The Challange

Pillbox were experiencing problems with their BMS/EMS, which uses a mixture of Trend controllers and Optergy headend. The mixed systems eventually failed. Workspace approached us to identify and rectify any issues with the systems.

Additionally, workspace wanted to confirm if the systems comply with the BEMS guidelines that it supplies to its control contractors. We found that the components in the mixed system were not communicating with each other properly, which posed a high functionality threat to the system.

The BMS system was not able to read any point values meaning that the whole system was rendered useless. We also found that the BACnet devices were not detected during scanning and many alarms and meters were missing.

The Solution

We put forth the most cost-effective solution to the problems at Pillbox by bringing the headend and controllers onto a unified Optergy based system. By having the whole system on the same platform, we eliminated the unnecessary licensing costs. The old Trend controllers were replaced with IP based Optergy P864 controllers that are optimised for communicating with the Optergy headend.

The new user-friendly graphics on the Optergy headend provide a seamless human-machine interface which can be monitored remotely. We developed the graphics to the customer’s preferences and needs allowing them to fine tune the interface.

Detailed trendlogs were added (which was not present in the previous system) allowing Workspace to closely monitor each of their units to make fundamental decisions about their energy usage policies.