Simply organizing how devices and room environments are used gives your people the chance to work with the best equipment for them and in a room best designed to help them reach their goals. Regardless of your application, there are three basic ways in which a control and automation system will have an immediate impact on a facility.
The big three are:
1. Energy Savings
2. Human Resources Management
3. Efficiency
Federal and state mandates for energy sustainability have been forcing many organizations to examine energy consumption carefully and to plan how to eliminate waste. “The only way we’re going to meet the energy savings and sustainability goals that the U.S. has put forth is if we start controlling and automating every aspect of the business,” says Cheryl Krasho, Crestron Regional Sales Manager. “Here in California, they are very stringent with energy management. We need to have zero net energy by 2030 for all new construction, and by 2050 for all commercial buildings in the state of California.”
An example of a control and automation system paying off in energy savings is incorporating an audio/visual control system in to a system that features room occupancy sensors. “If the room is unoccupied after a certain amount of time, the system says: ‘OK, there’s no one in here, let’s turn this stuff off,’” says Joseph Thomas, training development manager in the Dallas office of AVI-SPL.
Another aspect of energy savings is the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certified Building effort. LEED is a rating system for building construction design, and many areas have incentive programs that promote the creation of these buildings. The ratings describe how “green” a building is. “If I’m looking at an LEED engineered building that uses natural sunlight for lighting versus the typical halogens, I can look at the time of day, determine where that place is, see how much light is coming in and increase or decrease the amount of lighting needed in that area,” says Titus Sam, AMX Director, National Accounts. “All without human intervention; that’s all automation.”
In order to ensure maximum uptime for an organization’s tech human resources, control and automation systems provide an interface that can be accessed from a computer, tablet
