Articles by Phil Zito

It’s the heating season here in North America and that means building operators and controls contractors will soon be scrambling to ensure their heating systems are working properly. 

Quite a vague headline, right? Well, it fits the following problem quite well.

Imagine a service that keeps you connected to your customers 24/7.

In my August 2019 article, I began to unpack three approaches that can be utilized to create reoccurring lines of revenue within your engineering and consulting business. This month we will begin to look at the second approach: continuous commissioning.

In my July 2019 column, I mentioned that this month I’d be talking about a technology that could help you to create a reoccurring line of revenue in your consulting and engineering business.

"How can we specify technology when we don’t understand the technology that is being furnished by the owner?”

I was at a conference at the end of April, and we were discussing new ways to deliver customer outcomes utilizing technology. The topic then shifted to how to utilize technologies that are primarily operational in nature in a capital project.

In my previous article on two-system integration, I discussed the four steps for effective integration. Just to recap, those steps are:

These days, everyone seems to want a smart building, but taking the desire for a smart building and turning it into a design is difficult to say the least.

Honestly, the definition of open systems is the most confusing of the three types. Open protocols are pretty straight forward — they’re protocols that communicate with one another.