Remote Management
It is now widely accepted in our industry that MEP systems move away from optimum performance levels extremely quickly without a robust remote monitoring programme. This is due to a number of factors, including equipment naturally ‘drifting’ away from its optimal condition and service technicians making changes to control strategies and setpoints without understanding the adverse effect those changes will have on energy efficiency. In the past, these types of issues have caused many energy efficiency programmes to fail, as the savings are eroded over a short time period.
Baseline’s remote monitoring services are designed to preserve and improve the efficiency gains achieved by implementing improvements during the design, construction and commissioning of MEP equipment. As well as operating our own remote monitoring centre, Baseline also manages remote call centres on behalf of our customers located within the customer’s own facilities.
Another major issue the facility industry has faced is the processing and analysis of data received by the building control systems. Processing the enormous volume of data transmitted from the various types of equipment in multiple formats and protocols has been a major challenge for many years. Baseline has developed its own software tools to filter this data and identify when action needs to be taken to keep the MEP systems operating reliability and at peak efficiency. We also use our pattern recognition software tools and our own in-house work order system to track and process those actions.
Baseline also provides roaming engineers who travel to the facilities in order to work with management and service personnel and ensure the correct actions are taken to rectify the operating and efficiency issues identified by the remote monitoring centre. This process ensures that the issues identified are actually rectified.
Management Maintenance
The repair and maintenance of MEP equipment has traditionally placed a large burden on facility management and staff. When equipment fails without warning it causes major disruptions and unanticipated expenses. Valuable assets may require replacement well before they have reached their expected lifecycle. In the past, many organisations attempted to move this burden to service contractors by establishing comprehensive repair and maintenance contracts. Unfortunately, these contracts have not incentivised service providers to do the preventative maintenance tasks detailed in those contracts and they have largely turned out to be a waste of money. The objectives of the facility operator and the service contractor are often opposed. The service contractor would like to do as little as possible within the comprehensive contract and to maximise revenue from emergency service work. At the same time, the facility manager has no way of telling whether or not the preventative maintenance tasks have been effective, or have even been completed at all.
Baseline's approach to maintenance is to implement technology-based solutions rather than manual processes that rely heavily on human intervention. Baseline uses technology to detect when maintenance is actually required for a specific piece of equipment and to track the entire process from initial detection to resolution. With the appropriate technical infrastructure in place, preventative maintenance can also be scheduled and its completion can be validated remotely.
Baseline offers consulting services to analyse existing maintenance processes and standards before designing and implementing improvement programmes. Baseline also manages maintenance activities on behalf of the facility operator.
