knowledge surrounding them. Owners understand what they hope to achieve. Designers understand the reasoning behind system selections and control strategies. Contractors understand how systems were installed. Controls programmers understand the sequences that […]
Case Study: What a 3 Million Square Foot Facility Taught Us About Operational Knowledge
Case Study: What a 3 Million Square Foot Facility Taught Us About Operational Knowledge Large facilities often contain decades of accumulated operational knowledge. Preserving access to that knowledge can be as important as maintaining the equipment itself. When most people think about building commissioning, they think about equipment. They imagine technicians checking temperatures, testing alarms, […]
The Building Has a Vote
The Building has a Vote Listening Beyond the Meeting One of the observations I’ve made throughout my career is that some of the most challenging obstacles to successful outcomes are not technical at all. They are human. Miscommunication, assumptions, competing priorities, incomplete information, organizational politics, and simple misunderstandings can all make it difficult to move […]
The Building Will Tell You
The Building Will Tell You Lessons from an Inexperienced Controls Technician Early in my career, I often found myself standing in front of control systems I did not fully understand. Like many technicians entering the building controls industry in the 1980s, I was learning as I went. Some systems were electronic. Many were pneumatic. Documentation […]
The Story Behind alliancePROJECT
The Story Behind alliancePROJECT Most engineering and consulting firms begin with a service offering. Someone identifies a market need, develops a specialization, and builds a business around providing that expertise. While there is certainly truth in that model, the story behind alliancePROJECT is somewhat different. The firm’s evolution has been shaped less by a particular […]
From Building Controls to Facility Intelligence
From Building Controls to Facility Intelligence An Industry Evolution When building automation systems first began appearing in commercial facilities, their promise was straightforward: provide operators with better visibility and control of building systems. For many of us who entered the industry during those early years, the technology itself was fascinating. Equipment that once required manual […]
Why Buildings Forget
Why Buildings Forget Walk into almost any large facility and ask a simple question: “Why was that sequence changed?” The answer is often surprisingly difficult to find. Someone remembers part of the story. A technician recalls that there was a problem years ago. A commissioning report may contain a clue. An old email might explain […]