By Marc Petock, Executive Secretary and Member of the Board of Directors Project Haystack
One word, DATA. The importance of data. It’s transforming everything. Data has changed the way companies in every industry does business and manages performance. Data is now an irreplaceable asset. And data has never been more important in delivering smart buildings.
However, a challenge that continues within smart buildings involves the vast differences in how data is identified and named. Definitions are often different, depending on the manufacturer, vendor, or other stakeholders describing the building data.
Add to that, the amount of data created by the equipment, systems and devices that make up a smart building has exploded; Today’s automation systems and smart devices produce tremendous amounts of data to the point where we have expanded our reach to a range of devices that can gather and analyze physical data and react to that data in a variety of applications that we’ve never seen before.
However, this data can be very hard to organize and use across different applications because it is stored in many different formats; has inconsistent naming conventions and very limited data descriptors. It lacks information to describe the meaning of the data. And without meaning, a time-consuming manual effort is required before analysis and value creation can begin. And without proper analytics, this data is not useful.
The challenge is to make the data available in the right format and deliver it to the right person at the right place and time within a secure environment. This is the basic requirement to create a data value chain. To realize the full value of data, it must be collected securely, in a timely manner, standardized in the correct format, made ready to be used, put in context with operations and events and presented to the right persons at the right time to enable timely decision-making.
To help with homogenizing these definitions and democratizing data, Project Haystack, an open-source standard has been leading the way to make working with building data easier to work with and more efficient.
One of the major activities Project Haystack undertakes is Haystack Connect. Haystack Connect provides a unique opportunity for professionals involved in building automation, control, operations and yes, data, to learn and share the latest techniques for connecting systems and utilizing device data in applications, including intelligent buildings, energy management, remote monitoring, and other smart-device applications.
This year’s Haystack Connect 2023 is taking place in Nashville, June 5-7.
Come join the many sponsors and attendees to learn from domain experts, control engineers, developers and building owners and operators who will be sharing their knowledge and expertise on several key important data subject areas within the built environment.
Some of the subjects to be covered include:
- How Haystack Extends the Value of Data
- Building a Strong Data Integration Architecture
- Specifying Haystack
- A New Era for Data-Interoperability and Convergence-Haystack’s Role in a Data Strategy, Digital Twins, IDL and the Smarter Stack
- Haystack in Practice in the Built Environment
- Haystack and ESG
- Haystack 4 Roadmap
- Working Group Updates
- And more!
To find out more, visit www.haystackconnect.org.
