For smart buildings to truly work, commissioning agents must go beyond testing individual systems—and test whether they can actually talk to each other and respond accordingly. Enter technology systems commissioning.

“You may have commissioned those systems that are traditional, but you may not have commissioned the systems that connect and ensure that the building systems’ network connectivity are working as intended and are communicating with each other,” said Randal Gruberman, principal and chief technology officer at Level-1 Global Solutions LLC, Chicago.

There are many systems that separately communicate through a network, but they may not be communicating with each other to create executable outcomes from the data that’s being produced on one system to the input of another one, Gruberman said.

Importance of commissioning

“For example, there may be sensors to turn on the lights, but what about sensors when you walk into a room and you start using the HVAC system? How does it know how to how to turn that room into something that’s comfortable or if it doesn’t have any occupancy? The HVAC system ultimately can give a null where it doesn’t do anything trying to conserve heat or cooling without having to install a sensor for each system,” he said.

Another example is testing the emergency responder communication systems between building managers and first responders such as fire, police and EMS, Gruberman said. The problem is that building envelopes are now coated with a highly UV-reflective window covering called low-emissivity glass, which also can unintentionally block signals from going in and out of the building—including from emergency communication systems or internal building radios for engineering, door or cleaning staff.

“To get all of the systems within a building to communicate with each other, it requires that somebody test to make sure that they work together and as intended,” he said. “Also, from a cybersecurity perspective, you want to make sure that all of the systems are firewalled and secured.”

Building automation systems need to be commissioned as well, Gruberman said. One of the largest hacks of credit card data actually came through Target’s building automation system that wasn’t locked down with a VLAN connection. Hackers were able to get in through the BAS system and search to find transaction data.

“All of that comes down to whether that technology system was commissioned. Was that system found to be secure? Was that system installed as intended? Obviously, it was not,” he said.

Expert technology commissioning agents are typically brought on early in projects to provide commissioning guidelines to the designers on the owner’s behalf, Gruberman said. They could be technology project managers or those who specialize in the installation of technology systems, or skilled agents working at an electrical or low-voltage contracting firm. 

That could mean technology professionals within BICSI, which has a partnership with NECA, he said. BICSI’s ICT Certification Institute offers a certification program for professionals to become a Registered Communications Distribution Designer.

“All of these professionals are hired specifically by the owners, so they’re not working for the general contractor. They’re working for the owner directly,” Gruberman said. “They ultimately advocate on the owner’s behalf to ensure that those systems are commissioned exactly as they were intended to work.”

Open source versus proprietary systems

While all of the systems within a building can more easily talk to each other if they are open-sourced versus proprietary, in the long term, there will likely still be a mix of open-source and proprietary systems because vendors of the latter typically lock in their systems in contracts with owners, said Jeff Beavers, NECA’s executive director of network integration and services. 

“There are some benefits to a proprietary system, because they likely have a rigorous testing program and a rigorous certification program for the installers, so the end result arguably is high quality,” Beavers said. “It also likely has enhanced security controls.”

However, that vendor lock-in likely costs more because there are fewer competitors than with open-source vendors, he said. Moreover, with expansion upgrades, end-users must go back to that manufacturer to make sure they have all the products.

In addition, some proprietary systems may not integrate well with other open-source systems, Beavers said. For example, a proprietary HVAC system may be integrated with the lighting controls and access controls, and if there’s a fire, the HVAC and fire alarm are going to work together to close or open vents.

However, if the controls are also supposed to restrict access and lighting, sometimes they don’t work, he said. As such, the commissioning program also needs to evolve to include any integrations with open-source technology.

“When those integrations are considered early on, it’s going to look at every system of the building to truly create the framework for design for installation or acceptance,” Beavers said. “Then at the end of the project, you’re doing some witness testing to make sure that what we said we would do and what we said we built actually works as part of the acceptance of the building.”

Some manufacturers of proprietary controls have their own installers, engineers and maintenance technicians, he said. But there are other opportunities where manufacturers might certify a contractor to offer that solution.

Additionally, technology systems commissioning enables electrical contractors to go beyond just installing systems and be a partner for the end-user for the life of the building, Beavers said.

Electrical contractors have an advantage, because the newest version of NFPA 70B requires maintenance of electrical, electronic and communications equipment, which arguably can mean any system within a building—from the electrical system to the HVAC system, to telephones, access control and CCTV, he said.

“Building owners will need the expertise of building systems technology professionals trained to stay in compliance with the code—and also trained to make sure the systems have the appropriate cybersecurity controls,” Beavers said. “So that’s an opportunity for the electrical contractor to be that long-term partner for the service, maintenance and commissioning agent.”

Dagostino Electronic Services Inc., Pittsburgh, offers services as a master systems integrator that oversees buildings’ operational technologies and IT needs, said Bob Dagostino, founder and president. Naturally, the company prefers to integrate open-source systems so it can bridge new technologies and systems to meet customers’ needs as they arise.

“For example, air quality sensors in many schools were not mandatory a few years back, but now they are,” Dagostino said. “So it would be good if they’re an open system type of air quality sensor to be able to integrate into anything from the building automation controls to the security controls, what have you.”

Currently, around 80% of the technology systems his firm commissions are open-sourced versus proprietary, he said. As more internet of things components with different functionalities become commercially available, it will be much easier to integrate those components into the overall solution. 

“For example, you may walk into a room and there’s an occupancy sensor in that room to tell the lights to come on,” Dagostino said. “But then there’s another occupancy sensor in the room that tells the building automation controls to come up to temperature because the room is now being occupied, and there may be a third occupancy sensor in the room for security purposes to detect whether or not there’s motion in the room. Well, there you can have a single occupancy sensor in an open system’s environment to leverage that one device into all three of those platforms,” he said.

Some lighting systems being designed today are low-voltage, and as such, don’t necessarily need line voltage, which helps with integration with the sensors.

“There’s various methods of being able to interface or integrate into these various platforms, including sensors for temperature, humidity, air quality—all the things that we need to monitor for the health of the building, and for the efficiency of the building performance,” Dagostino said.

Having a seat at the table

As technology commissioning agents, electrical contractors can have more of a seat at the table with the owners and design firms to ensure there’s proper system functionality across all of the operational technologies that go into a building, he said.

“How’s that final product or service going to be validated that it has met the intent of the original design? The end-user thought it was supposed to do this, the designer thought it was supposed to do that, and the installer thought it was supposed to do something else,” Dagostino said.

Unless there is a detailed commissioning plan established prior to the job starting, there will be so much interpretation by every stakeholder—including every contractor that’s bidding on the project—of what the final outcome should actually be, he said.

“We can create a lot more stickiness with the end-user if we get in during the early stages in designing the building’s systems, making it so that every user of that building, be it the janitor, the building manager [or] the occupants, all have an optimized experience,” Dagostino said. 

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