Success with energy management

Bob: You just completed a really good installation of energy management module for one of our government clients in Southern California. Talk to me about some of the successes that happened there.

Todd: It was exciting to see them get their utility information available in ARCHIBUS in a way that would allow them to do some reporting that had previously taken them weeks or months. It can now be done in minutes or hours. One example is that the two most common questions they were asked were “Tell me how much a building of this type costs in terms of electricity and gas usage.” Those used to take them quite a few days to put together the report that was necessary and we built them a report that took just a couple of minutes. 

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Advantages of energy management

Bob: If you were to talk to other clients about the energy management module, what would you say are some advantages of using the system?

Todd: One of the things that ARCHIBUS brings that’s unique is the ability to pull in data from external weather agencies to compare energy usage to actual climate models. That’s a great thing. You can actually look at the energy, gas, and electricity usage and you can plot that against what the cooling degree days for that same period were and see that your energy usage may be a bit off the charts this year but maybe that’s because it was a hotter year than last year. That’s a useful thing to be able to do. It’s difficult to do in the client’s old system, but easy to do in ARCHIBUS. 

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KPIs delivered with energy management

Bob: Can you name some KPIs that they got out of this?

Todd: We talked a little bit about the average building usage of energy per square foot as one of the KPIs. Another one is just straight usage. Often a department will come in and say, “How much usage did we have in this area of the county in the last year?” and they’re able to answer that question pretty quickly now. 

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What are you proud of?

Bob: What are some of the things that you are very proud of that you have been a part of here at RSC?

Todd: I think I’m in the midst of something that I expect to be very proud of. I’m working on the latest version of MicroView tablet which will take MicroView tablet offline. It’s a great capability that we’ve needed for a long time and I’m looking forward to having that done. I can’t claim that as a success yet, but I am excited to be working on it. I’ve worked on several implementations at clients that I’m proud to have under my belt. The energy management implementation at the government client in Southern California is a great one. Taking another energy management client here in California to a new version of ARCHIBUS is a great success as well and I’m glad to have been a part of that. 

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Implementing key management

Bob: Let’s switch gears to another client. We have an energy management client in the midwest. We just implemented a key control module there. Talk to me about some of the challenges with that key control installation and some of the successes.

Todd: Key control has a number of unique challenges to it. Security is really important to this client. Getting the key approvals correct was a very big deal for them. That was the challenge. Advantages obviously are that processes that used to be completely manual are now entirely automated. That idea of having to get several levels of approvals for someone to have a key is entirely through the system. 

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Key Management and CMMS

Bob: You talk about needing approval in several levels. Does it connect any of the work order system to be able to get those approvals or is it separate? How does it work?

Todd: The approvals happen entirely through the key control system that we have implemented for them. One of the things that does happen is that keys are a physical asset just like anything else and if you’re out of keys you usually have to generate a work order to produce more. That is one of things that the key control system does in talking to the rest of ARCHIBUS. When key volume is low and the system can see that there is a request for those keys coming it will generate a work order to build more of those keys. 

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Challenges in energy management

Bob: What were some of the challenges in implementing the energy management module?

Todd: They enter the bills that represent the basis of utility data in another system. We had to build an interface to bring that information across and the granularity wasn’t quite the same. We had to solve some questions about how we were going to represent these things in our ARCHIBUS terms.

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Case Study: MicroView Tablet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqEDm1crQOM&list=PLm96rMaDUnbCWVeqS-PrZn9ONhiAucO0L&index=12

Bob: On the MicroView Tablet side we just worked with a social media company in the Silicon Valley where we have over 50 individuals doing daily surveys using the MicroView tablet. Talk to me about the success there and some of the challenges.

Todd: It’s an internet company, and they build online web applications all the time. They are used to seeing a very sexy, cool interface built into their products and expect the same of us. I think that’s been the challenge, but it’s also an opportunity. They’ve pushed us and we’ve pushed ourselves to build out MicroView tablet in ways that make it capable of doing things that we’re very proud of, but that are difficult things to do. The room and equipment surveys that it can do and the capability it has of plotting those on a map and letting you see the status of those equipment surveys at any given time are really impressive capabilities and something that I think many clients are going to be able to make great use of.

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Conversations with Todd: Automatic energy feeds into data management

Bob: You talk about NOAA and getting that information. How often and to what pieces of information do you synchronize? How does that work?

Todd: Every building is associated with a weather station that is nearby. Each night, ARCHIBUS pulls across updated weather information for that weather station so you can compare energy usage to the real time weather data as it becomes available. 

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A day in the life of a tech lead at RSC!

Bob: You’re the tech lead here at RSC. Talk to me about a common day for you.

Todd: RSC’s a small company and I get to wear a lot of hats. That’s an exciting thing. I find myself doing software development and professional services support where I’m helping out with real time problems at other clients. I’m also managing a client of my own. I don’t think I have the heaviest load by far in terms of client administration, but I get to do a lot of different things and that’s fun. 

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Conversations with Todd

This week we are thrilled to bring you another video from are new series on the blog: Conversations with Todd.  Conversations with Todd are a series of videos where Todd Forsyth, Technical Lead and Executive Staff Member here at Robert Stephen Consulting, LLC. discusses different aspects of the industry.  Be sure to keep your eyes open for more Conversations with Todd!




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Conversations with Todd

Bob: On the MicroView Tablet side we just worked with a social media company in the Silicon Valley where we have over 50 individuals doing daily surveys using the MicroView tablet. Talk to me about the success there and some of the challenges.

Todd: It’s an internet company, and they build online web applications all the time. They are used to seeing a very sexy, cool interface built into their products and expect the same of us. I think that’s been the challenge, but it’s also an opportunity. They’ve pushed us and we’ve pushed ourselves to build out MicroView tablet in ways that make it capable of doing things that we’re very proud of, but that are difficult things to do. The room and equipment surveys that it can do and the capability it has of plotting those on a map and letting you see the status of those equipment surveys at any given time are really impressive capabilities and something that I think many clients are going to be able to make great use of.