Smart buildings are office towers, malls, hospitals and tech parks whose machines, doors and cameras are connected to software that watches and controls them. A smart building has three layers: the machines that keep it running, the security that decides who gets in, and the software that the owner and the tenants use to run it every day.
Consider a 30-floor office tower in Gurugram, a few months after the builder has handed it over to its owner. About 6,000 people from 25 companies work in it. Before they arrive each morning, the cooling has to be on, the lifts have to be ready, and the doors have to know whose ID cards to accept. Each of these jobs is done by a different layer of equipment and software, and different companies make each layer.
The first layer is the building's machinery. HVAC, short for heating, ventilation and air conditioning, keeps the floors cool. In a large Indian building, cooling is usually the largest single use of electricity. The tower also has lifts and escalators, electronic door locks and a fire alarm system. A building automation system (BAS) controls all of these from one screen. It switches the cooling and the lights on and off, floor by floor, as they are needed, which saves energy.
The second layer is physical security. Physical access control decides which doors open for which ID card. A video management system (VMS) records every camera, and video analytics software watches the video for problems, such as a person who walks in behind someone else without tapping a card. More and more, one company system issues both an employee's door card and computer login. This is called converged access control.
The third layer is facility and property management. Property management software handles the money: the leases, the rent and the building's accounts. A computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) handles the repairs. Each repair is logged as a work order, so that one person is assigned to it and it can be tracked until it is done.
Why do equipment makers now write so much software? Their machines are connected to the internet. A chiller or a lift sends readings about its own condition back to its maker. This is called the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). So the maker can see a fault coming and send a technician before the machine breaks down. This is predictive maintenance. Makers earn money once from the sale, and then for decades from service contracts. Several of the global makers write much of this software in Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai.