Managing Commercial HVAC Systems: What do Building Operators Really Need?

Abstract: Buildings form an essential part of modern life; people spend a significant amount of their time in them, and they consume large amounts of energy. A variety of systems provide services such as lighting, air conditioning and security which are managed using Building Management Systems (BMS) by building operators. To better understand the capability of current BMS and characterize common practices of building operators, we investigated their use across five institutions in the US. We interviewed ten operators and discovered that BMS do not address a number of key concerns for the management of buildings. Our analysis is rooted in the everyday work of building operators and highlights a number of design suggestions to help improve the user experience and management of BMS, ultimately leading to improvements in productivity, as well as buildings comfort and energy efficiency.