AutomatedBuildings.com Article - Our Industry Should Support New Division 17

Steve Thomas, Johnson Controls, Inc

Steve Thomas is manager of marketing communications at Johnson Controls, Inc. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

I encourage every reader of automatedbuildings.com to do everything you can to learn about and support this new proposal. Why? Because a new technology division in the MasterFormat would give us all a better chance to apply the technology we read about every month in this e-magazine.

Over the next few weeks, committees of the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) will be considering several proposals to change or expand the current 16 CSI MasterFormatÔ divisions. A proposal put forth by Thomas Rauscher, of Archi-Technology, proposes to create a new Division 17 with the heading "Technology and Communication Systems," or TACS. As currently proposed, this new technology division would cover telecommunication and networking technologies plus building automation and access control and surveillance. The proposal has already received serious consideration and has the backing of many telecommunication associations and the National Systems Contractor Association (NSCA).

[an error occurred while processing this directive]In the current construction process, technology issues are often not addressed until the end. By that point, the budgets are tight, the timelines are tight, and the physical structure may be pretty far along. So the technology is fit around the structure and the already-planned mechanical equipment - and the main goal is to get an adequate solution at the lowest possible price. In addition, controls and automation products are split into several different CSI divisions, meaning that they are specified, purchased and installed separately by different contractors. As a result , buildings built today use only use a fraction of the capabilities available.

A separate CSI Division addressing technology could lead to a process that incorporates planning for technology issues at the design phase of a project. A separate division would also provide an opportunity for the technology solution to be evaluated and specified in a holistic way, instead of one system at a time. While there is advanced technology in buildings today, most of it is stand-alone technology that maximizes the performance of a piece of equipment (a chiller, for instance). And most BAS systems today are used only to maximize the performance of the HVAC system - though they have the capability to save energy, control lighting and reduce operating costs in many additional ways.

Why not plan from the start to leverage technology across systems and equipment to maximize the performance of the BUILDING? A new Technology Division would allow this kind of thinking to take place and would give building systems technologies the ability to shine - the way we all know they can.

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