You’re better connected – a joined-up approach to your technology architecture
Author : By David Lewis, Marketing Projects Manager at Schneider Electric
26 September 2019
Businesses are more than just the people who run them. They are also buildings, facilities and, increasingly, technology and IT infrastructures. To be successful, it is crucial for all these varied but interlinked functions to communicate and work together. Yet a great number of businesses do not seem to be getting the message.
When you design or operate a siloed business, decisions or actions in one area can have unforeseen ramifications in another. Sometimes the system can be un-reliable, key functions can be rendered in-operable and, whilst the business waits for everything to be fixed, the operations suffer. Key functions, such as building management, become expensive to run and, whilst crucial operations, contribute very little to business profits.
The ‘customer architecture’ is a philosophy or design principle that helps you turn your power and technology infrastructure from a cost of business into an asset. With the right approach and the power of the Internet of things (IoT), it’s possible to link together all the elements of a large project, such as a construction project, to maximise efficiency, reliability and operability. This minimises both operational expenditure and initial capital expenditure through design efficiencies.
The customer architecture principle can be applied to many applications: Electrical, for power train fault level optimisation, cascading, selectivity and grading coordination; Mechanical, for cooling, HVAC and distribution; and IT and communications, for infrastructure, visibility, apps and analytics.
Integrating this functionality can lead to space and cost efficiencies, maintaining or enhancing lead-times while mitigating design risk and implementation delays.
The connected advantage
The buildings and facilities of the future must be connected from the ground up. During the design and build stage, connected devices and sensors should be a key part of the project. Embedding them early in the process means you can enjoy the benefits of a connected approach from the beginning and avoids the costs of needing to install them down the line. Indeed, an integrated design, construction, installation and commissioning may deliver substantial efficiency – 13 percent overall savings on integration and engineering costs when monitoring and control are integrated into the design.
Yet the benefits of an integrated and connected approach are found at the operations level. Connected solutions provide an unprecedented level of insights and capabilities. From a building’s power infrastructure to its lighting and HVAC, connected devices can collect reliability, availability, maintenance, environmental and status data, giving managers complete visibility into their facilities.
This visibility allows managers to see what is always happening, letting them respond to problems rapidly and even anticipate issues before they occur. This is the foundation of predictive maintenance, where device health can be accurately monitored with issues identified and resolved before they can turn into crises, leading to less downtime and avoiding the cost of expensive repairs. An example of is the PowerTag wireless energy sensor for asset management, and wireless temperature sensors which can be used on transformer connections to detect potential maintenance issues.
A connected technology architecture also allows you to identify efficiencies across operations. Energy costs are consistently one of a business’s largest outgoings, but with the capabilities to measure and monitor energy usage it becomes easy to spot areas where it is being wasted. Once inefficient energy use has been identified – such as when a building’s management system is not maintained or optimised – the functionality can be monitored remotely and switched into low-power states, saving energy and money.
The goal is to move from an architecture of individual parts and products to one that is based on applications that integrate, communicate and work together. Instead of working to control one product at a time, you are leveraging the infrastructure, data and information with an application that monitors and controls all the connected equipment in the building. This is the definition of business transformation.
Safety in numbers
Using a common coordinated philosophy across all elements of a building or facility architecture, and in turn utilising the information from its operating system, can enable greater operational safety and system reliability. A case in point is how connected architectures are being used to mitigate the dangers of arc flash.
An arc flash is a dangerous electrical event that involves an uncontrolled release of energy, emitting deadly levels of gas, heat, pressure and light. The causes are various, ranging from insultation breakdown to a foreign metal object making contact within an electrical assembly, but it always poses a major danger to operators and potentially employees and property.
However, by utilising arc flash detection and prevention technologies fire risk can be reduced, and operator safety increased with the customer architectures approach as a backbone to ensure a coordinated full project approach. Indeed, recent IEC draft technical documents TR 61641 and 63107 ED1 advise on the integration of arc flash solutions into low voltage switchgear and control gear assemblies for personnel protection, arc flash protection and mitigation.
The key to mitigating the danger of arc flash is understanding the incident energy level (IEL) present in the environment. Once this is known, a connected approach to protection should be adopted. This should involve personal protection equipment for operators and insulation levels within the switchgear environment, but also connected maintenance practices. The most effective strategies will take advantage of online monitoring, remote operation, ERMS (Energy Reduction Maintenance Settings) as well as smoke and hot spot detection using connected smoke detectors and infrared sensors.
When an integrated and connected approach is utilised, every level of the value chain is enhanced. End users will benefit from greater protection, safety, efficiency and reliability; specifiers will acquire the knowledge to be able to design effective and standardised switchgear solutions; panel builders will use the same insight to enable faster response times and simpler technical implementation; and contractors will enjoy greater safety on-site, simpler installations and commissioning mitigating project risk. When all elements are connected, from design to installation to operation, everyone benefits.
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