AutomatedBuildings.com Interview -

Kurt Zalewski is the Sales Manager of Control Solutions, Inc., a company specializing in network gateways, embedded control devices, and remote monitoring services for the building automation, facility management, and commercial automation industry.

Control Solutions

Today we offer a line of off the shelf embedded control products with BACnet, LonWorks, Modbus, ZigBee, SNMP, cellular and satellite connectivity.

Sinclair: Kurt, for those readers unfamiliar with Control Solutions, tell us briefly what you do.

Zalewski: Sure, Ken, Control Solutions began in 1995 developing gateways for building automation, facility management, and commercial automation. Today we offer a line of off the shelf embedded control products with BACnet, LonWorks, Modbus, ZigBee, SNMP, cellular and satellite connectivity. In addition, our www.logmydata.com web portal offers a clean, efficient, and low cost platform for global remote monitoring in a variety of applications.

Sinclair: You’re a new addition to the Control Solutions team. How does that impact customers?

Zalewski: That’s a great question. For customers who have been using our products and are satisfied with the service they’ve received, nothing changes. Control Solutions has a great informational website and online store which meets the needs of 95% of our customers. I get involved with that 5% where the scope of their inquiry isn’t easily addressed through a web interface. That includes customers looking for an OEM solution for network gateways, customers in need of complex solutions connecting numerous devices using multiple protocols, and customers looking to streamline monitoring devices at multiple locations, just to name a few scenarios.

Zalewski: Our sales are growing and we needed our sales staff to grow with it. The bulk of my time will be focusing on OEM opportunities. So many companies are trying to add value by making their equipment compatible with multiple network protocols or add remote monitoring capability. Control Solutions provides reliable field-proven devices with easy-to-use configuration tools at an affordable price. Many building and commercial automation suppliers find us a perfect fit to expand their capability while minimizing their development costs.

Zalewski: Earlier this year we re-introduced the improved ValuPoint® VP4-2330 BACnet MS/TP Application Specific Controller. Customers have responded quite favorably to the enhanced processor speed and memory capacity. The 4th generation ValuPoint® platform features 14 universal context sensitive inputs, 3 analog outputs, 6 Form A relay outputs, and pulse counting capability on all inputs. In addition, we’ve made significant improvements in the support tools, including the configuration tool, the i.CanDrawIt graphical programming tool, and the pliWrite line programming tool. These tools, as always, are available for free download.

Sinclair: Given customer reaction, will we be seeing more upgraded I/O devices from Control Solutions?

Zalewski: Absolutely. The 4th generation ValuPoint® platform is designed to be a building block in a distributed control system where controllers communicate peer to peer via BACnet MS/TP. So, you will definitely be seeing growth in the ValuPoint® line.

Zalewski: We are in the process of upgrading our entire LonWorks gateway family to include the new FT-5000 chip. The new chip will provide an increase in both speed and functionality. The new family of LonWorks gateways will be introduced in 2013. There’s some very exciting news coming up regarding our remote monitoring devices and LogMyData.com service. Several other things are in development that I can’t tell you about just yet. We will post details on Control Solutions' website and in our Quarterly Newsletter as they become available. And I will, of course, share that info with you and your readers, Ken.

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