This is a term that many of us, especially mechanical engineers and building automation professionals, are familiar with when writing the sequence of operations for a building’s controls system. Owners often ask that engineers specify what a “building automation system shall be capable of” in terms of operations or performance. But just because a building’s automation system is capable of doing something, doesn’t necessarily ensure that a particular operation will actually be properly utilized (if utilized at all) once a building is up and running. As a result, many buildings are capable of operating more efficiently than they actually do.

A day-to-day example is the purchase of software that’s intended to revolutionize the operations of a company, but never gets used to that end because of a lack of accountability and staff training (i.e. we have this great new sales-tracking software but because it takes a little effort and staff resource to fully understand/utilize the system, we’ve only used it to house contact information for the past 12 months).

An unfortunate fact-of-life in the world of building operations, this idea expands far beyond building-automation systems to the entire building itself. The idea that a new or existing building can be capable of using very little if any grid-energy or water while serving as a healthy place for people to live and work is now commonplace. And this is just one of many ways that buildings still fall short of their true potential.

What about LEED?
While LEED certification is utilized far more now than in previous years, the potential it provides is still rarely maximized. For instance, many buildings still don’t properly use an energy model to drive the decision making process related to energy-consuming systems. Additionally, measurement and verification efforts aren’t making the proper connection between design and construction strategies to the operations phase of a building’s life. Staff training at the turnover of a building is usually far from comprehensive and often fails to fully communicate the building as one large system—a system whose performance naturally degrades over time, even if a thorough preventative maintenance program is implemented.

Think of a building like a car—just because you provide your car with optimum maintenance doesn’t mean that the parts won’t eventually wear out and need replacing. A building is no different. However, proper maintenance means that it can operate at maximum efficiency and wear out at a slower rate. Still, existing-building commissioning services that combat performance decay are rarely used when preventative maintenance measures are struggling to gain proper implementation.

Above all else, an integrated approach to design, construction and operations doesn’t occur often enough. This leaves the necessary connections between the design process and operations of buildings minimized, with very little input from future staff that will ultimately be responsible for operating and managing the costs of a building throughout its useful life.

There’s still hope…
Nevertheless, there are individual success stories that prove we can do far better and on a much larger scale. As an industry, we know what it’s going to take to further reduce the impact buildings have on the environment as well as their cost to build and operate. By properly using tools and strategies that are available today, significant opportunities to reduce a facility’s energy consumption are here now. While we need to ask what our buildings should be capable of, we also need to ask how we plan to execute those capabilities.