Choosing the right BEMS maintenance provider
When you’re looking for a BEMS maintenance provider, what should you be looking for?
A BEMS (Building Energy Management System) monitors, controls, and manages a building’s systems, such as HVAC, lighting and metering, Helping to get all of these systems working together to support the requirements of the building, while considering energy management and sustainability.
It’s important to remember that it’s not just about the initial install of the system, what’s equally as important as having high-quality support and maintenance to ensure you’re getting the very best performance from your investment and that any problems which arise are quickly identified and dealt with before they become a serious issue.
Whilst everyone loves a bargain, the cheapest option doesn’t always mean you’re getting the best value! So, when you’re looking for a BEMS maintenance provider, what should you be looking for?
It’s important that a BEMS maintenance provider has:
Hands-on, knowledgeable staff
The BCIA (Building Controls Industry Association) runs training modules for BEMS technicians to enable people to train in BEMS maintenance, which is great but it’s important to check the expertise and the level of training the staff providing your support. Different tasks will need different skill levels. It’s important for engineers to have plant application knowledge and experience on top of BEMS product knowledge.
Accreditations, Spares and Equipment
It’s important that your BEMS maintenance support providers are recognised accredited partners for the BEMS manufacturer. This means they have access to the manufacturer’s software to ensure reliability and the integrity of the BEMS, alongside their own diagnostic equipment.
BEMS maintenance providers should also have access to replacement hardware that can be used to ensure limited plant downtime.
Reactive Support
In order to reduce downtime, your BEMS maintenance support provider should give you reactive support, with engineers available to attend to urgent support requirements as needed for your level of criticality. However, remote BEMS connectivity support does offer you the option to fix issues without site attendance, reducing the time to resolve the issues. When those issues can’t be fixed remotely it’s important to have that support in place.
Access Technical Support
Access to manufacturer technical support is vital as this enables the maintenance provider to have the latest available information and access to best practice procedures and protocols.
Tailored Contracts
Contracts should be tailored to your exacting requirements taking into consideration:
• Your type of business
• In-house knowledge/expertise that already exists within the organisation
• The extent and complexity of the installed BEMS and the plant and the skill levels needed to provide maintenance
• Maintenance Schedules
Ideally, the contract should give you a thorough checklist of items to be covered in the contract. It should have a schedule of tasks that will be undertaken on each site visit and include time for any additional requirements and dealing with unscheduled/remedial tasks.
Reports
The BEMS maintenance provider should be able to give you examples of the reports that they’ll produce after each site visit and it should explain each task that’s been carried out as well as any recommendations/improvements for your BEMS.
Admin Support
Having good admin support is just as important as having technical support in our book, so it’s important that your BEMS provider has enough support in the back office to provide admin, planning support and enough people to manage the ongoing contract.
Get in touch
If you are looking for a BEMS maintenance provider, who can offer all of the above and so much more, contact us to discuss your tailored support package: info@thermaticenergy.theauditlab.com
About Thermatic Energy Services
We work with end-user clients to help them achieve their energy management targets. Our main focus is giving our customers visibility to their systems and data to allow them to make actionable decisions to reduce their energy consumption, improve their building operation and achieve their sustainability targets.
