ICONICS Brings About Connected, High-Performance & Sustainable Smart Buildings

Thank goodness for digital transformation for all its improvements and advancements, and I mean this on so many levels, but one level in particular is the digital transformation of buildings which has brought about the advent of smart buildings. These high-performance, connected, and sustainable buildings are based on strategically captured data that can be shared to optimize operations and functions. Now with smart buildings, captured real-time data can be shared across a building’s functionalities to give managers and operators valuable insight into running highly efficient buildings. So, say goodbye to the inefficient ways of operating and managing buildings in the past with siloed data and information, and say hello to smart buildings of today and the future.

In case you’re not sure what a smart building is, here is a definition. As defined in ICONICS’ blog Make Better Decisions About Your Smart Building Operations & Equipment with Digital Twin Technology, a smart building is a set of dynamically connected smart systems that are made interoperable through accumulating, sharing, analyzing, and acting upon collective automation system data that is made available through automation software. When designed properly and effectively, the smart building platform will result in a more efficient, secure, and productive asset that has the capacity to continuously improve over its lifetime.

The value of a smart building from the services it provides and from the perspective of its various stakeholders (property owners, facility managers, and occupants) is quite impressive. Smart buildings allow property owners to maintain the heritage value of the buildings, strengthen the attractiveness of occupancy, and improve the comfort and the wellbeing of the occupants. Additionally, smart buildings allow facility managers to oversee control of the building; optimize operations, maintenance, and costs; and ensure continuous improvement of the energy efficiency of the building. And for the occupants, a smart building offers adaptability to each occupant’s individual needs to ensure comfort in their workspace or living space.

A terrific way to understand how all this works and what value it can provide to you is to learn how other organizations are using ICONICS automation software to smarten up their buildings. One use case is Zentrum für Psychiatrie Südwürttemberg (ZfP) or the Center for Psychiatry Südwürttemberg.

Best Possible Patient Treatment & Care through Smart Buildings

The Zentrum für Psychiatrie Südwürttemberg (ZfP) is located in Südwürttemberg, Germany and offers a differentiated and comprehensive health system focusing on innovative treatment and professional care for mentally ill patients. The center operates specialist clinics, outpatient departments, and medical care centers and considers a high building standard crucial to guaranteeing its patients the appropriate environment for the best possible treatment and care.

The ZfP’s legacy building management software could not handle the estimated 15,000 data points and 500 overviews and plant displays, making it difficult for operators to manage its multiple locations and therefore did not meet the administration’s expectations. The obsolete system could not adequately process the substantial amount of data, resulting in delayed data analysis and an inability to show real-time building environmental conditions which frequently led to emergency personnel meetings to address issues.

To manage the group’s 157 buildings, the administrators knew the center needed the most modern and technically advanced building automation system technology. Therefore, working with system integrator MESALOGIC (Merenberg, Germany), ZfP selected the ICONICS GENESIS64 HMI/SCADA and building automation suite, Hyper Historian rapid data historian, and KPIWorX self-service dashboard application for real-time and historical data.

GENESIS64 is now used for visualizing the process data of the entire instrumentation and control engineering system (including heating, ventilation, and air conditioning). Facility management personnel use the system to monitor and coordinate all 157 buildings centrally from ZfP’s administrative headquarters in Bad Schussenried, providing access to the software from anywhere via web browser or mobile app. Control processes are optimized with historical process data, and energy flows are recorded for efficient energy management. The system utilizes ICONICS’ unified visualization technology to display information from the multiple modules on a single screen for administrators and plant managers. The ZfP’s new portal includes extended alarm management as well as drag and drop functions for interactive, ad-hoc analysis.&

By upgrading to ICONICS’ state-of-the-art visualization system, the center can now control the multiple buildings spread across the region with an intelligently parameterized set of displays that show the current state of any building. If you want to learn more about this use case, have a look at this ICONICS Customer Success Story for Zentrum fur Psychiatrie Sudwurttemberg.

How a Smart Building Drives Sustainability – the Mitsubishi Electric SUSTIE Building

Another example of how ICONICS software contributes to the digitalization of smart buildings is Mitsubishi Electric’s award-winning SUSTIE building. As part of Mitsubishi Electric Corporation support for Sustainable Development Goals, its Information Technology R&D Center completed the SUSTIE (the name being a combination of sustainability and energy) building in October 2020. The building’s purpose is to conduct research that is focused on accelerating development for ZEB-compliant zero energy buildings using energy savings technologies. A ZEB building is one that on an annual basis has net zero or almost zero primary energy consumption. The research is primarily focused on high efficiency equipment, natural energy, building simulation technology, and the health and comfort of occupants, all monitored and controlled by ICONICS software.

The SUSTIE building is also meant to demonstrate technology for future smart buildings that can save energy and improve occupant health and comfort. Chosen for its rich analysis and visualization functions, advanced asset management, and simple installation and deployment process, ICONICS GENESIS64 platform is used to manage the building and validate its overall energy performance. You can learn more about this amazing case study by watching ICONICS Connect 2021 session on the SUSTIE building here.

ICONICS Shares Its Expertise in the Smart Building Space at Realcomm’s IBcon 2022

This use case is just one example of how organizations around the world have used ICONICS software to bring about smart buildings. And luckily, you can read about other use cases in our online customer success catalog. Of course, as providers of advanced HMI/SCADA and the accompanying software that help organizations transform their buildings into smart buildings, we are most definitely attending Realcomm's IBcon 2022. This conference, which “is recognized as the world’s leading event on the next generation of smart, connected, high-performance, net-zero, sustainable, intelligent buildings”, is taking place in Orlando, FL from June 15 to June 16.

ICONICS team of experts will be sharing their substantial knowledge and experience in the smart building space to help organizations on their digital transformation journeys toward connected, high-performance, sustainable smart buildings. Our team will demonstrate how ICONICS software provides organizations with digitalized control of their systems and buildings resulting in more efficient and affordable operations. Come by booth 633 to get started on your smart building journey. You can also check out our brochure Building Software Solutions for a sneak preview of our smart building expertise.