How to Realize Value from an AFDD platform without Lifting a Finger

Kelsey Haas, C.E.M.
Senior Director, Ezenics

The title of this article, “How to Realize Value from an AFDD Platform without Lifting a Finger” is almost too good to be true. As an Enterprise Customer, if you’ve invested in an Automated Fault Detection and Diagnostics (AFDD) Platform, you’ve likely also invested time and money into reviewing and resolving the issues identified. The life cycle from issue inception to identification to resolution can take anywhere from days to months, extending issues with potential energy, maintenance, and/or comfort repercussions. So how is it possible to realize value from an AFDD Platform without lifting a finger given the resources that go into the lifecycle of identifying and resolving a Facility’s energy, comfort, and maintenance issues?

There are two basic categories of analytics outcomes from an AFDD Platform: analytics which compare two values, usually an equipment control parameter such as a setpoint or schedule to a business rule, and analytics which utilize more complex criteria to detect equipment and sensor inefficiencies or failures which can lead to excess energy consumption or comfort control issues. For almost all of our Enterprise Clients, the easier and more cost-effective analytics category to understand and resolve (the “low-hanging fruit”) is the former, involving comparison of equipment control parameters to business rules; we call these Exceptions.

Automation of Setpoint & Schedule Issues

Exceptions, because they are essentially a comparison of two values, an equipment control parameter such as a setpoint or schedule to your operating guideline(your expected value), are easy to understand. Exceptions are also typically much easier than other types of Faults to resolve because the required resolution is undertaken by updating the control parameter on the Device/BMS or by updating the business rule itself to accommodate special circumstances. While Exceptions are easy to identify and resolve, the difficulty for most Enterprise clients is the sheer number of Exceptions that are reported daily, weekly, or monthly (…and for Retail clients during the Holidays, the number of Exceptions increases dramatically!). Most Enterprise Clients can easily become bogged down in Exceptions resolution, leaving little time to focus on other types of faults which represent significant Energy and Comfort related impact to equipment and zone conditions.

To free up your Engineering, Facilities, and/or Energy staff’s time to review, investigate, and resolve more complex faults, we focus on a solution involving automation of Exception resolution. As the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to expand, we will see more and more devices capable not just of transmitting data, but also with the ability for values to be written back to them. With write-back capabilities you can enable automatic resolution of Exceptions, given business rules such as “Resolve any Exception which has occurred for more than 7 days and is creating a +/- 2°F setpoint difference on the device.” Business rules can be flexibly integrated or adjusted as trust is further ingrained in the system, leading to a fully automated Exceptions Resolution process which will realize value from the AFDD Platform without your team lifting a finger.

Work Order Automation

The second category of AFDD analytics utilize more complex criteria to detect equipment inefficiencies and failures which lead to excess energy consumption or comfort control issues; we refer to these analytics as Faults. Unlike Exceptions that can be resolved via programming or updating guidelines, Faults may involve physical on site repair. As clients review Fault findings and gain confidence that a repair is needed, the next iteration is to automate as many steps as possible in the resolution process.

Similar to the process for automating Exception resolution, business rules can be setup and automated in your AFDD system to send certain identified, persistent issues to an on-site technician or an outside vendor. For example, a client can setup rules such as “if the Controller is offline for more than 24 hours at the site, email the on-site technician for resolution,” or “if the Outside Air Damper is stuck closed during prime Economizing conditions for more than 48 hours, then generate and send a work order to the assigned service vendor.” By automating work order creation and/or generating automated emails to field technicians from AFDD diagnostic outputs based on defined sets of business rules, business processes and fault resolution are streamlined without your Engineering, Facilities, and/or Energy teams having to review and analyze each fault and create work orders.

Generate Impressive Results for Your C-Suite AND Be the Hero of Your Facilities Team(s)

If the last 9 months of the Global Pandemic have taught us anything, it’s that time is important. With only 8 hours in a typical work day, we need to maximize our time and productivity. By applying a set of business rules to automate the resolution of set point, schedule, and other parameter deviations from your operating guidelines, you are maximizing savings and reducing the time and effort needed to address these low hanging fruit. Taking another step to automate Fault resolution by setting up additional business rules to automatically send emails or Work Orders to in house technicians or outside vendors will further streamline issue review and resolution. Implementing these automations with your building analytics platform will maximize savings, decrease the issue resolution life cycle, decrease your energy consumption and carbon emissions, reduce hot/cold calls in your facilities, and free up your team’s time to focus on other critical issues or innovative projects. Not only will you be your team’s hero, but your C-Suite will be impressed with the increased energy savings and reduction in carbon emissions without increasing resources (effectively doing more with less!).