Are You Ready to Embrace Building Systems Integration?
Integrating solutions like fire, HVAC, access control and video enables campuses to pull in every available bit of data during an emergency. Doing this allows security officials, law enforcement and fire personnel to better respond to a crisis.
Illustration: Ron Rennells
Farnsworth noted that most manufacturers have moved toward more open platforms that allow their technology to interoperate with other systems. It’s a philosophical determination, he suggests.
“Honeywell has been smart enough to know that while they sell security systems, access control, video and fire alarm systems, they better be able to interface with other systems that are out there,” said Farnsworth. “Being closed and being proprietary, in my opinion, is a short-term profit strategy. If you want to be a market leader, you have to be open.”
Farnsworth’s firm has worked on a number of integration projects utilizing NOTIFIER fire alarm systems, and he believes true integration enables software platforms to communicate and interact.
“Integration no longer means relying solely on hardware-based connections,” he says. “Properly planned and implemented, integration via software is cost effective and reduces risk. It avoids the duplication of devices and wiring.”
Achieving Integration Requires Coordination
Still, systems integration can be complicated. For instance, in the aforementioned East Coast hospital expansion, tying HVAC in with the fire alarm system involved 1,000 points where the two communicated.
Throughout the hospital project, all principals would meet almost weekly to ensure everyone was on the same page. Working with construction managers to connect integrators with the experts who knew the individual system
s, along with providing all of the documentation and manuals for each system was a big time-saver.
That mix of technologies and expertise is the biggest challenge in big integration projects, says Clement.
As an example, the East Coast hospital job involved an HVAC system, fire alarm and security system, all from various companies. Even the elevators were from three different manufacturers, highlighting the need for coordination of expertise and documentation to be done right at the start.
According to Clement, technology has never been the real obstacle to integration.
“The technology for integration has always been there through the use of relays and stuff,” he says. “But now it’s easier just to go in there, use your laptop, and change controls in a relay to open or close certain contacts.”
So while technology itself works together, Clement noted that the challenge comes in getting the elevator expert there at the same time as the HVAC guy and the fire alarm integrator.
How do you address that problem? Proper planning, says Farnsworth.
“You really need to engage the architect at the beginning of the project,” he explains. “And the architect needs to engage the end user, the mechanical engineer, the plumbing engineer, the security department, the facilities department — you’ve got to understand their campus layout, what’s critical to them beyond standard fire and access.”
Cost Savings, Efficiencies Justify Interoperability
More and more frequently, healthcare and other campuses are specifying integration in new construction, additions and even retrofits, with reasons including efficiency and, in some areas, cost savings.
Long-time integrators like TED Systems believe integration reduces duplication of systems, leading to reduced costs.
To illustrate this point, Farnsworth offers an example on a small scale: A burglar system on the doors will involve one set of contacts to arm and re-arm. Another set of contacts on the same door may handle access control. Similarly in HVAC, a set of contacts may exist for temperature control, and another set to shut down fan relays for smoke exhaust.
Throughout the building, additional wiring and devices duplicate each other because the systems were put in separately, not in an integrated fashion. Funding and oversight will typically come from different departments with no eye toward the overall cost savings that integration could provide.
“I can’t over-impress the need for an overall look at the project when it starts and upfront planning. What happens in most cases is the fire alarm, fire suppression and security systems are bid as separate projects, and there’s not a real definition as to what they want these systems to do past basic functions,” says Farnsworth. “Decisions are made for all the wrong reasons when planning is not an important part of the process to start with.”
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