Articles

Understanding the Difference Between EMS and BMS

February 29, 2016

Check out our updated post on this subject HERE.

According to a survey conducted by MACH Energy, 44% of 800 facility managers believe they have an energy management system (EMS) in place. In reality, more than 70% actually have a building management system (BMS or BAS). These results indicate, that even among users of these tools, there is confusion between the systems and what they do.

So what are the main differences? And how can you tell if you have an EMS or a BMS deployed?

A building management system or building automation system (BAS), is a computer based control system installed in building that controls and monitors the building’s mechanical and electrical equipment such as ventilation, lighting, power systems, and fire and security systems.

An energy management system is a system of computer aided tools used by operators of electric utility grids to monitor, control and optimize the generation and/or transmission system.

Key differences:

BMS is primarily about real-time control, it is the steering control for the operating system. The systems are not built for dealing with historical data or reporting.
EMS is primarily a reporting and decision support tool. It is a dashboard for energy data and can track trends and help decision makers

One reason it has become hard to differentiate between these two systems is because EMS functionality has been added to many BMS and vice versa. BMS/BAS only allow building teams to automate control, without giving insight into how much building systems should be adjusted and why. There is a growing case to support the adoption of both a BMS and an EMS in buildings, giving the building management both automated controls and data analysis.

Read the MACH Energy study, or learn more by clicking the source links below!

Sources:

Energy Management Today, Study: Confusion, Growth Opportunities in Building Management Systems

Commercial and Industrial Metering Solutions, BMS or EMS? Green Paper

MACH Energy Study

Smarter Buildings, Smarter Graphics: Visualized Operations Using Custom System Graphics

January 11, 2016

In this day and age, buildings are getting smarter and more complex. As a building operator or facility manager, you know the details of each HVAC, lighting, security, or water management system in your building. Common energy efficiencies associated with building automation, such as light displays recognizing grocery story occupants or the ability to remotely monitor an alarm system, have become second nature for building operators. As these building systems become more sophisticated, building operators like yourself require higher quality building automation graphics. Detailed, custom graphics make it possible to monitor complicated systems with ease.

Building automation systems typically come with a set of generic graphics and animations used to construct building control systems. With the rise of the Buildings Internet of Things (BIoT™) and a focus on connecting all components, the next generation of building operators want realistic, customized features to better manage their assets. QA Graphics has led this trend for nearly a decade, raising the bar for BAS graphics industry-wide.

QA Graphics specializes in taking mechanical control drawings and creating system graphics for the end user. Our team used their unique expertise to create the BAS Symbol Library, which offers more appealing and realistic graphics than standard libraries. The symbol sets offered in the BAS Symbol Library replace the existing library, letting building operators build photo-realistic control systems specific to their needs. All design is completed in-house with a team of both creative and technical staff, including graphic designers, mechanical engineers, architects, and 3D developers.

QA Graphics’ BAS Symbol Library has more than 200 components and UI elements, more than other libraries on the market. Building operators can drag and drop the library components and maintain command of their building control systems. The library is offered at two levels, Commercial and Lite Commercial, and each provides unlimited use by one company location. Additional sites may use the library for a one-time licensing fee, which allows companies to maintain consistency across all locations. The BAS Symbol Library includes boilers, chillers, dampers, filters, piping, fans, cooling towers, generators, valves, ductwork, and coils. This extensive selection lets users create more than 95% of mechanical systems.

For a more custom option, QA Graphics offers a 3D library with model-specific equipment graphics. QA Graphics’ designers can use existing images and create 3D models of equipment with animations. These models let building controllers view the interior of equipment and see how it functions, something that cannot be accomplished with a simple system graphic or photograph.

QA Graphics has collaborated with several leading control system manufacturers and private companies to develop custom libraries. These graphics are embedded within the control manufacturing software to provide a consistent style on any BAS.

With QA Graphics’ help, you can have customized building controls to monitor the unique systems at play within your building. To learn more about the BAS Symbol Library or QA Graphics’ other design services for the building controls and HVAC industry, contact QA Graphics at [email protected].

Engaging Your Audience with Successful UX & UI Design

October 8, 2015

As of May 2014, 25% of global web traffic was conducted on mobile devices, this number continues to increase each year. Companies are getting more serious about their business’s mobile presence and need the resources to create responsive designs for online marketing. Responsive design results in nearly 15% increase in unique clicks for mobile users, according the Litmus & MailChimp “The Science of Email Clicks: The Impact of Responsive Design & Inbox Testing” (December 2014). One of the user top complaints is when designs are not mobile friendly. This has lead tech companies focused on creating interfaces for mobile screens and the previously unfamiliar roles of UI and UX Designers.

UX Designers (or User Experience Designers) ensure that designs logically flow from one step to the next and are concerned with exploring different approaches to solving specific user problems. UI Designers (or User Interface Designers) visually communicate the path that the UX designer has laid out. UI Designers deal with the overall feel of the finished product and design each page a user interacts with. Many companies combine these roles because they work so closely together to create engaging experiences for the audience.

Successful UX & UI design incorporates the following:

Creating a layout that fits the screen.
Using elements designed for touch screens and ensuring that those elements are the appropriate measurements for touch-ability (44 x 44 points).
Using text that is at least 11 points so it is easy to read.
Making sure font colors appropriate contrast with backgrounds.
Using high resolution images so they don’t appear blurry on retina displays and displaying those images at their intended aspect ratio.

For more details and tips, check out this Do’s & Don’ts article published by Apple Developer.

Not sure where to start? QA Graphics has you covered! Contact us today to find out how our experienced UX/UI Designers can help deliver a uniquely engaging experience for your audience!

Questions with QA Graphics — Diana Hall

May 13, 2015

This Questions with QA Graphics highlights the woman behind our Energy Dashboards, better known as Diana the Developer. As the Lead User Experience Developer she wears many hats, but most notably she leads the designers and developers in both UI design and development. Diana works with the designers to ensure user interfaces are following the latest standards and are accessible across multiple platforms and users. As the senior developer, she leads both, application development and manages the projects that come to our team. Diana acts as a liaison between our team and customers, and she keeps the projects on track and coordinates project timelines including meetings and hardware installations.

What’s something about you that no one in the office knows?

I’m not from Iowa. I was born in Minnesota.

What do you like to do in your free time?

Spend time with my friends and family or doing the exact same thing I do at work – code!

If you were stuck on an island and could bring only two things, what would they be?

Hoping my family was safe and not stuck there with me – water and a signal flare

What’s guilty pleasure?

Thai Flavors – Love their Massman Curry

If you could only have one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Sushi

If you could have dinner with one person, dead or alive, who would it be?

Leonardo Da Vinci

Who is your favorite sports team?

I don’t really have one but I support my home team – the Vikings.

What’s your favorite color?

Purple

What’s your favorite book?

How Starbucks Saved My Life by Michael Gates Gill

If you had $100,000 for one day, what would you do with it?

Invest it

Do you have any pets? If so, what are they, how many, and what are their names?

I have two cats, Kora and Bob Dole

The Internet of Things — Connecting as One

April 23, 2015

A topic that has been increasingly growing is the Internet of Things (IoT), in both the workplace and outside of it. IoT is a concept that has the impact to change the way we live and work, but what exactly is it?

Forbes.com describes it as, “the concept of basically connecting any device with an on and off switch to the Internet (and/or to each other). This includes everything from cell phones, coffee makers, washing machines, headphones, lamps, wearable devices and almost anything else you can think of.” In other words, the IoT is a giant network of connected “things”, whether that be people to people, people to things, or things to things.

“The new rule for the future is going to be, ‘anything that can be connected, will be connected'”(Forbes.com, 2015). But why would we want so many devices connected to one another. It seems like it would be too much of a reliant mess. The potential value of having everything connected might outweigh the bad. For example, say your alarm goes off at 6 am and it notifies your coffee machine to start brewing, so by the time you reach the kitchen you have freshly made coffee. Or what if there was a wearable device that monitored your productivity? What if your office supplies was running low and you received a notification that new supplies was already being reordered?

There are already wearable devices that can monitor your sleep and activity, but what if monitoring your food intake became easier too? Ikea is already working on developing a smart kitchen to show you how much of something you’re eating and gives you recipe ideas.

The reality is that as technology further develops the concept of IoT is going to dominate our lives in and outside of work. The future impact of IoT is something that we can only dream of right now. It is not hard to understand on why this is such a discussed topic. IoT opens the door for a lot of opportunities and challenges. One concern mainly being, security. There are already many pressing issues on privacy and data sharing, so how will it be if someone can hack your refrigerator and get all of your personal information? Large companies also face large threats with the IoT. With all the vast amounts of data from all of the different devices, how can we store, track, analyze, and make sense of it? We can only imagine how conversations and concerns will elevate in the future, but one can only assume it will be aw-worthy. The only thing we can do right now is educate ourselves as best as possible to understand what is currently available.

Just imagine your home turning into the Disney Classic, Smart House.