Are you a building owner and needs a Building Management System (BMS) to help with monitoring and assist the maintenance team?
This must be one of the most difficult choices to make if you start engaging with vendors who offers this product.
The big problem as you will find sooner rather than later, is that is industry is strongly leveraged to vendor lock you.
This can become a very uncomfortable situation.
BMS Systems usually very expensive to set up and like any other system, it needs maintenance. However, if you are tied to a single vendor and have no choice to move to another, then of course he is in a position to ask whatever he likes for maintenance.
This was the downfall of many BMS Systems, leaving operators often no option but to eventually just abandon the system.
This is sad, and unneccessary.
BMS Systems evolved out of SCADA Systems, which is the industrial version there of. However, unlike SCADA systems where many software platforms were developed independently form hardware platforms, vendors of BMS Systems integrated the software with their product offering. This means the client usually have to buy both the hardware and software from the same vendor.
Why things went this way, could be a number of reasons. I am not going to speculate about those reasons, but what is true is that BMS Systems have a lot more eye candy than SCADA Systems. It was probably needed to sell these systems to buildings owners, who are often not technical, unlike factory operators who are.
This is indeed one aspect where I believe building owners needs some more education. You really do not need fancy graphics to make things easier for the technician. He simple needs to see the values in a clean, concise format and he needs it on the run.
I have implemented a few large BMS systems and was fortunate to get involved with the setup and programming of propriety systems. What I can tell you is that behind those graphics, is an enormous lot of work and it is not as if the software makes it super easy. Installation only takes an expert near a full day with many service calls to his head office somewhere else in the world.
Does it have a place! Sure it has. These kinds of systems are geared to handle sites of practically unlimited capacity and it is true that floor plan based data displays has advantages.
However, what about all the many smaller applications where you just have a fairly big building where a single person who runs the operations, needs a tool where he can see vitals on the run?
Remember, there is a baseline cost to BMS systems and regardless how small you go, eventually you sit paying for infrastructure that is way under utilised.
Well, fear no more! There is a great alternative to the propriety systems. It is an IT solution that was created by IBM's "Emerging Technology Services" and it is running since 2013.
Nick O'Leary and Dave Conway-Jones started this as a sideline project, and they surely understood something of the matter as they came up with a brilliantly elegant solution.
Although most BMS systems can handle multiple protocols, setting it up is not always easy an intuitive.
Node-RED changed all that! Node-RED came up with a very clever way of collecting data from multiple sources, and then writes it in JSON format, which can then be passed on in "messages" to any other module - or even through multiple modules if the data needs some processing - to receiving nodes that can then switch devices, display the information, write it to disk, publish it to Twitter, command another controller running a completely different protocol, or whatever you like. It is called "Flows".
The project is Open Source, the software is completely free and it can run on cheap hardware like a headless Raspberry-Pi.
With good underpinnings, Node-RED got the attention of those who battled in the passed with this exact same problem and today there is on the way to 5000 modules that has been developed for it, with some companies dedicating resources to active development of such modules.
Installation is not too hard. It can be done by anyone who can use a computer on a higher technical level than Word and Excell. If you have a Raspberry-Pi loaded with Raspbian, the officially Node-RED supported version, you simply run the installation script and in a few minutes you are up and running. Then it simply takes some more configuration to make it start at boot automatically, set up an MQTT server if you need it, install some of the modules you prefer and you are ready to go.
Sometimes it needs some hard coding in JAVA, but there are many guys who solved problems so one can often just copy and paste form others.
With some spare time on my hands, I absolutely had to try it, so I took one of the BACNet controllers in my drawer, powered up, got my Raspberry Pi and started with just a basic dashboard interface- because honestly you really do not need anything more for operational purposes.
Remember, I was a complete newbie on Node-RED and had to Google for answers so it did take me about 4 hard days of tinkering to understand how it works, and get a slick interface designed that can be cloned to other systems. Time well invested I would say.
In short, what does one really want from a BMS?
- You need to see operational data on a clean interface.
- If the above works perfect on a cell phone, even better.
- You would certainly like some charts of critical parameters which can quickly show you if your plant is running the way it should.
- Schedules for starting and stopping equipment is important in ana age where we really need to save energy.
- You need log files written to disk. This has multiple purposes which includes fault finding, but also planning for future expansion.
What do you NOT want from a BMS system?
- Setting of parameters. Yes I know many people will scream about his, but sadly too many technicians start using a BMS as a crouch. If there is a problem on a plant, he needs to go THERE and sort it out. He should absolutely not try and "repair" it by tinkering with settings remotely.
- Eye candy. Why? First of all, it adds little to the understanding of anyone who knows his building. Secondly, it is bloody hard to maintain.
What then is the advantages of Node-RED?
- It runs on easily available cheap hardware, and the software is free.
- It is Open Source and supported by a large community.
- It work very reliably.
- It makes integration of devices with completely different protocols surprisingly easy.
- You are not vendor locked. Many IT guys understands Node-RED so if the guy you have does not give you the support you want, you can shop around.
Cost Wise?
I have done a costing for a project in February 2023 and at that time, the hardware and software components for an "affordable" BMS System was approaching R 260 000 Exclusive of VAT for a supervisory controller with a a touch screen, the licensing fees for a single year and programming. Yearly fees alone is over R 42 000 per year.
A NodeRED System that will give the same functionality, but with less graphics, would be R 100 000 less, and there are no additional yearly fees.
Maybe it has your attention by now.