Unifed Solutions & Network Systems

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There is growing impetus within the Construction industry to investigate, develop and deliver integrated systems within buildings to leverage benefits from standards based on network technology that has been common place in the IT world for many years.

To this end several manufacturers are developing IP based components and sub systems that perform various functions within the building environment that either replace or complement traditional systems. Typically these systems would include HVAC, Fire and Alarm, BMS, Security and access control. The current traditional approach at building design stage is to break these systems down into separate autonomous systems. These are subsequently dissected into individual work packages within the project. Typically these systems will have their own cabling infrastructures, project teams, and implementation schedule within the project programme.

Each of these duplications adds a cost to the bottom line of the overall project budget. This approach requires a significant level of coordination with other package teams and the overall design team. Inherently this leads to substantial amounts of information being passed around between various members of various teams so coordination and implementation can be very difficult to manage.

The integrated open systems approach hopes to address these issues directly and to demonstrate several important benefits, not least capital cost reduction, utilisation of common infrastructures and reduced deployment times. It is important to note here that traditionally Information Communication Technology (ICT) systems for client/user LAN and WAN infrastructures, typically Structured Cabling Systems (SCS) are not in the design scope at this stage. The integrated open systems approach requires the ICT SCS to be included far earlier in the design stage, and demonstrates this as a key requirement.