Hitting a Moving Target
Speaking of security, with increasing interconnectedness of building automation systems, the need for heightened security is perhaps higher than ever. As a result, facility executives, security, and IT departments can no longer exist in silos but must come to the table early to communicate and work together.
For example, cameras and access control hardware need bandwidth and software support, so security departments should look to IT early on for implementation, as well as education about what the products are designed to do, according to Mark Casey, integration sales manager for Allegion.
“Another benefit of involving IT early in security planning is that they can often provide valuable information about best practices in system architecture. When they are more informed about what devices do and how they work, the whole process is more successful,” Casey says.
McHale agrees that departments need to coordinate closely to establish clear protocols to determine who’s responsible for which operational components and how budgets will be shared. Additionally, he suggests manufacturers train and educate customers to ensure the products they sell are as secure as possible while installers should make sure systems are working properly and updated with patches regularly.
Because, ultimately, security is a moving target. “People will find new compromises every day, so you have to be able to adjust by upgrading yourself on a continuous basis to thwart that,” Mohan says. “That thinking has to go in on day one.”
A Change in Thinking
To successfully integrate IoT solutions, many facility executives need a change in perspective. As Mohan noted previously, a “bolt-on” or “Band-Aid” approach isn’t going to cut it. What’s needed is a broader perspective that embraces end-users and improves outcomes overall, rather than just cost or efficiency.
For example, Mohan says it’s common for building professionals to think about lighting and lighting controls in terms of cost and code, but “they forget that the light from buildings are for the people in the first place.” He says most people think energy first, humans second. But he argues that the equation needs to be flipped on its head.
“If you bring the human in, do the right thing for the human, everything else would solve itself,” Mohan once told a client. “If I know what the human is doing in the space [on] day one, I can optimize for lighting, HVAC, his own productivity, for life safety situations—all of that.”
He’s right, of course. Because at the end of the day, the promise that the Internet of Things and every other technological advancement to our buildings holds is to enhance our quality of life.
“This thinking about how we can make buildings better by focusing on outcomes—I think the Internet of Things is going to play a huge part in that because it just allows us to measure and validate what those outcomes are,” McHale says. “I think it does have a huge part to play in us improving the built environment. That’s ultimately what we’re trying to do here. Society needs buildings and it needs cities, and the more optimized and the better performing they are, the better it is for everybody.”