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HVAC-ology
Welcome to "HVAC-ology," your podcast for all things related to commercial HVAC systems! Whether you're an experienced technician, an HVAC engineer, a curious business owner, or simply someone interested in understanding the parts and pieces of HVAC systems, this podcast is perfect for you.
In each episode, our expert hosts and enthusiasts delve into the complex world of commercial heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC). We cover everything from the latest equipment technology advancements to practical tips.
Music credits: "Bring Me Back" by Deleveled (instrumental for intro and with lyrics for outtro).
HVAC-ology
HVAC-ology Episode 9: Building Controls from PLCs to AI and More
What if the key to mastering building environments lies in the palm of your hand? Join us in this episode of HVACology as we kick things off with some fun banter about our favorite TV shows and movies. Ryan shares his latest guilty pleasure, "Perfect Match," and Kelly reminisces about the timeless charm of "Gilmore Girls." We take a nostalgic trip down memory lane, recalling beloved classic movies, and invite you to like, follow, and subscribe to stay in the loop with our latest episodes.
Our special guest, Brian Lampley, takes us on a fascinating journey from his high school dreams in rural North Carolina to becoming a pivotal figure in the HVAC controls industry. Brian's story is a blend of humor and insight, shedding light on how controls are fundamental in managing environments like shopping malls and hospitals. We delve into the evolution of building control protocols, the rise of IP-based systems, and the critical importance of cybersecurity in today's digital age. Brian offers a rich perspective on the technological advancements shaping our world, from PLCs to DDCs, and their indispensable roles in high-stakes environments.
As we wrap up, we explore the transformative impact of AI on building management. Brian shares an inspiring project turnaround story that underscores the power of innovation and expertise in the HVAC controls industry. This episode is a goldmine of knowledge, personal anecdotes, and practical advice for anyone passionate about HVAC controls and the future of building technologies. Tune in to gain valuable insights and be inspired by the enduring power of love and technology.
Please be sure to subscribe to our podcast and share with anyone who might be interested!
Welcome to the HVACology experience, where we talk about all things HVAC industry topics that are so hot, they are cool.
Speaker 2:All right, we are in episode number nine, is that right, kelly? That is correct, ryan. Yes, thank you so much for helping me keep up with that, kelly. We have done a very bad job of this. What should people do if they have been enjoying these podcasts?
Speaker 3:They should like follow, subscribe. Whatever you need to do to make sure you see this podcast every week.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you know what else. I've done a very bad job of doing, kelly. Tell me, I have done a very bad job of introducing you. So I would like to introduce my co-host, kelly Patterson. And I'm really not a very good drummer. I used to. When I was in a rock band, I used to try to get on the drums and I would immediately get pulled off by other band members. I used to try to get on the drums and I would immediately get pulled off by other band members. So, kelly, while I was I don't know if you knew this, but I actually got pretty sick after doing my South Africa trip that we talked about, and, being sick, I started watching a dang reality TV show.
Speaker 3:And guess what it did to me? Did it make?
Speaker 2:you apply to be on the reality show, say yes, no, it sucked me in to where I started binge watching these dang things and they're so stupid. So I have a question.
Speaker 3:I have to ask which one, I have to ask which one come on, tell me to say it.
Speaker 2:I'm embarrassed to say it, tell me perfect match on netflix. It's a dating show. I've never heard of it. Yeah, don't look it up. So, and I'm not, I'm not, but this one's grabbed me and I gotta see it through the end. So I have two all-time favorite shows that I can go back and watch. And that is lost, and friday Kelly.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm with you on Lost.
Speaker 2:Okay, the last season. I'm hoping I'm not spoiling anything because I think it was over like 10 years ago, but last season of Lost it got pretty weird, didn't it?
Speaker 3:It did very much, so yeah, I skipped that season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so do you have a show that you can go back to and you can watch over again?
Speaker 3:have a show that you can go back to and you can watch over again. So I, back in the late 1900s, I started watching a show called the Gilmore girls. Oh, and I have watched. I watched the Gilmore girls still every single day while I get ready for work.
Speaker 2:That's great.
Speaker 3:I have been watching it continually since 1998 or 99.
Speaker 2:So I love their fast-paced wit. The mom and the daughter yeah, it's fun. Yeah, my wife has probably seen the entire, from season one to however many seasons of Friends. She's probably watched that about nine times.
Speaker 3:That's another good one.
Speaker 2:So what is a favorite movie that no one knows that you actually love? I have one of those.
Speaker 3:Tell me yours first.
Speaker 2:All right, I'll tell you mine so that you have time to think of yours. Mine is Meet Joe Black. I actually have that movie almost memorized.
Speaker 3:Really.
Speaker 2:Isn't that odd I don't know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is, and I don't know that I've seen it more than once, so it didn't strike me. I'll have to watch it again. Interesting Meet Joe Black.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's up there with me for Tombstone and Gladiator and Patriot and all those, and then all of a sudden I got Meet Joe Black in there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have weird shows, so I was never a cheerleader. But bring it on. Anytime it's on TV I have to watch. I have to sit and watch the entire thing. It's weird and it's almost like your perfect match thing, right. But every time it's on television I have to see it like I have to sit and watch the entire thing. It's weird and it's almost like your perfect match thing, right. But I have to. Every time it's on television, I have to see it. I don't know.
Speaker 2:All right, well, bring it on Good stuff.
Speaker 3:We're good, bring it on, bring it on.
Speaker 2:So, kelly, today we're going to be talking about critical technologies with Mr Brian Lampley. Hello Brian, how are you today Doing? Excellente, thank you for asking.
Speaker 4:I'll be honest with you. I mean I've enjoyed the last 10 minutes of it because I did not realize that I was dealing with the professionalism and the fact that you're just using this as a platform to get recognized and become viral. So I did not realize this and I appreciate being part of the launchpad of your future success.
Speaker 2:Well, now you know, kelly and I, what we're trying to do, our underlining plans. You've figured this out. Love it. So, brian, before we get into critical technologies, one of the questions we'd like to ask folks is is how in the world did you get on that beautiful May-ish day of graduating high school to today from a high level?
Speaker 4:Got it. So I graduated. So I have lived in North Carolina my entire life. I grew up in rural North Carolina, graduated as and I think it's funny that Kelly, because I refer to it all the time as the late 1900s when I graduated college and school and started my professional career but graduated high school, had a rough idea of kind of what I wanted to do. There was very much a militarist, military type of feeling. So I really would have said there was probably at least a 50% chance that I went into the military. But I wanted to go into the Air Force and I wanted to fly, which I probably they would never let me probably wash a plane, but my eyesight kept me from being able to be considered for that. So you know then it was OK. What else do you want to do?
Speaker 4:And my father had a an interesting career path as well, but he worked for at that time CPNL, carolina Power and Light, and so there was a kind of an engineering background, an electrical background. My maternal grandfather was a significant influence in my life, coach, mentor. You know, before I knew such a thing as a coach or mentor existed and he never graduated the sixth grade but had an incredibly talented mechanical mind and so I kind of grew up in that environment. So I decided I actually went to Sandhills Community College at first and graduated with the Associates of Science degree and then transferred to UNC Charlotte for the electrical engineering.
Speaker 4:So I graduated in 1994, like you said, the late 1900s with a degree in electrical engineering, and the reason that I am in the controls industry is because of my wife. So she gets all of the credit and all of the blame of my wife. So she gets all of the credit and all of the blame. At the time that we were dating boyfriend, girlfriend I was graduating college and I had two main job offers on the table that I was contemplating. One of them was with a company called Bell Atlantic Mobile which ended up becoming Verizon, and that project was an engineering role in the Greenville, south Carolina, one of their main headquarters. And the other one was with a controls company that was based in Greensboro, and so my girlfriend at the time lived in Winston-Salem and so Winston-Salem was about 40 minutes away from Greensboro and was about four and a half hours away from Greenville, south Carolina. So I became a controls person. So that's my controls background story.
Speaker 2:There you go. A story, a love story oh sorry. No, go ahead.
Speaker 3:Love decided your career path. I think that's great, perfect match.
Speaker 2:That's funny. So what I'm hoping to do is to talk a little bit about what are controls and, if you don't mind, brian, while we're talking and kind of building up the conversation, let's kind of start with the basics so that folks that are listening, if they've never considered controls, you know what in the world is it and so you know. If you could just kind of walk us through. You know you buy this equipment for building and now you need to know how it operates and you need to make sure that it operates correctly and you need to have these schedules and energy savings and all that, can you kind of walk us through? How in the world does a customer get a, let's just say, an air-cooled chiller, some air handlers and some VAV boxes and then where do they go with controls?
Speaker 4:Sure. So you know, I'm going to try to kind of set the context just a little bit on there. And kind of the invention of controls. So you know, I'm going to try to kind of set the context just a little bit on there, and kind of the name of Dr Johnson, who ended up being named as one of the main controls companies that are out there, and he was a professor and he was tired of the steam radiators in his classroom either being too cold or too hot and so he invented the first thermostat, and so that was kind of the beginning of controls.
Speaker 4:And that's really ultimately the same things that we're doing now, just with a slight different kind of leaning to it. So it's all about being able to control the built environment, and so the mission of that depends on the built environment itself. That depends on the built environment itself. So if it's a shopping mall, for instance, you want to make sure that if you're the owner of the shopping mall, you want to make sure that as pleasant as possible for people to spend as much time in there as possible so that they can spend a bunch of money. If you're a hospital and you need to be able to maintain the operating conditions of an operating room. That's the goal of that facility. So it's really kind of dependent on that and that's really where the controls come from. And so when you're talking about an understanding and this is an interesting piece of it is that in the built environment you have to have ventilation, you have to have conditioning of the space of some type. Even in warehouse conditions, you have some type of conditioning of the space inside of the warehouse.
Speaker 4:And so the the engineers that come up with the design of it, they really the first decisions that they make are actually control related decisions. Whether they recognize it or not, the first decisions that they make are basically based how are you going to, you know condition that classroom? Are you going to have you know an individual, you know unit for each classroom? Are you going to have a single unit that controls? You know that distributes air through an area of the building? You know, like you said, are you going to use chilled water or you're going to use compressor-rised equipment? And all of these are kind of, ultimately, are controls-related. Again, most of the time they don't even recognize that that's the decision that they're going to make.
Speaker 4:The controls contractor. What we have historically done is really the critical piece of sewing these individual systems into a tapestry. You know, before we start. You know you have one piece of equipment and it does its thing, and you have another piece of equipment, it does this thing, but each one of these pieces of equipment really can't do anything until we actually connect them together and start making them operate as a system.
Speaker 4:And so we're the ones responsible for making sure that the chilled water system that is producing the cooling for the space is providing the right amount of cooling, the air handlers are doing the right amount of air going through it and whatever the terminal units are making sure all of these systems work together, and these all report back up to a front-end system, and the front-end system goes by many names human machine interface, the BMS, computer, all of these types of things is where that information would normally come back to and be represented, and at that level is where we would do alarming, based off of abnormal conditions, trend information to be able to see what the overall system has been performing over a period of time, as well as having a real-time visualization of how all the systems are interacting.
Speaker 2:So maybe another way to kind of package that up is that you have some pieces of equipment that come with a PIC on it, a product integrated controller that has the ability to have its own individual brain, and so you could have a bunch of pieces of equipment with their own individual brain. But what you guys are doing are creating a collective neural network between each other to where the entire system one knows that it exists, so air handler on first floor knows that air handler on second floor exists, and then the chiller knows that air handler one and two exist, and knows that the pump exists, and the pump knows that it needs to uh, it needs to create the flow to be able for the chiller to be able to operate correctly. And so what you're doing is is you're kind of building this neural network between all of these different brains. Is that kind of another way to say it?
Speaker 4:Absolutely, and you know that's um when, when I started off with my career, um again in that late 1900s, the controls contractor would provide all of those individual controllers. So there was no packaged equipment controllers. If it was, it was on a very unique piece of equipment like a chiller. And what we have seen over the last 20 years is a movement toward, like you said, that PIC, that Package Integrated Controller. And so it just depends on the type of project, the type of mission that the project has, on who provides that controller. But at the end of the day, the result is exactly the same, whether we provide the controller or other companies provide the controller as part of their equipment is connecting and binding all of that equipment into a single system to be able to allow the facility operations team to be able to interact with it.
Speaker 2:So you have all of these different.
Speaker 2:So rewind decades ago and you have all of these different companies that are trying to make the cats meow as far as controls are concerned, and so they were speaking their native language and they were trying to get all the bugs out, make sure that the code is written correctly, and then what you see is that you have these languages, but then you have translators of those languages, and really to me, unless you may know of some more, but the three main ones were Modbus, lawn and BACnet, and it seems like the government slash military kind of grabbed a hold of Modbus and Lawn to where the private sector and the rest of the world kind of took on BACnet, and BACnet seems to kind of be the last man standing, if you will, for translators, to the point to where there's businesses or there's manufacturers that are talking native BACnet.
Speaker 2:Do you have any background as to how in the world all that kind of came about? And you know why is it that BACnet is the one that you like to go after if you can as far as translating or talking between different pieces.
Speaker 4:So when we started off with controls, like you said, ryan, is that it started with all the companies developing their own platforms and their own communication protocols, and it was basically out of necessity. There was no real thought of having a single type of platform. And who would come up with that? Who would come up with that overall platform to connect everything together? Because they were just trying to. Number one is that they wanted to capture the building. There was a commercial reason not to allow it to communicate to other things and it was also not really an expectation of the owners themselves that it would connect to different products. And so what we saw is a shift in open systems in the early 2000s. Open systems in the early 2000s and that was pretty much the reason behind was because customers did not want to be handcuffed to an individual company. That's really, you know, probably 90% of the reason and the desire. And, like you said, there was two basic, you know different protocols out there that kind of came to the forefront and that was LAN and BACnet.
Speaker 4:Inside the HVAC world, modbus has always historically been more on the electrical side. Even though we do see Modbus used in HVAC controls, it still is very prevalent in the electrical systems today. So it is the number one protocol that we integrate to when it comes to electrical systems. But Lon was interesting because Lon was an open product but it was actually a very proprietary system. And it was proprietary because there was only one company in the world that could make lawn chips and that was the Echelon Company, and so what that allowed manufacturers to do is go and buy this one chip and then it was guaranteed that it would communicate. Bacnet is actually a standard and it is created by ASHRAE, and so it was specifically designed for use in exactly what we're talking about BMS HVAC controls. Interestingly enough, lan started off as a CAN bus type of communication protocol in Europe. In fact, if you go to Europe right now, the majority of all the trains still use lawn as their can bus inside the train. So it was not an HVAC-centric type of protocol, whereas BACnet absolutely was. And because no one company owned BACnet, it was an open standard. It allowed for companies to come in and be able to take in and use that and build their own systems, build their own things around it, but still have this common protocol to be able to go across.
Speaker 4:Now some of the challenges that we have seen with BACnet and, by the way, bacnet, you're exactly right, hvac-wise, lawn is a dinosaur. Every once in a while you'll find a fossil somewhere, but other than that you don't see any. You know new projects with lon in them. It is all back net um, but we're actually entering in yet another phase of hvac controls that is a very interesting one is that we're actually transcending back net um.
Speaker 4:What I would project, and I know that we're actually transcending BACnet, what I would project and I know that we're going to kind of talk about trends later on but I foresee that BACnet will actually start taking a backseat to other protocols that are even more open than BACnet are. Because one of the things that are a challenge with BACnet is it was designed to be very routable, meaning that when you put it into the system or network, it was designed to be able to go across and communicate to different products, and so the problem is is that again for our southern listeners is that it's kind of like kudzu it's very hard to contain when it gets onto the network, and that is very good when it comes to making sure that it works as an open, interoperable standard, but it's not so good when you start talking about some of the cybersecurity concerns.
Speaker 2:Very good. So if you are a building owner or your mechanical contractor and you've put in a Daikin chiller, you've put in a dyken chiller. You've put in a carrier air handler, you've put in a johnson controls air handler over here. So at what? There was a time when the the ability to get those guys to speak to each other and and even their bod, the bod rate that they had, was different to where you had a hard time integrating all of those. Has that kind of gone away now? Is that kind of an easier plug-and-play scenario?
Speaker 4:It is way easier. It's not entirely gone away and the reason is that when we start talking about MSTP as far as BACnet, and that we still have the majority of our projects that are MSTP, they're an RS-485 based network and so with that you're still relying on baud rates and what you'll end up having is and it would be no different than buying something off of Amazon Sometimes you'll buy a Wi-Fi thing and it will only talk 2.4 gigahertz where everything else is on 5 gigahertz. So you'll still run into some of that, those issues with the communication, bit rates and all. Now, once we start transitioning over to the IP-based, that legitimately now completely goes away. So while integrations used to be, you know, very difficult to do, they've become quite a bit easier. It's much more plug and play. It's still not entirely plug and play, but it's quite a bit easier. And you know those challenges of those early systems are somewhat of a thing in the past.
Speaker 2:So what is IP-based and how is that different from the past?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so the IP-based is literally Internet Protocol, and so what you have is that these devices will talk BACnet, and it'll be BACnet over IP or Modbus over IP, and what that is is that it's just a different protocol language that is riding on top of the Internet protocols that are every computer out there, and so it's a high-speed CAT6 cable just like plugging into your modem at home. It's the exact same underlying infrastructure, and what that allows you to do is have a lot more of the security and cybersecurity elements to be able to be built in. So, instead of having HVAC companies to try to build in cybersecurity which they will never be good, you know that have their entire company built around cybersecurity, being able to use those types of tools and underlying protection.
Speaker 2:So you ended there in a good spot. So cybersecurity you know I've sold controls in a prior life and one of the hardest things I would do is I would sell this solution. It was exactly what they needed, price point was perfect. And then you get and start talking with their IT department and it was like pulling teeth to get them to release static IP addresses to where I could then be able to remote in. So why is it that that is such a big deal? The cybersecurity aspect of that. And then kind of walk me through just what is the responsibility of a controls contractor to make sure that the end user's cybersecurity is locked down.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there's still a little bit of a wild west when it comes to projects, and the reason is because you have the HVAC. So this starts coming into contracting, which I don't want to bore the audience with contracting conversations, but the HVAC controls have historically been bought under the mechanical package, because we have systems that control mechanical systems. The IT network is usually a subsystem on the electrical side, and then you have the overall IT structure, which is usually the owner provided or owner dictated, and so from a contractual standpoint it really again is a little bit of a wild west as far as who has the overall ownership. And we still run into a lot of problems with the IT group, and it's mainly because of the easiest way to make sure that their systems are protected is to wall them off and not allow anybody to connect to it. You know that's the number one easy situation, especially when you start talking about, if you think about how many computers that they have inside an office building, and so now you start adding in all of the HVAC equipment and so you may have, you know, 400 VV boxes that now need to have an IP address, and so from a management standpoint it starts becoming a real burden on them to be able to issue that, and so one of the things that we like to try to do is propose an ITOT network, and the ITOT network is basically we create a separate network with just our equipment on it, and then we connect to their infrastructure at certain points that become demilitarized zones when you plug in, and so that allows them to have their security only at a couple of different checkpoints, versus them having to adopt the security for the entire system.
Speaker 4:Some of the other things that we've been dealing with is again because of BACnet being so routable. Ashrae has released a standard and all the companies are moving to incorporate that, which is called BACnet Secure Connect or BSC, and what that does is allow an infrastructure where, basically, you only have a couple of controllers that have the phone book of where all of the other controllers are, versus a typical BACnet situation where it you know all of the controllers out there will respond to a you know who is command. You know one of the fundamental BACnet commands is who is, and if you send out who is on a network, all of the controllers that are not BACnet secure connect have a responsibility to reply back. That you know. Here I am, and so that's one of the things that are a real challenge on the security piece of it.
Speaker 4:But what we're seeing is more and more of a focus on it, and that's something from a company standpoint. We're looking at bringing on employees that have a background in security, that understand that, to be able to help us leverage into it, able to help us leverage into it. We're also seeing, you know, customers that are dictating certain type of switches, usually a Cisco switch that fits into their overall security, the way that they're hardening their internal networks.
Speaker 2:I tell you, man, I've thought about this. If hackers that are out there in the world, if they took the time to try to do good rather than evil, it would be amazing what humanity could do. I mean, it's just, without a doubt, yeah, aggravating that there are so many villains out there that I'm sure have their, their. Their version of what they're doing is right, uh, and it's just, it's just disgusting, man they have. If people knew how much money is invested and just trying to keep the, the villains, out of everything.
Speaker 4:It's crazy, oh yeah, I mean, that's one of the things that completely off subject on there. But I've read that the amount of money that you spend on a new car is about a third of that money is based on you not wearing your seatbelt. The airbags, the crumple zones, all of the infrastructure that the companies build in, including the loss of efficiency, with the weight of all of it is like 30% of the cost of the car. So to your point is that we spend an incredible amount of money that nobody really realizes that is spent to try to harden and keep bad actors from creating an issue.
Speaker 2:Hmm, so if we could transition maybe over from cybersecurity over to the Internet of Things, kind of walk through IoT and what's that looking like in your uh field?
Speaker 4:so internet of things is? It's a very interesting topic because there's a lot of conversation about it, there's a lot of groups, there's a lot of um of attention and you know, but yet we've not seen a lot of it really hit the marketplace yet in a commercial environment. You know, the interesting thing is that the most Internet of Things implementations that you're going to find are probably in your house, right? You know you have Amazon Echoes or you know Google Homes or Apple, you know Home Kits, and so it is, you know, very, you know, expected to see smart things start entering in the home when it comes to smart thermostats and smart sprinkler systems and garage door openers and security systems and cameras and all of these things are expected to work in the house. And yet in our commercial facilities we've really not seen that, and a lot of it comes back again to the commercial side is that you have engineers, that you know the specifications and when we do a bid and spec type of a project where a owner has gone out and hired an engineer to create a set of documents, a set of plans and specifications that they go to then have people bid on, I mean these specifications are so old, I mean, it is not atypical to see that you're required to provide a dot matrix printer and a Pentium processor computer, and so if they haven't updated their computer spec in the last 10 years, you can imagine what the Internet of Things portion of the specs are going to look like.
Speaker 4:That being said, it's, without a doubt, is coming down the pipe and that's really what comes back to. We were talking about the communication protocol and BACnet being the, you know, the driving communication protocol in the HVC world. What we're seeing now is more and more of a shift, or potential shift, into API communications, which again are, you know, the things that apps use to be able to communicate to each other, and we're seeing that again move and that's going to be able to help facilitate the Internet of Things. And we're seeing, you know the really a lot of out-of-the-box creative thinking when it comes to because if you really think about it, from the very beginning of DDC controls, hvac controls, what we've been doing has really not changed. You know the type of controllers that we've used, the type of you know infrastructure we've used, what the graphics look like.
Speaker 4:All of this has changed, but you know it still comes back to the stat on the wall, that is, you know, trying to measure temperature appropriately.
Speaker 4:And all of us have been in a conference room where it's either been way too hot or way too cold because of this stat sitting on the wall.
Speaker 4:And what we're seeing now is companies that are coming out with products that are literally using you know brand new technology to be able to tell the temperature of a space that is away from the wall, stat that they can actually program in that you're wanting to tell the temperature, you know, from a conference room from the ceiling down, we have sensors that are doing, you know, basically passive people counters, so that we can actually look again, if we use that conference room as our model, we can actually count how many people come into the room, plus or minus two, and so that we can actually start having the system react faster to be able to cool down the space, versus waiting for the space to get super hot, where you know the sensor on the wall finally picks it up. And so all of those things are coming down the pike and most all of them are being implemented in some way with the Internet of Things type of backbone technology.
Speaker 2:That is way better than the way I used to handle things. So I had a law firm and it was three ladies in a row and they were all along the perimeter of the building. So they have windows and one is comfortable, one is freezing to death, one feels like she's on fire all the time. And they complained relentlessly. And what we did did was is my installer says hey, I'm just going to put a dummy thermostat in each of these. We put those dummy thermostats on there. There was only one that actually was real. Never told them anything different. And all of a sudden, everybody's fine, everything's fine, yeah.
Speaker 4:I claim that's what they've done in my office. I'd love to say that I've never installed a dummy thermostat, but that may not be a true statement.
Speaker 2:Hey, if it makes you happy, it can't be that bad, that's right.
Speaker 3:That's a song.
Speaker 2:It is yeah. So, brian, we've kind of gone through a mixed bag of things within your industry. Oh yeah, but before we get off the Internet of Things, one more thing.
Speaker 2:Artificial, intelligence, I'd be remiss to not bring up that hot topic. I mean, I think, kelly, I think if you just put the word artificial intelligence in the text of whenever we do this podcast, I have a feeling that people will click on it, just because those two words are in there. So, artificial intelligence, brian. So we talked about Internet of Things, cybersecurity, kind of making it to where our buildings, our homes, are smarter. Where do you see in your industry artificial intelligence starting to come into play?
Speaker 4:So you know, when I first started hearing about artificial intelligence, you know one of the things that really struck me was that you know that it was talking about, you know how, you know how scary it was and you know what kind of a threat to humanity. In fact, stephen Hawking said the thing that scared him the most was artificial intelligence. And you know I was ignorant at the time and you know my mind. I'm thinking about Permanator. You know the rise of the machines and you know launching missiles at each other.
Speaker 2:The.
Speaker 4:Skynet Exactly, and what we've really seen is AI has kind of snuck up on this. It's kind of grown and grown and grown kind of in the back in the shadows, and all of a sudden it's just burst onto the scene and it's amazing how much stuff is out there and headed in that direction. And I think that we will see very similar to that when it comes to building systems. I think that you're not going to have this. Oh my gosh, ai is. We're going to do this with AI. I think it's going to be very sneaky in the way that it gets adapted into the system. From a technology standpoint, from an engineering piece of it, we're starting to use AI to help build sequence of operations. You can actually have AI build programming for control. So that's kind of that back office engineering, but if it's able to do the heavy lifting, you know, and do a lot of the core piece, where now your engineers, which are very short supply, now have the ability to spread their knowledge base and their capabilities over a wider portfolio of projects. So we're absolutely starting to see it in that. So we're absolutely starting to see it in that From an equipment standpoint, the things that I were talking about as far as being able to tell the temperature away from the thermostat several 10 feet away from the thermostat or be able to do the people counting inside the room. That actually is all being powered by AI. There's not a controller. That is a building controller someplace. It's actually being done by AI that is in the piece of equipment controller that is, you know, a building controller someplace. It's actually being done by AI that is in the piece of equipment itself that is doing that. So, from a programming standpoint, you know that takes, you know we could never do that and we just there's not enough time in the you know do we have the people that are talented enough to do it Absolutely, but nobody would ever pay us to do that type of integration. It's got to come in the device and then we can utilize that information.
Speaker 4:Also, I feel like it's going to be huge when it comes to real-time diagnostics and fault detection, because right now, again, from a manpower standpoint or a resource standpoint, you can't find educated. So when it comes to operating a building is, unfortunately, you have to know so much about so many different systems. You have to know a little bit about plumbing, you have to know a little bit about HVC, a little bit about refrigeration, a little bit about electrical, and being able to get this portfolio of knowledge base is just a real challenging thing. And then, if you do collect all of this information, then your value is probably more than they're going to want to pay for that FICOP team. Just being completely honest, know, completely honest. And so by allowing these systems to now all of a sudden have the built-in fault detection and there's already, you know, real time with different products like SkySpark and which are incredibly effective but you have to sit down and program all of these rules versus AI. What we're starting to see is companies that are utilizing AI to basically build in the fault detection into the system, and I absolutely foresee a chance where you have a FAC ops person sit down at a computer for the typical HMI and say he doesn't know what he needs to do, but he needs to say I need to make Kelly more comfortable. She's complaining, you know that it's hot in her room and literally typing out something in that type of a sentence and the system coming back with this is what you need to do, click here to do it, and we absolutely are going to see that sometime and I don't think it's going to take.
Speaker 4:You know the shift from proprietary systems to BACnet. You know that took, you know, a good 15, almost 20 years to really have that full shift. We're not going to see that kind of time. This is almost like you know, when it came to high-speed networks, going from dial-up you know, modems, you know to lease-line modems, and it took, you know, roughly 20 years. And you know one of the things that they said was that the phone companies were protected because of how long it would take to do this with cable companies. You know this old, you know, cable company is going to take them, you know, two decades. It took them about three years, you know, to get the system adapted. And I think that you're going to see something very similar to that is that this revolution is going to happen very quickly, way quicker than anything else that we've really seen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you said something very. The key word you said in there was is that AI is not perfect yet and I think when that yet goes away and it's pretty close to perfect or better than what human capabilities would be able to do in situations I think you and I are going to have a lot different conversation about that.
Speaker 4:Oh, without a doubt and the bad part about it is it's kind of like autonomous driving cars is that they're not like you said. They're not perfect, but they're already probably better than 90% of the drivers that I interact with on the road. So you know, if they continue to get better, it's going to be a pretty short jump.
Speaker 2:You mean the drivers on the road that have their face down looking at their screen.
Speaker 4:Oh, absolutely Checking their Facebook status.
Speaker 2:Dude, I mean. The fact that people are willing to utterly risk their lives so that they can look at their Instagram blows my mind. I've seen people going 90 miles an hour with their face down in the screen.
Speaker 4:Yeah, weaving in and out of traffic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've seen videos of these people that have the cameras in the back and the front that will show people looking down as they just ram into the back of them. It's sad, man. I mean we're almost With the way we are right now, with the dependency of the phones. You almost have to have autonomous driving vehicles. As far as the future is concerned, it's going to be a need, not a luxury because we're incompetent, yeah, so, um, thank you.
Speaker 2:So we, we, uh. Now we've gone through the mixed bag of things, uh, uh, as far as in your industry that I was wanting to kind of pull out of you, brian. So now let's actually get to what you do Critical technologies. So what in the world is critical technologies? How is that different from your typical controls provider?
Speaker 4:technologies with a very wide gray paintbrush. And that is done deliberately, because what we we have done these projects for, you know, really starting in 2006. So almost 20 years that we've done these types of projects, and but what it was doing is that we figured out that the types of projects that these that we're talking about and typically what we're talking about is manufacturing it's BSL-3 labs, it's data centers, it's microelectronics manufacturing, it's heavy manufacturing, it's battery manufacturing, it's food production it's these types of projects that our traditional business had not been doing before. And so what we wanted to do is create a group that was um, that was more nimble, to allow us to approach these projects and be able to be more in tune with what the the needs of the, the customer and the projects are, and also to be able to deploy some of these new technologies, being able to deliver this and do it in a way that is really difficult to do with a large scale company.
Speaker 4:You know, when you're trying to retrain your entire organization, that's a big, heavy lift. And so what we decided to do, instead of trying to do that, we would just create a new, separate entity that was kind of focused on that, and so that is our group. So there's a few kind of hard and fast rules. Any of the PLC projects, any of the SCADA projects, are going to automatically be a CT project. We also do DDC type of projects, but those are going to be specifically when it comes to manufacturing or there's something unique and odd about the delivery. It may even just be schedule-based.
Speaker 4:It's something that has to be delivered in a very short period of time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me stop you there. So you said a lot of acronyms there that maybe some of our listeners. No, no problem. So PLC, what is that and how is that different from the other things that we have been talking about? And why is PLC kind of a buzzword that seems like a lot of the bigger entities are very much interested in Like. What is it about it that's attractive to them?
Speaker 4:So the PLC stands for Programmable Logical Controller, logic Controller, and they've been around forever. In fact they really predate BMS DDC as far as their lineage goes and they have historically been used in the industrial manufacturing side. And what really separates them? If you were to go back and write a specification, as it applies to HVAC controls the difference between what we would consider DDC, which is a commercial type of control, versus a PLC. They have a very similar function. In fact it would be very difficult if an alien came down and you were explaining it. It would be very difficult to explain the difference. But the difference is pretty significant. When it comes to deployment, the PLCs are more robust, they go through more testing. They go through, you know, the mean rate of failure is significantly less than DDC, which DDC controllers are basically kind of considered to be a commodity, mainly because when their implementation on equipment is not critical enough that if they go out that it causes significant problem with you know, whatever the process is, and if you were to think about, like you know, a historical use of the PLC, you know, let's say it's in an oil refinery, you know you can't have that PLC go down and you know if you have that down, then you're in significant problem, either in safety or in production, you know so you can't have that device go down. Versus, if you've got a VAV box in an office building that all of a sudden goes down, it's a problem, but it's not causing significant problems, so it's really kind of that. Focus on it. The PLCs also have a much faster scan rate, which historically has not really figured into the HVAC world, and the reason that I say that is that you know, we look at temperatures based on, you know really minutes, because the systems that we interact with are very slow reacting.
Speaker 4:The interesting thing is that, when it comes to using PLCs into a conventional DDC market, why would you do that? Well, there's a form factor, there's a function factor, and there are certain things that PLCs do that DDC controllers just can't do, at least right now, and one of those is a redundancy model can't do at least right now, and one of those is a redundancy model. And the redundancy model is that if we have let's say that we have a chiller plant and we have, you know, 20 chillers that are connected in to this chiller plant, and let's say we've got five chillers that are connected into a chiller plant Is how do you make all of those systems work together and make it into a high availability system so that if you have a single point of failure, your entire system doesn't stop working? Now, historically, what we would have done is put in individual controllers for each of those lineups and then we'd be passing heartbeat information back and forth through the network. We may even have some hardwire signals of hey, I'm online and working, or I'm offline and we're doing those type of things.
Speaker 4:All of that is a really challenging way to program around and it takes a lot of time, not only to program initially, but to do the checkout and commissioning, you know, to make sure that it's operating correctly. So if we're able to put all of that information into a single brain, it becomes very easy. But that comes back to putting all your eggs in one basket. If you put all your eggs in one basket, you need to be pretty doggone. Sure that basket is a good basket, and so, from a redundancy module, it allows us to put all of that intelligence. You know, basically a dictator right. You know we're putting a dictator of the system in place that has all of this information going to one person that's making the decision. But then we have this redundant dictator that is sitting over here ready to jump in if there's a problem with that first controller. So that allows us to be able to have a high availability system but actually streamline and simplify the actual implementation.
Speaker 2:So you said DDC. Can you go through that acronym real quick?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that would be a direct digital controller, for our scenario is that it really comes back to the commercial line. It would be the things that you would see from the typical commercial companies like the Honeywells, johnson, siemens, schneider. It would be that type of a controller. Versus the PLCs, that would typically be again Siemens, but a different Siemens, rockwell Automation, omron, hitachi, those types of platforms.
Speaker 2:Very good, you also mentioned SCADA.
Speaker 3:What's SCADA?
Speaker 4:So SCADA is System Control and Data Acquisition and again very similar to DDC versus PLC. If you were to write a spec of what we would typically do with our HMIs, the human machine interface, what the actual FACOps team interacts with the system through the computer, the specification would be very similar but the way that they go about it again is very different. Ddc side and we'll just kind of use that because there's somewhat of a misnomer in the industry that if you go SCADA, plc, they're kind of connected is that you have to have PLC and you have to have SCADA. Or you go DDC, where you have DDC hardware and then you have a DDC front end, and that's not the case. We can absolutely use PLCs in a DDC environment and it works just fine. And exactly the same way we can put in DDC products and pull them into a skate environment. In fact most all of the projects that we do have PLCs, we're going to have a DDC portion of it that we're actually pulling that across. So it's a difference of kind of mindset on that. It's a difference of kind of mindset on that. But on that SCADA side is that the DDC piece of it again kind of grew from that original thermostat that Dr Johnson created and it was built around the person that was consuming that information, that typical backups person. And so we went from that proprietary type of front end to a web-based front end and really what you saw was growing in that person that was interacting. They basically were wanting to interact with it in a real-time scenario. They wanted to be able to see what was going on right now, and then they wanted to have enough alarming trending to basically get them through a long weekend. So if they show up on Monday after Thanksgiving, they want to go back about seven days to be able to see if something happened and be able to figure it out. And that's about what they needed On the SCADA side is that they approach it from a database standpoint.
Speaker 4:They're basically about you know, trend information, being able to have the historian. And it's there because, again, where they were being used is that if you're talking about an oil refinery, you're talking about, you know, a pharmaceutical manufacturer. You need to be able to have this data. You know, years from now that you know the FDA comes and says, hey, we see this product, we've seen this lot, what happened on this day three years ago? And you need to be able to provide that information. So from a regulatory standpoint it had to be very robust. And so they approach the DDC world has typically approached it from a real-time and the SCADA world has really approached it from the historical, the trending side of it, mostly HVC. We're able to implement the Skate-A-Side in a different format and a different flavor than our competitors have because they're used to usually being either DDC or on the Skate-A-Side, which is much more process-centric. So we're able to bring a little bit different flavor using the same technology using the same technology.
Speaker 2:So there was a lot there and I appreciate that. So with critical technologies you have to have the ability to, I think, be nimble is one of the things that you mentioned there, and so correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like maybe with PLC you have the ability to more grassroots build exactly what it is that the end user needs, versus canned subroutines.
Speaker 4:Absolutely yeah. So a DDC controller comes off the assembly line knowing that it's going to be applied to HVAC equipment, even if it's what we refer to as freely programmable, meaning that you can put any program in it, that it has HVAC-centric tools and platforms and profiles that are built into it, versus a PLC that can literally be used for controlling an air handler or chiller like an HVAC, but it also can make cookies if you're at Kellogg's. So it really is a blank piece of paper that you can write anything that you want to on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very good. And then also critical technology seems like it would be something that you'd have to have. A lot of N plus one, N plus two, kind of redundancy, backup to the backup to the backup. Do you see that a lot in some of your customers?
Speaker 4:Oh, absolutely, and that's really where you know even projects that you know we're working on a project right now that the original design was based off of DDC and it is a high availability data center, and you know we were afforded the opportunity to bring a different solution in front of them, and so, while we're using DDC inside the building, for the air side we actually converted their chiller plant into a PLC-based chiller plant because of the same reasons that we're talking about is that it allows us to.
Speaker 4:It is more expensive hardware, there is a cost premium on the hardware, but from a simplicity standpoint and a simplicity of testing and the ability to be able to grow, so the initial build-out is eight chillers but the final build out will be 40 chillers and all of those 40 chillers will be connected to, you know, a single pair of redundant PLC brains that can control that, and so the overall implementation and staging in is massively easier to be able to do that. And so you know we, we use the, you know the, the redundant PLC platform on BSL-3 labs for the, the chiller plants for, you know, airside, depending on the situation. So there's, we use it quite a bit on the redundancy platform.
Speaker 2:Now, as far as the critical technologies, as far as a group that provides solutions, are you landlocked to just the southeast of the United States, or do you all go beyond that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's one of the things that we're very proud of, and, again, one of those being nimble and agile is that historically, you know, it kind of comes back to that proprietary standpoint is that companies had contractual limitations that would landlock them into a certain area and we, because of PLCs, are not really done and purchased that way. We really don't have any anything that keeps us landlocked, and so we are currently working on projects, this week, projects in Kansas, in Ohio, north Carolina, south Carolina, georgia, ireland and Denmark. So we're, you know, we've done projects in 30 states and six countries, which is, it's pretty cool for a company that's based in Greensboro, north Carolina.
Speaker 2:That's really cool. So it sounds like you're willing to like, if you have a very large company that has facilities all over the world, you're willing to travel to where they need you to go.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Yep, it's one of those things that we've been in the past. We had a little bit of a didn't want to. You know we'll go do it if you, if you make us, but we don't really want to. We've kind of we've dropped that and moved to yeah, we're, we're ready to go.
Speaker 2:Cool. So one of the things that we like to kind of end with conversation wise is when's the time that you, you and or your team have had the chance to put on the Superman cape for a customer? Kind of walk me through that story if you wouldn't. Wouldn't mind, kind of at a high level, and feel free to kind of keep names out if you need to.
Speaker 4:Sure, you know one that kind of makes sense that I was actually just talking about. That is a very cool implementation is that we got? One of our salesmen was looking for a project that was in South Carolina they were having trouble getting information about, you know. Hey, we understood we had a good price and we want to do the project. So he reached out to the COO of the general contractor and the COO said yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll get that to you, but that's not the one we need. We need you to come look at this other project. And so we got invited to go and literally that was on Friday.
Speaker 4:We show up on Monday and we look at this data center and it's an existing data of completely outfitting 14 megawatts worth of data center, which would typically take roughly nine months or so. They turned on the servers in the first week of June. So from the time that we initially walked the job, which was in February you know, february, let's say, march, april, may, june within four months we went from, you know, not seeing the project, not knowing anything about it, to actually helping them turn over and actually taking on load at that facility, which is an amazing turnaround. I mean it's just unheard of. So that's you know, from a team standpoint, being able to put on the Superman cape, and that was one that, again, we were basically in a design build.
Speaker 4:So not only were we, you know, implementing it, we were designing it during that same period of time. Were we implementing it? We were designing it during that same period of time and they originally had designed it or looking at a full DDC implementation. We actually presented to them and they ultimately accepted, putting PLCs in for the chiller plant, ddc in for the air handler and then using a SCADA system as an overall interface to both the HVAC as well as the electrical power monitoring system and being able to implement it. So it's a really cool project all the way around for the speed and also the application of these servers, which being able to have these servers where, when we walked on the job site for the first time, these servers were when we walked on the job site for the first time. Literally they're servers as far as the eye can see in the hallway waiting for the facility to be built out, and each one of these servers is $280,000 a piece.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, that's a lot of moolah. Yeah, my understanding is that there's 1,000 systems in that one data center on there. Wow, wow. So uh, kelly, you have any questions for brian before we conclude? I think that you guys have covered it all spectacularly kelly, is there something new that you learned from this conversation?
Speaker 3:So I actually took notes during this conversation because, talking, I took so many notes. I have been waiting for this conversation for weeks. The difference between PLC, DDC and SCADA are not all differences right, or how they interconnect, but I have extensive notes on all of that.
Speaker 2:So excited. You know, what I have found pretty interesting is that I've had younger people in our industry that have called me and said, man, I've been listening to this because it helps me understand what in the world our industry does. And so, brian, I appreciate your time does. And so, uh, brian, I appreciate, brian, I appreciate your time, I appreciate uh explaining a lot of things to us that uh, kelly and I both needed to to to learn, and uh, grateful for you, sir.
Speaker 4:Um, I would like, if you don't mind, kind of a parting shot. Uh, and this is because, again making it relevant when it comes to um, people that may be considering a career path in controls, I can say that this feels like one of those stock market things is past performance doesn't indicate future successor, but if you get into the controls industry, you will never not have a job industry. You will never not have a job. Anybody that is worth their salt as a controls person will always have a job and have opportunities. It's been. No matter what the market is doing, you're going to always have a job because there's just not that many people that understand it, and I mean it is a very valuable resource.
Speaker 4:The other piece of it is that, when it comes to education, you know, one of the things that we have recognized is that, historically, we've gone to engineering schools or tech schools and we've looked at people that have mechanical backgrounds or electrical backgrounds and look for them, and while we still absolutely love those, you know electrical engineers love more electrical engineers we have broadened our horizons to look, you know, of course, at computer engineering, network security, again from a cybersecurity standpoint, and you know, really, you know, degrees are great, but what we're looking for is, you know, degrees are great, but what we're looking for is, you know, people that have a desire to continuously find more knowledge, python, programming, those types of things that are in there. So you know, the only thing that I would you know again, kind of that parting thought is that, from a career standpoint, if you have any kind of leanings toward this, it is absolutely a fantastic career and will guarantee future success if you are, you know, are willing to put the time and energy into it.
Speaker 2:Very good, that is very true. You know people that are. You know, very true People that are different stages of life. Actually, I've seen younger people who grab a hold of this. I've seen older people later in their careers. They're like man, I don't like what I'm doing, and have switched and been successful. The key is to be curious and to be interested in it.
Speaker 3:I think that that's how you go about becoming excellent at whatever it is that you're doing Well, very good.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Brian, for being with us today on HVACology. And that concludes episode number nine.
Speaker 3:Bye, Kelly. Be sure to like Bye. Be sure to like, follow and subscribe. All right, Thank you. Smash that like button.
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Speaker 1:No-transcript.
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