Question: What have all the environments in the above photo got in common?

The answer will be revealed shortly. In the meantime, as you may have read in our Benefits of Building Energy Management Systems blog, energy efficiency and cost savings are a huge benefit of BMS Controls, especially in the current climate. However, for many businesses with critical environments, they are juggling between many other critical factors, alongside saving planet earth and the corporate wallet. Daily, the facilities or estates manager must balance important considerations other than energy reduction. For example, should they prioritise:

• Energy reduction OR protect high value assets, including historic paintings, from mildew?
• Energy cost savings OR protect the life of a patient on the operating table with clean air?
• Energy reduction OR ensure pharmaceuticals and food are safe for consumption?

They are huge decisions, and the good news is that BMS controls can help business decision makers achieve energy reduction while protecting critical environments.

If you’ve not guessed by now, the commonality between the photos, is that they are all critical environments belonging to heritage (art historians, conservation scientists), healthcare, manufacturing and food storage.

• Heritage: Cultural heritage assets including fine art, collections and antiques can easily be ruined by being too dry or too damp, if BMS controls are not professionally optimised. If you are a conservation scientist, then your most important job is to protect the assets in the properties you are responsible for. You don’t want to be the main named man or woman in a PR crisis caused by a multi £million artefact being irretrievably damaged because you were trying to reduce energy costs. Luckily, a fine balance (one of our values) can be achieved alongside energy reduction with a combination of BMS controls technology, sensors and smart strategies developed by our highly trained engineers. An observation we have noted in our time in heritage, is that our BMS controls engineers have discovered BMS controls that have been tampered with by untrained estates teams. This is failure, not necessarily caused in a menacing way. Instead, you can imagine that like most businesses, estates teams go through personnel changes, and staff handovers are not always effective, causing gaps in knowledge. Things can go wrong if BMS controls are not properly maintained, for example, fluctuation can occur in sensors which means false readings are detected. Historic England states that: “Many serious building failures are the result of an accumulation of small failings and the compound effect”.
• Healthcare: BOSS CONTROLS has been working with the NHS and private healthcare sector for ten years and is fully committed to helping improve the patient environment. Alongside BMS controls engineering, we provide independent professional support for NHS senior estates and facilities officers to ensure compliance with all current standards, policies and best practice including Health Specific Documents (HTM 01 to HTM 08). Clean air is a priority, and as in our heritage work, HR plays an important role in ensuring health sector estates teams are continuously trained. BOSS CONTROLS can assist with BMS controls training to reduce business risk and balance the demands of energy reduction and clean air. 
• Pharmaceutical and food storage: BOSS CONTROLS can detect when temperatures, humidity and air pressure in your fridge, freezers, incubators, warehouses  is changing, ensuring businesses meet Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) regulations. Thus reducing business interruption and reducing business risk, and keeping you ahead of the game. Risk management should form the core of every business owner’s approach to protection and care to ensure your business is insured.

To recap, BOSS CONTROLS is experienced in working in critical environments including: heritage, museums, art galleries, healthcare, manufacturing and food storage. The following benefits help you protect your critical environments while balancing the demands of energy reduction.

• BMS controls systems send alarms which notify relevant personal in businesses when limits are exceeded, reducing any downtime.
• BMS controls systems collect and record critical environmental data, ensuring the temperature, humidity and air pressure are correct, which protects everything in your critical environment.
• Our team is highly trained, we have adequate insurance cover and the best accreditations for the work we do. Please see our accreditations.
• BOSS CONTROLS promotes Pre Planned Maintenance (PPM) which cares for assets 24/7  in all critical environments.

In summary, each sector has its own version of critical, and this blog explores four critical environments. We’d love to hear from you if you would like to add your critical environment to our list. Call our sales team on 01403 886508 for further information, or use the contact form below.