For a building manager, a familiar start of the day is a ringing alarm, and not just the wake-up alarm, but an alert from a building system somewhere across a portfolio of properties. Most often the alarm is unspecified, it is merely an indicator of action needed. What if that alarm could be specified to what, where and how urgent the issue actually is?
Our expert, Philip Andersson, Product Manager Digital Services, explains how today’s digital services can save time and cost, and make building management easy.
Products, solutions and systems related to heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) are more advanced than ever. They generate large amounts of operational data that offer insights into single processes or units as well as to entire HVAC solutions and buildings.
At the same time, building management teams are under increasing time pressure and a common development is that each individual is responsible for a growing number of installations. Aside from simply managing a larger property portfolio, the expectations on uptime have risen and many additional requirements must be met. The latter are often related to indoor climate and energy efficiency parameters such as temperature, humidity levels, air quality and overall operational performance.
All this combined leave building management teams with a feeling of being unprepared and inadequate as alarms continue to follow one another. Proactive HVAC maintenance is overlooked when pressing troubleshooting takes centre stage. There is also a risk that seemingly small deviations or irregularities are ignored, or go unnoticed, until they become critical and costly issues. What if there was a way to change this?
Knowing before-hand
A good starting point for easy building management is having an overview of the property scope at hand. Even more valuable is getting an indication of which units, solutions and systems are operating as expected, and where performance parameters are drifting off. An ideal help, would be clearly identified and signaled critical issues that needs immediate attention.
The above may not sound too difficult in today’s digital reality, while it would make significant difference to a building management team’s daily work. Unnecessary site visits could be avoided, downtime minimised and system reliability improved over time. Additionally, maintenance personnel would feel a stronger sense of ownership of their time and priorities.
What would be needed?
At a basic level, this could be satisfied with real-time visibility of system performance, including operational information. It would provide a swift overview and meet the need for “knowing” what is happening. To understand and assess what is shown, historical data would add context and help confirm trends, highlight deviations and support the need to “evaluate” reasonable measures. This makes it easier to understand how systems behave over time, not just when alarms occur. Finally, tools that enable predictive and preventive maintenance could meet the need for “planning ahead”, and be the cornerstone of easy building management.
In practice, the above can be clear and intuitive dashboards, smart alarm notifications and in-depth analytics tools. But is there anything like it?
INSIDE Manager - from reactive to proactive
INSIDE Manager is our digital service designed to support this way of working. It brings together clear dashboards, tailored alarm notifications and advanced analysis of both historical and present data.
INSIDE Manager is the difference between reacting to any and all alarms, and having the ability to prioritise, making sure time is well spent and letting people in these roles feel confident and satisfied with their daily work. Simply put, INSIDE Manager provides the in-depth understanding to move from reactive troubleshooting to proactive, easy building management.
Getting started with INSIDE Manager
INSIDE Manager is compatible with Swegon products that are INSIDE Ready, meaning, it works with products, solutions and systems that are prepared for being connected to our digital services. No additional hardware, retrofitting or system modifications are required.
Worth knowing, is that even existing Swegon products already in operation may be INSIDE Ready and can be connected to INSIDE Manager even after years of use.
Further, there is no requirement to connect all INSIDE Ready units at once. While wider visibility provides better evaluation and planning potential, it is possible to start with a limited number of connected units and scale up gradually as needs and confidence grow.
Wake up with clarity
In sum, INSIDE Manager supports building management team’s throughout their working day. And beyond. INSIDE Manager turns undefined alarms into clear, actionable insights. Instead of starting the day reacting, building managers start it knowing what is happening, where it is happening and how urgent it is. With clarity and control, they can evaluate, prioritise and plan ahead with confidence.
Learn more about INSIDE Manager on our website or contact us at digitalservices@swegon.com for more information.
