Alice Chambers |
The International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) is an advanced trade union that aims to represent a diverse group of heavy operators and stationary engineers within the construction, pipeline, facilities management and environmental industries. Founded in 1896, it has more than 400,000 members at every operational level throughout the USA and Canada today.
Since union members are expected to continually evolve and improve their skill sets to remain valuable and productive workers, the IUOE must train and prepare them to use new technologies as they develop. To achieve these goals, IUOE operates its own International Training and Educational Center (ITEC) in Texas. The advanced facility contains everything needed to support and develop the members’ skills. As the owner of the building, the IUOE is conscious about operational efficiencies, cost savings and occupant comfort. Therefore, the organisation decided to implement automation software to operate and manage the ITEC facility efficiently and sustainably.
Since the IUOE was already using Microsoft Azure, it turned to ICONICS for its building automation. The ICONICS platforms chosen for this project included the GENESIS64 visualisation suite and AnalytiX solution, which were deployed during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The project was mostly completed by teams working remotely using conference calls and cloud computing, which meant that only one building engineer and one IT expert were required on-site.
The IUOE has achieved significant benefits by deploying ICONICS’ solutions. For example it can now obtain actionable insights for historical trending and data analytics, has visibility into all systems in the buildings regardless of the vendor or manufacturer, and can monitor and control temperature and humidity in the facility to ensure comfort. It has also integrated its building with air quality management system Wellstat to measure indoor air quality levels.
With ICONICS’ solutions, IUOE can analyse the facility as a whole and centralise the data from all the systems in one place, regardless of which company manufactured them. Additionally, the IUOE can now quickly diagnose building faults and proactively maintain equipment to reduce capital expenses. As a result, energy costs have reduced, and equipment health and longevity have increased.
Besides using ICONICS solutions to manage its facility, the IUOE uses the platform as part of its advanced building automation training. Students can learn from a real system with real-time data from real equipment, rather than learning in a lab setting. With increased operational intelligence, the IUOE can efficiently and sustainably run and operate its facility to deliver superior training and education.
This article was originally published in the Autumn 2022 issue of Technology Record. To get future issues delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for a free subscription.