Data has become a critical asset for the built environment. When captured, normalized, tagged, and analyzed, data can enable a true transformation on how we manage and operate our facilities. Accessing and making effective use of data from existing operational systems is a critical element of all smart building initiatives.

Today's increased access to data from equipment systems and a new generation of IoT devices presents new opportunities to improve the efficiency and sustainability of our facilities, however, having access to data is only the first step in making meaningful use of it. Capturing the meaning of our data and representing that meaning in a uniform way is the key to deriving benefit from facility and equipment data.

John Petze, Executive Director and Marc Petock, Executive Secretary of Project Haystack will discuss the use of semantic tagging and its key role in making data interoperability across different systems and applications.  in determining what data is relevant, how to standardize it, how to give it common context, how to streamline it to unlock the data’s true value and how it enables a true transformation on the way we manage and operate buildings. The presentation will also provide an update on the latest work of the Project-Haystack.org.

Celebrating its 10th year, Project Haystack continues its global acceptance in commercial buildings of all types and sizes and there is a lot of important news to share including:

- DoE Funding of Project-Haystack.org to further advance teh standard and develop validation and testing programs and tools

- The launch of eLearning programs to help new users get up to speed with Haystack

- Growth of the community and major new corporate Associate members supporting the Project Haystack organization
 
- Update on working groups extending the tagging libraries and ontology models to new applications.

The Haystack session is scheduled for Monday, January 31, from 12:30 pm-1:00 pm (local Las Vegas time).