Page 53 - RC18-EDGE Spring.FINAL

Business Solutions

IT ALL STARTS WITH EXPLORATION

RETHINKING THE APPROACH

TO DATA ANALYTICS IN FACILITIES

JOHN PETZE
Partner and Co-Founder
SkyFoundry

LEWIS AND CLARK, the great American explorers of However, applying analytics to building system data is
the early 1800s didn’t know what they would find on very different than other investments, and requires own-
their journey West across the Louisiana Purchase to the ers to look at these projects in a new way.
Pacific, but there was enough belief in the potential value
that the exploration was funded and undertaken. Difference 1: The End Result is Unknown
Perhaps the biggest difference is that you don’t
Similarly, embarking on a project that applies data ana- know the end result at the project proposal phase;
lytics to facility and until you acquire
equipment system the data and apply
data should be viewed analytics you don’t
as a process of explo- know what your data
ration, very different can tell you. That’s
from other invest- what analytics does
ments commonly – identify issues,
made by real estate faults, deviations,
professionals. trends and oppor-
tunities for savings,
We have a tendency efficiencies and
to look at anything improved perfor-
we do in the built mance. Accordingly,
environment as an you can’t determine
engineering project – what actions you
something that can be will take in response,
pre-defined down to and what benefits
the finest detail, and will ensue.
if executed correctly,
will provide us with a This reality makes it
known end result. For example, we design and construct hard for organizations to evaluate and gain approval
a building, we design and install an HVAC system, or using the same project justification and approval
engineer the details of an equipment upgrade project. All processes used for other investments. A different
these things can, and should, be ‘engineered’ in detail. approach is required.
We wouldn’t break ground to build a new facility without
having completed the detailed engineering work to ensure Difference 2: My Data May be Different than Yours
success. Equally important: the highly variable nature of the
data facility owners and operators have at their
It seems logical to apply the same thought process disposal. Not all building systems have the same
to pre-design every facet of a data analytics project. capability to provide data. Some are limited due to

51