By: John Villani, PE, CCP, CEM, LEED AP, Vice President
The Rise of AI in Commissioning
After recently attending two great conferences, NexusCon and the Building Commissioning Association Annual Conference, I can attest that any session with AI in the title was overwhelmingly attended.
I even had fun at the closing session of the BCxA conference: Jesse Sycuro (McKinstry) and I debated with Bill McMullen (Chinook Systems) and Theophilus “Theo” Aluko (Willdan) on whether AI will make us better Cx providers! It is certainly an exciting time.
In this fast-changing environment, GBA’s Trend Sumo® fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) platform continues to judiciously leverage AI for the benefit of clients who want to dig deeper into equipment and systems operations, yielding improvements in cost management, energy efficiency, reliability, and safety.
Facility managers, does your FDD platform track how many times something has deviated from an optimal static or dynamic value; how long that deviation was sustained; and how far from optimal the condition was? Perhaps the most important question is: Does this deviation really matter in light of your current facility requirements?
Errors: Important or Inconsequential?
Let’s use a simple example. A 2° deviation from a temperature setpoint would be considered insignificant by most standards. However, if you’re monitoring a critical space, that deviation might get your attention. Now, let’s say it happened 100 times over the past week. Though the deviation may not be extreme per se, the quantity of deviations, along with an evaluation of their magnitude, may indicate the advisability of a deeper dive. Trend Sumo seamlessly handles most of the data processing, analysis, and structuring, so completing this kind of evaluation requires only a few keyboard clicks.
Trend Sumo uses machine learning— a subset of AI— to consider historical operating data as well as weather, occupancy, date, and time-of-day information, along with other relevant independent variables, to predict how a system should be operating or how much energy it should be consuming. It can alert facilities staff to anomalies the BAS does not track and can predict future performance, revealing lost operating efficiencies and increased operating costs. Trend Sumo simplifies the daunting effort of identifying issues despite complex interactions between operational conditions, multiple building systems, and weather.
Above: Machine learning model compared to actual.
Regardless of what provider you use, you should always consider what— or who— is behind your FDD platform. Interestingly, ASHRAE, BCxA, and others now refer to such platforms as the linchpin of a process called “ongoing commissioning” (OCx), and I’m so happy to see that! Because all types of commissioning follow a process, and that process includes people, not just AI.
Human Expertise Is Invaluable
As amazing as FDD/OCx platforms have become, and with all the hype around AI, it’s important not to lose sight of a key player: the person (or the team) that reviews OCx alerts and AI-generated recommendations and turns them into actionable advice.
Every Trend Sumo contract is backed by a qualified GBA engineer who knows your facility and can review, translate, investigate, and determine the most likely root cause of any issue. You can count on the engineer to pick up the phone and call, attend monthly facilities operations meetings with staff and service contractors, and drive corrective repairs and results.
I look forward to seeing, and dreaming about, where AI can take the engineering and facility management field. Just remember: Don’t leave people out of your solution. Human expertise is still crucial for making findings and opportunities actionable, holding services contractors accountable, and driving real results!
Contact us to learn more about Trend Sumo.
