Optimising The Postal Museum’s Building Management System

Sponsor: The Postal Museum

From left to right: Tish, Lucy, Sam, Elliot, Ricky
Sponsor Liaison: Tish Jayanetti
Student Team: Lucy Adams, Ricardo Croes-Ball, Elliot Ghidali, Samantha Hauser
Abstract: The goal of our project was to assess The Postal Museum’s hardware, software, and human interactions with the Building Management System (BMS) to maximise its energy efficiency. We used surveys, focus groups, and interviews to assess current and desired employee behaviour, as well as the hardware and software of the museum. We found staff were generally unfamiliar with the software and thermostat usage, as well as core issues surrounding the software and hardware of the building, including misplaced sensors, misrepresented software elements, and faulty time schedules. To remedy this, we drafted guidelines and signage for employees to follow when operating the BMS and thermostats, and made recommendations for long-term improvements to the museum’s hardware and software.
Link:

Postal Final Presentation

Postal Final Report

Executive Summary

What is a Building Management System?

For the purpose of this study, a Building Management System (BMS) refers to the heating, cooling, and ventilation of a building, and the system that oversees and automates these separate building functions. This project focused on the optimization of systems already in place, not the design and implementation of new heaters, coolers, or ventilation devices within the building.

The Problem

The Postal Museum has committed to reducing their carbon emissions to net-zero by 2040. They have an Environmental Sustainability Framework in place, which defines the goal to “better use the BMS to monitor energy use and consumption to identify hotspots” as a primary action (Duffield et al., 2023). It’s estimated that by making the museum’s BMS more efficient, total emissions can be reduced by an average of 3%. In order to achieve this reduction, the museum wanted more insight into their BMS’s energy consumption, improved BMS efficiency, and guides for staff that would ensure they’re using the BMS effectively. This project aimed to address the lack of material on methods to improve these systems, specifically from an energy efficiency perspective. The most prominent issues with the BMS were the lack of instruction for employees new to the BMS, and the lack of information on what the problem areas of the BMS are.

Our Goal

The goal of this project was to assess The Postal Museum’s hardware, software, and human interactions with their BMS to maximise energy efficiency. To achieve this goal, we followed four objectives:

  1. To analyse the museum’s current BMS hardware and software.
  2. To analyse the museum’s current employee interactions with the BMS and the building.
  3. To compile recommendations on optimising BMS efficiency.
  4. To develop training materials for museum staff to increase BMS efficiency.

Methods

    We used three different methods to achieve our objectives – interviews, focus groups, and surveys. A flowchart of how we applied these methods to our objectives can be seen in Figure ES1.

    To analyse the museum’s current BMS hardware and software, we interviewed museum employees, as well as employees from various contracting firms the museum employs. The museum employees we interviewed were department heads and specialists on the Estates, Collections, and IT Teams, as those are the teams with the most direct experience with the BMS. We also interviewed an employee of Kendra Energy Solutions, the provider of the BMS, and a contractor from Diverse Building Solutions, a company that maintains the building’s hardware, such as heaters and coolers.

To analyse the museum’s current employee interactions with the software and the building, we conducted focus groups and an online survey. Our focus groups included employees that interacted with the BMS less directly through thermostats, or through taking actions like using fans or opening windows. Our surveys were sent out to the entire employee base.

To assemble recommendations for policies and additions to improve building efficiency, we used data from our interviews with The Postal Museum staff and focus groups to identify key issues, then met and conducted additional interviews with BMS provider Kendra Energy Solutions to identify possible solutions.

To develop training materials for The Postal Museum staff to increase BMS efficiency, we asked about communication methods in our interviews with museum department heads and the employee from Kendra Energy Solutions.

Findings

Our findings cover how employees interact with the BMS, and technical findings, which cover the software and hardware of the BMS.

Employee Behaviour Findings

The data we obtained from focus groups and surveys gave us insight into how museum employees currently interact with the BMS, and data we got from interviews with department heads gave us insight into which behaviours they would like employees to be practising. These findings were:

  1. Most museum employees didn’t know how to use the thermostats correctly.
  2. One of the more common methods for museum employees to adjust the temperature of a room is by opening windows, often doing so while a space’s heating or cooling was running, wasting energy.
  3. Employees occasionally relied on personal heating or cooling devices to stay comfortable, causing an excess of energy use.
  4. All museum employees practised some energy-saving behaviours when trying to stay comfortable in museum spaces.
  5. Each thermostat’s mode should always be set to auto.
  6. The museum’s thermostats should almost always be set between 19 and 22℃.
  7. There are many energy-saving behaviours that are already practised by many museum employees that should be encouraged.

Technical Findings

Through our interviews with Collections and Estates employees, the groups that primarily use the EcoStruxure BMS software, and our conversations with museum staff in focus groups, we found these issues:

  1. EcoStruxure often ignored or overrode time schedules made within the software.
  2. The thermostats’ settings were not represented within the software.
  3. Within the museum, there was a lack of training and understanding on the software, even among technical roles.
  4. Many museum employees were dissatisfied with the effectiveness of heating, cooling, and ventilation in specific rooms.
  5. Two areas of the museum, the gift shop and cafe area of the main Postal Museum building and the gift shop and entryway of the Mail Rail, have very large windows that allow in excessive amounts of heat from the sun during the brightest parts of the day.
  6. The museum’s sensors have had issues operating effectively within the BMS.
  7. The museum’s current energy metering system is incomplete and hard to understand for museum employees.

Recommendations

We have organised our recommendations as responses to the issues laid out in our findings.

Employee Behaviour Recommendations

In order to help employees get closer to the desired behaviours set by department heads, we have recommended that the museum use signs and booklets to inform their staff on those practices. We have made drafts of three different signs. The first set addressed general behaviours, giving tips on things staff can do to save energy and stay comfortable. The second set addressed thermostat usage, explaining how to use the thermostats correctly. The third set addressed window usage, asking staff to turn the thermostats off before opening windows. The informative booklet outlines simple energy-saving behaviours, proper ways to use the thermostats, and how to use the BMS software.

Technical Recommendations

In order to fix the software issues we found, we have recommended that the museum asks Kendra Energy Solutions, their BMS supplier, to add a graphic function to their software for remote control of the thermostats beyond the current barebones on-off implementation, and to check that the time schedule function is working as intended. The booklet’s section on how to use the BMS software will have detailed guides to teach Collections and Estates employees how to create trend graphs, a useful tool for measuring how museum conditions change over time.

To address the large windows that let in too much heat, we have recommended that the museum add transparent UV-blocking film to the windows in their welcome spaces.

Finally, we have recommended that the museum add PIR sensors that integrate with the BMS for smaller areas like meeting rooms, so that the heating and cooling can be activated by motion detection. We have also recommended that the museum utilise clamp meters, a portable electricity measurement device that requires little wiring to install, throughout the buildings to get a better idea of which areas and appliances consume the most energy.