Infor CloudSuite Facilities Management

How smart buildings can deliverlong-term asset sustainability

Many of today's building managers and owners are looking to smart buildings to improve how they use, manage,and monitor their assets, while also reducing their energy costs and carbon footprints. From the electric grid to theglobal environment, smart buildings are more sustainable, more efficient, and can help lower costs. But to do allthis, organizations must be able to take advantage of enterprise asset management (EAM) tools, as well asbusiness collaboration and integration tools. This paper will explain how EAM-based facilities managementtechnologies can help facilities managers in industries as diverse as commercial real estate, government,healthcare, industrial manufacturing, and retail to take advantage of strategies such as global asset sustainability(GAS) and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) to make their buildings smarter.

2How smart buildings can deliver long-term asset sustainability Industry Perspectives

3 What is a smart building?

4 Achieve significant energy savings

5 Measure asset health and performance

7 Review an asset's energyconsumption with EAM tools

10 Deliver long-term stability

Table of Contents

3How smart buildings can deliver long-term asset sustainability Industry Perspectives

What is a smart building?The National Institute of Building Sciences defines asmart (or intelligent) building as one that can “provideadvanced functionality through a computerized,intelligent network of electronic devices designed tomonitor and control the mechanical, electrical, lightingand other systems in a building.” A smart building usesadvanced technology to enable the “integration,automation, and optimization of any building system insupport of facilities management and the building'soperation and performance.”1

The purpose of making a building “smart” is to providegreater efficiency for building owners andmanagers—while continuing to provide tenants withconsistent safety and comfort. To accomplish thisgoal, building managers need to implementtechnologies that can monitor a building’s assets todetect inefficient performance, diagnose orautomatically correct problems, and alert buildingmanagement of issues that cannot be corrected.

As energy costs rise, smart building technologiesbecome even more crucial. Organizations that canbetter manage the energy needs of their buildingscan not only reduce energy costs, but also createbuildings that are more environmentally friendly andsustainable over the long term. For example, NewYork City’s Empire State Building once consumed asmuch energy in a single day as 40,000 singlehomes.2 Since undergoing a retrofitting project in2009 to make it more “smart,” the Empire StateBuilding has seen energy reduction savings of asmuch as $7.5 million in only a three-year time period.3

This paper will explore the essential componentsrequired to make a building or facility “smart,” whilealso explaining the benefits of smart buildings inrelation to asset sustainability, as well as somecommon terms and concepts.

Smart building technologiescan help organizations reduce energy costs—and create buildings that are moreenvironmentally friendly and sustainable over the long term as energy costs rise.

4How smart buildings can deliver long-term asset sustainability Industry Perspectives

Achieve significant energy savingsOrganizations with major plants, facilities, andequipment assets are facing a stark reality: Energyconsumption is eroding their profit margins. Energycosts, environmental concerns, competitive pressures,and global complexity will not reverse course over thelong haul. In 2014, in fact, 41% of the total US energyconsumption was from residential and commercialbuildings, according to the US Energy InformationAdministration (EIA).4

Buildings of all types, from public or commercial andindustrial spaces to offices and multi-unit residentialbuildings, can achieve significant energy savings withsmart building technologies. One effective strategy isto use an enterprise asset management (EAM) systemwith integration tools to connect the buildingmanagement system, building assets, and submeterstogether. An EAM system with built-in businesscollaboration can deliver real-time insights into themaintenance of equipment and appliances, as well asplumbing, electrical, and HVAC systems, while alsoconnecting all of a building’s stakeholders toa real-time, single source of shared data. And, thisEAM system can be used to monitor and control thebuilding's energy usage to meet sustainabilityinitiatives to reduce CO2 emissions and keep utilitycosts low.

When an EAM-based facilities management system isused as a single data repository for building data, notonly do building owners and managers gain greaterinsights into ways to reduce waste, but this systemalso provides a smart foundation for creating a moresustainable future for their building and assets.

How smart buildings connect to the smart grid

Without smart buildings, there is no smart grid. The smartgrid is a modernized electrical grid that usescommunications technology to gather data and act onenergy management needs. The US electrical grid, whichwas constructed throughout the 20th century, includes morethan 9,000 generating plants and around 300,000 miles oftransmission lines—but 7% of the power generated by thiselectrical grid is lost in transmission and distribution.5

The smart grid has been modernized to meet 21st-centurydemands. With the smart grid, energy can be created fromsolar, wind, geothermal, and other renewable energysources, as well as from power plants. When this energy isdistributed, its commercial and residential end-users can usesmart meters, EAM systems, submeters, and othertechnologies to make the distribution and use of energymore efficient—and less wasteful.

When connected to the smart grid, a smart building cancollect information about its energy usage. Then, buildingmanagers can act on information about their technology andenergy suppliers to automate and improve the efficiency,reliability, costs, and sustainability of their energy usage and distribution.

5How smart buildings can deliver long-term asset sustainability Industry Perspectives

Measure asset health and performanceEnergy costs comprise an increasingly large portion ofa organization’s operating and maintenance budget.To counter this trend, organizations are forced toreallocate budgets away from strategic initiatives tocover escalating energy costs. For manyorganizations, these costs can be in the hundreds ofmillions or more, and it is the assets—from equipmenton the shop floor to HVAC units in facilities—thatconsume the most energy. To further compound thischallenge, conventional facilities managementsystems ignore this major expense.

Eliminate energy waste withglobal asset sustainabilityFrom motors to pumps to heating coils, equipmentassets are made of many moving parts. Theseequipment assets can generate waste if all of theircomponents are not running efficiently. Manyorganizations, however, measure their assets in termsof their ability to meet operating needs—not on howefficiently each component part of a piece ofequipment is working. These organizations need toadopt a new strategy.

To make the best use of technology in a smartbuilding, many organizations are now focusing on fourmajor areas of waste as they review the assetperformance in their buildings: availability,performance, quality, and energy consumption. Thisnew approach is called global asset sustainability(GAS). GAS provides the visibility and control thatorganizations need to eliminate the wasteful energypractices that can result from the day-to-day operationof all of the assets in their buildings and facilities.

Together these elements constitute the foundation of GAS:

■ Availability is critical for the asset to serve theorganization as intended. Maximizing uptime is aprimary goal for maintenance, facilities, and assetmanagers. If production and facility assets are notavailable, the organization is hobbled in its ability togenerate revenue and effectively serve tenants,patients, and constituents.

■ Performance reflects how well the piece ofequipment is behaving or how fast it is operatingcompared to the theoretical specifications for itsoperation. When organizations make capitalinvestments, decisions rest on this performancerating. To meet financial goals in both cost andrevenue terms, assets must perform as close aspossible to that rating.

6How smart buildings can deliver long-term asset sustainability Industry Perspectives

■ Quality—how good the output of an asset is—canhave a material impact on an organization's marginand ability to execute its mission, whether it ishaving a retail store at the optimal temperature todrive consumer buying, keeping humidity at a levelwhere machinery and people can work effectively,or ensuring production equipment consistentlyputs out product at or above specification.

■ Energy consumption is increasingly costly, andhas become an integral element of assetperformance. An asset’s energy consumption maychange over time, based on the conditions ofoperation and maintenance, eating into margins if itis inefficient. For example, a single 100-horsepowermotor running continuously at 95% efficiency overa five-year period will cost an organization close to$350,000 in energy (10¢/kwh). If the same motorconsumes just 5% more energy due to suboptimaloperation (e.g., energy waste), it will cost almost$17,500 more to operate. By monitoring energyusage, organizations can gain a view of the asset’strue operating costs and alert the maintenance andoperations departments when excess energyconsumption occurs so that waste and itsassociated costs can be minimized.

Combined, the measurement of these fourfoundational elements creates the GAS index, whichcan be used to measure the overall ability of anorganization and its building assets to generaterevenue, serve tenants well, and keep costs low.

Gauge an asset’s performancewith the GAS indexThe GAS index consists of the measurement of thefour major components described in the previoussection: availability, performance, quality, and energyconsumption. The first three factors are part of overallequipment effectiveness (OEE), while the fourth(energy) is the largest cost driver for operating assetsin most organizations. An EAM-based facilitiesmanagement system can help an organizationcombine the OEE metric—which factors in theavailability, performance, and quality of an asset—withthe GAS index to create a complete picture of anasset’s performance.

Take, for example, an organization that operatesacross 50 facilities. A conventional facilitiesmanagement system may indicate that the chillercomponent of an HVAC system is operating withinacceptable limits, when in actuality the chiller at eachfacility is consuming $5,000 more in energy than wasexpected. In this example, GAS could save theorganization an additional $250,000 per year inHVAC energy costs on top of traditional EAM system savings.

By incorporating energy consumption into an assetmanagement practice via GAS, organizations can gainthe required visibility and control into unnecessaryenergy usage, while also finding answers to eliminatewaste. This approach and resulting savings can beapplied to any energy-consuming assets, such as themotors that drive production equipment.

7How smart buildings can deliver long-term asset sustainability Industry Perspectives

An EAM-based facilities management system can helpto deliver these insights, but to do so it must becomea system of record, or a consistent single repository,for asset management information throughout thelifecycle of the asset. The EAM system can then play arole as assets are purchased, commissioned,operated, maintained, and even retired. EAM-basedfacilities management systems offer proven benefits inboosting efficiency through improving equipmentcapacity, productivity, and operating costs. They alsocan help increase the productivity of maintenancelabor, and can lower maintenance, repair, andoperating inventory levels and costs.

Review an asset’s energyconsumption with EAM toolsRelatively mature organizations already useEAM-based facilities management systems to helpkeep their equipment operating at peak efficiency.The EAM software helps ensure that systems andpieces of equipment that run production and facilitiesexperience minimal downtime, maximum lifespan, andeffective operation. In essence, an EAM-basedfacilities management system helps align assetinfrastructure with business requirements.

What follows are some technologies and practicesthat organizations can use to review the assetperformance in their buildings.

Use submeters in discretemulti-tenant spaces to gather dataRather than measure a building’s energy usage as awhole, the information a building or facility collects canget very granular. This is where submeters come intoplay. A submetering system collects energyconsumption data for electric, water, and gas meteringdevices. Submeters can be placed in each discreteunit in a multi-tenant building to measure individualapartments, office suites, storefronts, and more.

According to Greentech Media, "submetering discretebuilding power systems—HVAC, lights, plug loads,common spaces, security and emergency evacuationsystems, etc.—can also help a facilities manageroptimize each, whether it’s predicting whichequipment is about to fail and replacing it, or running itwhen electricity is cheap and shutting down when it’sabout to skyrocket in price."6

With the data gained from submeters, building ownersand managers can determine if certain occupants aregreater power hogs than others, and incentivize theirtenants to control their energy use. In addition, asubmeter is a flexible, easily configurable utility thatcan extract data from building management or EAMsystem databases on a recurring, automated basis.

8How smart buildings can deliver long-term asset sustainability Industry Perspectives

Allocate equipment assets based on their Energy Star ratingsOne way to determine a building’s efficiency and plota course of action to make improvements is tomeasure its Energy Star rating. Developed by theEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA) and theDepartment of Energy (DOE), the Energy Star rating isa US-based standard for measuring the energyefficiency of computers, servers, HVAC systems,lighting, and other appliances.

Just as new and used automobiles have a fuelefficiency rating, typically stated in miles per gallon, aproperty can also earn a rating based on energyefficiency when compared to properties of the sameor similar type. The Energy Star rating is astandardized value (1–100) given to a property basedon factors such as energy consumption, property use,occupancy, and weather. A rating of 75 indicates thatat the time of the rating, the property was in the top25th percentile of similar properties across thecountry. The Empire State Building, for example, hadan Energy Star rating of 90 in 2013, after its retrofit process.7

When data is collected about actual energy usage in abuilding management or EAM system, this data can beshared with the EPA to determine an Energy Starrating. The EPA provides a suite of web services toenable the exchange of data to manage buildingcharacteristics, operational information, and energydata; and to retrieve key performance metrics, such asthe Energy Star rating.

Adapt better businesspractices for degree daysAnother strategy for getting the most out of abuilding’s assets is to change business practices forcertain assets—HVAC systems, for example—basedon seasonal variations. This practice is known as“degree days,” where the hotter the day, the harderthe equipment will run—hence, a higher bill and alarger CO2 footprint. Degree days are an average ofoutside air temperature used to calculate how muchenergy is needed to heat or cool a building.

There are two types of degree days:

■ Heating degree days (HDD) are usedcomparatively to measure the relative severity of awinter, or how much energy is required to heat abuilding. Heating degree days are used to “relateeach day's temperatures to the demand for fuel toheat buildings.”8

■ Cooling degree days (CDD) are usedcomparatively to measure the relative severity of asummer, or how much energy is required to cool abuilding using an air conditioner.

EAM-based toolsfor facilities management can helporganizations align their asset infrastructurewith their business requirements.

9How smart buildings can deliver long-term asset sustainability Industry Perspectives

Degree day averages can be created by an EAMsystem with temperature data sourced from theNational Climatic Data Center, the climate datasteward of the National Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration (NOAA); and World Weather Online(WWO). By monitoring this data and using it to informhow assets are used, organizations can reduce theirCO2 footprint as well as avoid unnecessary wear andtear on their building’s HVAC systems.

In addition, because degree days are an average ofregional temperatures, they can be used to determinethe best locations to headquarter buildings or facilitiesthat have specific uses. For example, data centers,which need to be kept cool, are best located inregions that have the lowest number of coolingdegree days. Adapting business practices to allow fora mobile workforce can also help control energy costsin office buildings during times of the year when thereare the highest number of cooling or heating degreedays in a particular region.

Cut down on energy waste through effective space planningTo make an investment in smart building and assetmanagement technologies that truly delivers,organizations must also take a close look at how theirbuildings and other facilities are being used. For asmuch energy as buildings consume, as much as 50%of office space goes unused most of the time, reportsthe corporate real estate associate CoreNet Global.9

With efficient space planning, building managers andowners can account for degree days, allocate theirenergy resources via submeter data, and ensureproper asset utilization. Effective space planning canbe accomplished with the use of smart buildingtechnologies such as building information modeling(BIM) tools.

The National BIM Standard (NBIMS) has defined BIMtools as a digital representation of physical andfunctional characteristics of a facility.10 BIM tools canhelp establish asset sustainability and facilitybaselines, forecast facility operational costs, andaccess initial layout designs for space management.Not only can BIM be used to create 3D models andvisualization aids, but these models can also integrategraphical and non-graphical information.

For decisions and collaboration of differentstakeholders at different phases of the lifecycle, BIMcan be used to create a shared knowledge resourcefor information about the facility. A facilitiesmanagement system should enable organizations toaccess the BIM equipment data, data sheets,specifications, warranties, and linked documents anddrawings to efficiently plan their building and facilityspaces. This way wasted space does not result inwasted energy or assets.

1 National Institute of Building Sciences, “Whole Building Design Guide: Smart Controls,” Feb 2013.

2 Anthony E. Malkin, "Four reasons why the Empire State Building retrofit model works," Clinton Foundation(https://www.clintonfoundation.org/blog/2014/08/12/four-reasons-why-empire-state-building-retrofit-model-works), Aug 12, 2014.

3 Clinton Foundation and Empire State Realty Trust, "Innovative Empire State Building [program cuts $7.5M in energy costs over past three years," Aug 11,2014, press release.

4 US Energy Information Administration (EIA), "How much energy is consumed in residential and commercial buildings in the United States?" EIAIndependent Statistics & Analysis (http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=86&t=1), April 3, 2015.

5 Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), "Smart grid: Revolutionizing our energy future," (https://www.edf.org/climate/smart-grid-overview), 2015.

6 Jeff St. John, "Submetering for building energy efficiency: GE tackles the translation gap," Greentech Media(http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/ge-breaking-language-barriers-in-submetering), July 25, 2012.

7 Buildings, "Empire State Building Aims Higher," Buildings(http://www.buildings.com/article-details/articleid/16021/title/empire-state-building-aims-higher.aspx), June 28, 2013.

8 Bob Swanson, "Heating and cooling degree days," USA Today (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/weather/resources/askjack/waskdays.htm), Sept 7, 2005.

9 CoreNet Global, "Designing the mobile workforce," CoreNet Global New York City Chapter(http://newyorkcity.corenetglobal.org/memberresources/resources/expertcorner), 2015.

10 National BIM Standard-United States, "About the National BIM Standard-United States," (https://www.nationalbimstandard.org/about), 2015.

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Energy is expensive. With the right materials and information, a building can be run in a more efficient manner,while also delivering long-term energy and asset sustainability. Over time, organizations that use smart buildingtechnologies can save more on costs; create a more productive building environment for their tenants, patients,or citizens; and continue to gain actionable insights into their building management needs.

For a smart building to succeed, its facilities management system should be able to establish sustainable energypolicies and programs, monitor and measure energy performance to determine the causes of energy waste andexpense in a timely manner, and enact the activities and programs to correct these issues. This system, withintegrated energy and environmental management, should provide end-to-end control over how a building'senergy is used, while also providing the ability to continually monitor asset health and behavior, analyze data todetect key trends and anomalies, forecast performance issues, make decisions, and drive action.

With EAM-based facilities management technologies, organizations can collect, monitor, and act on the data theirbuildings produce. This information can help organizations to realize incredible gains in energy and cost savings,while also adding extra life to their buildings and assets.