24/06/2009 by David Slade.

Astronomers are fed up. One fifth of the world’s population cannot see the Milky Way because street lamps and building lights are too bright. So scientists are mounting a new campaign, called Dark Skies Awareness, aiming to reduce light pollution as part of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy.

“Reducing the number of lights on at night could help conserve energy, protect wildlife and benefit human health,” astronomer Malcolm Smith of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile wrote in a commentary Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Smith points out that billions of dollars of light is needlessly shined into the sky each year. Beyond the waste of money and energy, this light is blocking people’s view of the heavens.

“Without a direct view of the stars, mankind is cut off from most of the universe, deprived of any direct sense of its huge scale and our tiny place within it,” Smith wrote.

Plus, lights confuse and harm wildlife. For example, millions of birds in North America die every year because their migration patterns are disrupted by errant light. And baby sea turtles hatched in the sand often mistakenly head toward cities, instead of the sea, because they are lured by artificial lights.

Preliminary research even suggests that light at night is harmful to human health, potentially reducing the normal production of melatonin in our bodies, which suppresses cell division in cancerous tissue.

There is cause for hope, though. Some cities have made improvements in laws and regulations governing light. For example, new lighting codes in New York require dimmers and lights that are activated by motion sensors in many buildings. And Toronto’s Fatal Light Awareness program encourages buildings to turn lights off during bird migration season. The 2009 Dark Skies Awareness project plans a range of programs and events to raise public awareness of the issue and argue to lawmakers about the impacts of light pollution.

Posted in Lighting pollution | No Comments »

24/06/2009 by David Slade.

I am using Buzzom to manage my twitter account.

http://www.buzzom.com/

Posted in Twitter | No Comments »

24/06/2009 by David Slade.

Thanks to its open-ended design and a thriving user community, Twitter is fast outgrowing its roots as a simple, easy-to-use messaging service. Enterprising hackers are creating apps for sharing music and videos, to help you quit smoking and lose weight — spontaneously extending the text-based service into one of the web’s most fertile (and least likely) application platforms.

Hardware hackers have set up household appliances to send status alerts over Twitter, like a washing machine that tweets when the spin cycle is through, or a home security system that tweets whenever it senses movement inside the house. Others have incorporated Twitter into their DIY home automation systems. Forgot to turn off the lights? Send a tweet to flip the switch by remote control.

“It’s so simple and easy to access, people are thinking of more and more uses for the platform,” says Dan Wasyluk, creator of the Twitter-based Snipt service. Wasyluk launched Snipt last week as a way to let programmers share short snippets of code over Twitter.

Launched in 2007, Twitter quickly became a darling of the life- and mind-casting interneterati. But some saw boundless possibilities in the 140-character limit, and what was a slow trickle of innovation is now quickly elevating what is essentially a micro-blogging service into one of the internet’s most important technologies, along with instant messaging and e-mail.

Though its main use — sending and receiving short messages to your social network — is often dismissed as time-wasting trivia, Twitter’s potential as a broad internet platform is just beginning to be fully realized. Twitter has grown into a ubiquitous presence — you can send tweets from your phone, your desktop and your browser — that has potential to not only facilitate communication among humans, but even to make machines do our bidding.

Businesses are starting to be built around it. Botanicalls, for example, sells a Twitter-enabled hardware kit that lets your neglected house plants alert you when they’re thirsty.

The company has developed a tiny moisture sensor attached to a circuit board with an Ethernet port. You stick it in your plant’s soil, and when the moisture levels drop below a certain level, your plant sends you a tweet begging to be watered.

Using Twitter’s application programming interface (API), a programmer with even a modest amount of experience can create a web app that gathers public data from Twitter, or uses it to send links, commands or bursts of information.

“[Twitter’s] open API is a huge reason it has grown into such a platform,” says Wasyluk.

File sharers were the first to rush in. The photo-sharing service TwitPic, one of the oldest Twitter mashups, lets users send pictures to their followers by storing a photo on its servers, then passing the link around on Twitter. Now there are newer apps like Tweetcube and Twittershare, which let users share larger media like MP3s and videos.

Twitter’s limited format of short, text-based announcements are a natural match for sites like TrackThis, which you can use to get status updates on FedEx and UPS packages, and Tweetajob, which job seekers can use to get real-time updates about new job openings.

Anyone who needs help quitting smoking can use Qwitter to monitor their progress. Those looking to lose weight can turn to TweetWhatYouEat or TweetYourEats.

Hardware hackers have put a new spin on the Twitter mashup — as it turns out, just about anything that can be plugged into the internet is capable of talking to Twitter.

Programmer Ryan Rose rigged up his washing machine to send him a tweet when his clothes are done. He just follows his machine’s twitter account (it’s PiMPY3WASH) and he knows when to go downstairs and move his undies to the dryer.

Linux hacker Shantanu Goel set up a video camera and some motion-sensing software on a PC connected to the internet. If anyone breaks into his house or goes snooping through his room, the software detects the movement and sends out a tweet.

Tech-savvy environmentalists can install Tweet-a-Watt, a gadget that plugs into your wall socket and connects to your wi-fi network. Once a day, the pocket-sized device broadcasts stats of your daily energy usage to Twitter.

Whether that sort of transparency results in embarrassment or bragging rights can be determined by a system like the one created by Justin Wickett. The Duke University student wired up his home so he could turn his lights on and off remotely, just by sending a text message to Twitter from his mobile phone.

Posted in Home automation network (HAN), Twitter | 1 Comment »

24/06/2009 by David Slade.

We’ve had the connected home available for sometime now. With home automation connected to the internet, and able to report and control devices on site and remotely from any internet enabled device (PC or cell/mobile device). But this the first report of a house connected to the social network; Twitter.

Read on……

Home improvement is gaining a new connected visual dimension.

One house twitters about its energy usage, another posts every item in its refrigerator and dozens more provide live data on how much electricity their solar panels are generating.

An increasing number of homeowners are installing monitors on their houses that broadcast information on the Internet about the physical environment in and around where the houses sit.

This revolution is being led by infotech guys like the Google engineer we wrote about, or the creator of the Twitter system, Andy Stanford-Clark, who works for IBM’s Pervasive and Advanced Messaging Technologies team. And as Katie Fehrenbacher noted over at Earth2Tech, the creators of Flash are now hard at work on an energy monitoring and automation system called Greenbox.

Posted in internet fridge, Home automation network (HAN), Twitter | 5 Comments »

24/06/2009 by David Slade.

San Francisco based MOTO Development Group has helped design some interesting gadgets including the LiveScribe Smart Pen and Flip camera.  Now the company’s labs are showing a demo of a large multi-touch screen that can potentially scale up to 50-inches.The prototype display from MOTO Labs has the thickness of an LCD display. It does not use cameras or bulky projection technology,  explain the Labs in this video.

“When this technology is available at the right price it will shift the paradigm for computer use away from individual interaction towards multiple users working on multi-touch surfaces together,” says Daniell Hebert, MOTO Development Group CEO in statement. “It will be all over the workplace.”

Though MOTO Labs claims its touchscreen tech is such that “no other system currently delivers” that may be a bit of a stretch. Israeli company N-Trig says it can make multi-touch displays in almost any size that users want. N-Trig has also launched a touchscreen digitizer kit to make it easy for software developers to create multi-touch based applications.

Posted in Touchscreen technology, Uncategorized | No Comments »

24/06/2009 by David Slade.

Two-finger touch or multi-touch? Users don’t have to choose. It can be touch anywhere says French start-up Sensitive Object, which offers a touchscreen technology that goes beyond the traditional display area.

The company’s ‘Anywhere MultiTouch’ platform is based on the recognition of sound waves propagated in an object when the user touches it.

A user’s touch on a glass surface produces a pattern of sound waves that creates an acoustic signature unique to the location of the touch, says Sensitive Object. The company, which was created in 2003, says it has found a way to associate this acoustic signature to the user’s every action.  A glass panel equipped with two piezoelectric sensors, similar to what is used in some new flat speakers technology, is used to detect the sound waves and determine their acoustic signature.

The Anywhere MultiTouch platform can be used on various materials such as glass, aluminium and plastics says Sensitive Object.

The company hasn’t disclosed how much its new technology will cost. For now it says this will be available at a “very competitive price.” The platform is Windows 7 compliant and offers handwriting recognition.

Sensitive Object hopes to bring its technology to cellphones, netbooks, laptops, PCs and portable games terminals. For app developers, the technology can be handy to expand how users interact with their devices, it says. For instance in case of a cellphone, a game app can require touch on any part of the phone instead of just the screen.

“Sensitive Object’s products are now used in various markets such as home automation, interactive point of sale or information desks and gaming,” says Bruno Thuillier, CTO of Sensitive Object in a statement. “We’re now addressing the handheld and consumer markets.”

Posted in Touchscreen technology | No Comments »

24/06/2009 by David Slade.

A company that provides communications systems to law enforcement agencies around the world has developed a black box similar to those used in aircraft to record crash data in cars.

The Smart Black Box by KCI Communications sticks to your windshield and uses a built-in camera, GPS unit and G-force shock sensor to document accidents. The info could come in handy when trying to determine fault or explain to your insurance company just what happened when you crunched your car.

“It’s the cheapest, most reliable thing yet for recording the events leading up to and after an accident,” Chris Pflanz, the company’s director of sales, told Wired.com. “We’re currently just trying to get the word out about this product, but we would eventually like to see insurance companies offer users of it a discount on their monthly premiums.”

The Smart Black Box costs about $300 and constantly records video footage on a loop as you drive. Should the shock sensor detect an accident, the device saves the 15 seconds prior to impact and the 5 seconds afterward. The footage is saved to a SD Card, like that found in your digital camera, making it accessible on a home computer.

KCI says the GPS unit will record the time and location of an accident and document your speed and direction of travel. The company says that could be useful when trying to prove that red light you ran was actually yellow or in cases where you dispute the reading on a cop’s radar.

“It’s the perfect way to fight back,” said Pflanz. “The authorities always have surveillance cameras on you. Why not put a camera on them for a change?”

KCI Communications is of course not the first company to put a camera in your car. But it couples the camera with GPS documentation and a built-in G-shock sensor, which is capable of tracing the point of impact during an accident on a three line X, Y, Z graph. Unlike other car camera providers, Pflanz said KCI Communications also doesn’t charge a monthly fee or aggregate the recorded data through a main-frame server.

“What you record is yours,” he said. “So, if you happen to be at fault in an accident, nobody else has to see it if you don’t want.”

Photos: KCI Communications

Posted in car technology | No Comments »

23/06/2009 by David Slade.

Digital signage provides innovative in-store advertising and promotional marketing that extends TV, radio, print and online media campaigns. It offers an integrated approach that “reminds” consumers of key marketing messages at the point of purchase and provides a powerful way of stimulating impulse purchases and increasing sales.

Benefits
As TV audiences become more fragmented due to the growth in digital services, advertisers are looking for new ways to reach mass audiences.

Digital in-store advertising provides a new and complementary revenue stream for retailers, brands and media companies.

• grow – create an additional advertising revenue stream by reaching new in-store audiences.

• target – target specific audience groups as they go about their every day business.

• attract - grab attention with eye-catching digital signage that stands out in a retail crowd.

• engage – engage the audience with stimulating content.

• re-enforce – re-enforce brand, advertising and marketing messages within a wider campaign

• influence – influence purchase decisions when the target audience is in “shopping mode”.

• sales – stimulate impulse purchases and generate sales uplift.

• promote – promote special offers, related websites and third party products and services.

• inform – complement advertising and promotions with local community and public information.

• trigger – trigger campaigns in response to breaking news, competitive promotions or local events.

• comply – achieve 100% Point of Purchase compliance by eliminating in-store dependencies.

• educate – train in-store sales staff on key unique selling points of your products.

• reduce – reduce waste and losses by promoting perishable goods near date-code expiry times.

• green - reduce the shipment and disposal of print Point of Purchase material.

• consistent – deliver consistent promotions across retail groups to help maximise buying power.

• responsible – complement campaigns with social awareness messages.

Posted in digital signage | No Comments »

23/06/2009 by David Slade.

The reduction is the equivalent to seven million fewer sick days per year.

More than 2,000 employees were interviewed for a study that revealed between 28% and 60% of workers said they would be less likely to take time off sick if they could hear music at work.

Warehouse workers were most likely to take less time off when music is played, while the figure was 33% for those working in retail.

The research was commissioned by MusicWorks, the group that highlights the positive role music plays in people’s lives.

Its spokesperson said: “This research shows that, where appropriate, the majority of employees enjoy listening to music and find it boosts staff morale. The benefits include decreased sickness and increased productivity.”

It seems if music be the food of work - play on.

Posted in music | No Comments »

23/06/2009 by David Slade.

The following is my own recommendation for the definition for a green building’s minimum design service life - David Slade

This is now set out in BSR/ASHRAE/USGBC/IESNA Standard 189.1P, Standard for the Design of High-Performance Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, now at its Third Public Review Draft stage.

A Service Life Plan that is consistent with the owner’s project requirements shall be developed to estimate to what extent structural, building envelope (not mechanical and electrical), and hardscape materials will need to be repaired or replaced during the service life of the building. The design service life of the building shall be no less than that determined. The estimated service life shall be documented for building assemblies, products, and materials that will need to be inspected, repaired and/or replaced during the service life of the building. Site improvements and hardscape shall also be included. Documentation in the Service Life Plan shall include the building project design service life and basis for determination, and the following for each assembly or component:

1. Building assembly description.
2. Materials or products.
3. Design or estimated service life, years
4. Maintenance frequency.
5. Maintenance access for components with an estimated service life less than the service life of the building.

Provide a Service Life Plan at the completion of design development. The owner shall retain a copy of the Service Life Plan for use during the life of building.

Minimum Design Service Life for Buildings

 Category     Minimum Service     Life Building Types

Temporary     Up to 10 Years

• Non-permanent construction buildings (sales offices, bunkhouses)
• Temporary exhibition buildings
• Data Centres

Medium life     25 Years

• Industrial buildings
• Shopping centres (Retail fit-outs at ten years)
• Stand-alone parking structures
• Schools
• Hospital
• Airports (services)

Long life           50 Years

• All buildings not temporary or medium life, including the parking structures below buildings designed for long life category
• Airports (Building Shell)

Posted in Service Life Plan, Green buildings | No Comments »

23/06/2009 by David Slade.

The best practice is a building is one that is both green and intelligent. It is a building that uses both technology and process to create a facility that is safe, healthy and comfortable, and enables productivity and well being for its occupants. It provides timely, integrated system information for its owners so that they may make intelligent decisions regarding its operation and maintenance, and has an implicit logic that effectively evolves with changing user requirements and technology, ensuring continued and improved intelligent operation, maintenance and optimization.

This building to be designed, constructed and operated with minimum impact on the environment, with emphasis on conserving resources, using energy efficiently and creating healthy occupied environments. It must meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations. Sustainability is measured in three interdependent dimensions: environmental stewardship, economic prosperity and social responsibility. The building to exhibit key attributes of environmental sustainability to benefit present and future generations.

The building to be fully networked for all incorporated systems, where the basic objective is the simple integration of independent systems to achieve interaction across all systems, allowing them to work collectively, optimizing a building’s performance, and constantly creating an environment that is conducive to the occupants’ goals. Additionally, the inclusion of a fully interoperable system in the buildings tend to perform better, cost less to maintain, and leave a small environmental imprint than individual utilities and communication systems.

UK BREEAM and Energy Star rated buildings in the United States earn substantial benefits compared to non-green buildings; in particular 40 per cent greater energy efficiency compared to standard buildings and significant lower operations costs.

Based on industry data, approximately 85 per cent of ENERGY STAR-rated buildings use a system with energy management controls and 50 per cent use lighting system motion sensors to qualify for the ENERGY STAR certification. The idea of leveraging intelligence to enhance building performance, either for energy efficiency or occupant comfort and thereby obtaining credits is also acknowledged by the U.S. Green Building Council. If the objective is clear, the credit system under LEED is geared to recognize building performance that has been enhanced by automation and IT-centric intelligence.

Each building is unique in its mission and operational objectives and therefore, must balance short- and long-term needs accordingly. Bright green buildings provide a dynamic environment that responds to occupants’ changing needs and lifestyles. As technology advances, and as information and communication expectations become more sophisticated, networking solutions both converge and automate divergent technologies to improve responsiveness, efficiency and performance.

To achieve this, bright green buildings converge data, voice and video with security, HVAC, lighting, and other electronic controls on a single network platform that facilitates user management, space utilisation, energy conservation, comfort, and systems improvement.

According to industry experts, building owners are not going to make any investment unless it has a return-on-investment. The question that building owners should ask is what is going to drive the ROI calculations. If there is no value in carbon and no value in saving energy and no value in terms of corporate social responsibility, then there is no value and there are no ROI calculations. In developing a financial justification for investments in intelligent and green technologies, and assessing the potential return on that investment, it is necessary to consider new construction and retrofit projects separately, because the requirements, and therefore the economic fundamentals of the two types of projects are very different.

New Construction
In a new construction scenario, the cost of creating a green and intelligent building is often not that different than the costs associated with creating a traditional building. Certain aspects associated with intelligent building technology and applications, such as cabling, are actually less costly than traditional infrastructure – in the case of cabling, labour costs are often lower where intelligent designs are used. However, other technologies and equipment will require additional investment to integrate all of the components of the system. For example, integrating the access control systems with lighting and HVAC systems will cost more up-front than installing disparate systems alone. As has been found in all of the case studies examined as part of this research, this initial investment in green and intelligent design and technology generally has a relatively short ROI period when compared to the anticipated usable life of a modern building.

Existing Buildings
Retrofits are more frequently driven by the desire to reduce energy costs than anything else. These are often cases where the existing technology or system in a building can be upgraded easily and the payback period is expected to be short. Intelligent building features such as better monitoring and control of energy-intensive systems such as HVAC and lighting can provide for optimum performance and predictive maintenance needs, reducing both energy usage and operating expense. Additionally, reporting features assist in making decisions that make the building more efficient and more reliable.

Integrated building professionals report that facilities managers get very little decision making information, so tuning up the control system is the best thing they can do to optimize the building. With one unified approach to monitoring facilities, buildings can change the underlying infrastructure without changing the enterprise level reporting mechanisms. This allows building owners to have a heterogeneous infrastructure that creates more competition between technology vendors, where they can begin to generate savings more quickly, and can generate an ROI payback in two to three years rather than over the course of a decade. By integrating utility bills into the enterprise asset management system, facility managers can further provide diagnostic information to facility managers, enabling them to take immediate action. In order to conserve energy – and money – it is imperative that proper information management architecture is in place, which makes the information actionable and definable.

Occupant Productivity and Comfort
Occupant productivity, especially in owner-occupied buildings, has a significant measurable impact on the ROI calculation. Given that energy costs represent about one per cent of the overall cost of doing business and investment expenses are about 10 per cent, staffing costs can represent up to 85 per cent of the total cost of doing business. Any improvement in productivity can therefore have a significant positive financial return.

Life Cycle Benefits
Depending on how the life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) is addressed, this could potentially enable facilities and organizations to attain their long-term sustainability goals by developing their environmental monitoring systems to generate pertinent data. Therefore, keeping in mind that intelligent technologies are installed to deliver effective payback and long-term returns, it is critical for such systems to incorporate LCCA.

Posted in life cycle cost analysis (LCCA), ROI, ENERGY STAR, information-technology (IT), Intelligent building, Green buildings, Integration, IIT | No Comments »

22/06/2009 by David Slade.

AMSTERDAM GETS SMART WITH ACCENTURE

Accenture has been chosen by Amsterdam to run a scheme designed to create Europe’s first ‘intelligent city’.

The aim of the Amsterdam Smart City programme is to introduce sustainable and economically viable projects that will help Amsterdam reduce its carbon footprint and meet the European Union’s 2020 emissions and energy reduction targets. Among the projects to reduce energy consumption are a smart electric grid, smart meters and in-home feedback displays, smart building technologies and electric vehicles.

Accenture will work on the programme in partnership with the Amsterdam Innovation Motor, a city-affiliated agency that will build public and private sector co-operation to support Amsterdam Smart City.

Accenture’s European leader for smart grids, Maikel van Verseveld, commented: “Because cities are the world’s major source of carbon emissions, they must play a leadership role in energy management and electricity consumption by uniting the private and public sectors. Accenture’s role is to facilitate this integration and build and manage the intelligent infrastructure that will transform the urban environment.”

Joke van Antwerpen, director of the Amsterdam Innovation Motor, said: “We chose Accenture for its innovative thinking in helping city authorities and utilities come together in responding to climate change challenges, as well as its expertise in smart grid and smart metering technologies.”

Posted in smart meters, Smart Grid Technology, Intelligent building | No Comments »

20/06/2009 by David Slade.

Introduction
Nonlinear loads cause harmonics to flow in the power lines. Harmonics are unwanted currents that are multiples of the fundamental line frequency (50 or 60 Hz). Harmonic currents can overload wiring and transformers, creating heat and, in extreme cases, fire. In information technology power systems it is important to know when and how to address this issue. Recently, the problem has been widely eliminated by international regulations.

Nonlinear loads
Many desktop personal computers present a nonlinear load to the AC supply. This is because they have a power supply design known as a “capacitor input switch mode power supply”.

Information Technology equipment including servers, routers, hubs, and storage systems almost universally use a different power supply design known as “Power Factor Corrected”. These devices present a very linear load to the AC supply and do not generate harmonic currents. In fact they are one of the cleanest loads on the power grid and generate less harmonic current than many other devices such as fluorescent lighting or variable speed motors. Ten years ago, these devices were nonlinear loads like Personal Computers, but today all of these loads are subject to international regulations which require them to be made with the “Power Factor Corrected” design.

Regulations
There is a significant interest on the part of society to reduce the amount of nonlinear loading on AC power systems. This loading reduces the distribution capacity of the public power system, and it can degrade the quality of the power by distorting the AC power waveform delivered to nearby customers. It can also cause a risk of fire on a customer’s premises.

In the 1980s, public utilities and international regulatory authorities including the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) took notice of the trend that an increasing percentage of electrical power consumption was caused by electrical equipment, and that an increasing percentage of this equipment used a “capacitor input switch mode power supply”. Fluorescent lighting, high performance air conditioning systems, and personal computers were key product categories driving this change. In response the IEC created in 1982 the international standard IEC 555-2 “Harmonic injection into the AC Mains”. This standard specifically limited harmonic current injection of “non-professional” equipment.

Switzerland, Japan, and other countries adopted the IEC 555 standard soon after release. Global suppliers of computing products first began to see a restriction on the ability to sell computers into countries that had adopted IEC 555-2 in the mid 1980’s. This situation precipitated the development of Power Factor Corrected power supply technology.

In 1995, the IEC introduced a update of the IEC 555-2 standard, called IEC 1000-3-2. In IEC 1000-3-2 the scope of applicability was greatly expanded over IEC 555-2 to cover all equipment drawing up to 16Amps per phase. The standard added additional limitations on both the absolute and percentage values of harmonics for products with nonlinear switch mode power supplies. Many countries outside of the US and the EC adopted this standard. The EC adopted its own version of this standard later in 1995 as EN61000- 3-2 and required equipment manufacturers to comply with the standard under an EC directive called “The EMC Directive”.

By 1995, almost all new computer equipment introduced for networks and communication was in compliance with IEC 1000-3-2. Even though not all countries had adopted the standard immediately, the standard represented a formidable trade barrier for companies that delayed compliance. Computer OEMs were almost universally specifying IEC 1000-3-2 compliance for OEM equipment intended for system integration. This caused virtually 100% of the IT industry to come into compliance.

Consequences of the standards on actual systems
A system comprising equipment meeting the IEC 1000-3-2 standard will have the following characteristics:

1. The harmonic current in the neutral circuit will have the currents resulting from the higher harmonics reduced to the point where less than 2% per unit of the current will be due to harmonics greater than the third harmonic, the consequence being that all harmonics other than the third can be neglected for neutral current contribution.
2. The “K” factor of the system has a theoretical maximum value of 9, but only if no loads are above 675W. If there are larger loads, then the theoretical maximum “K” factor is reduced: For example, with 2kW loads the maximum “K” factor is 3.
3. The theoretical maximum neutral current will be 1.7 of the rated phase current value, if all circuits are loaded to max rating, no loads are above 675W, and all loads are generating third harmonic at the compliance limit. If there are larger loads, then the theoretical maximum neutral current is reduced: For example, with 2kW loads the theoretical maximum neutral current is less than the phase current.

In a practical system, the harmonic currents will be lower than the theoretical values for the following reasons:

1. Manufacturers must meet the regulations over wide ranges of voltage, manufacturing tolerances, and load, the result being that actual products are well below the compliance limits at typical operating conditions.
2. Some loads are connected phase-to-phase (particularly in the USA), and therefore do not contribute to the neutral current

Harmonics overload building power transformers and cause them to wear out.

Power transformers are rated in KVA and are designed to carry currents at the power line frequency (50 or 60 Hz). The factor that limits the power handling capacity of a transformer is how hot it gets. The heat in a transformer is caused by the inherent resistance of the transformer and the current carried by it. When a power transformer carries harmonic currents, an effect known as the proximity effect (sometimes confused with the eddy current effect) causes the effective resistance of the transformer to increase with frequency.

The result is that the transformer rating must be decreased if the transformer carries significant harmonic currents, otherwise it will overheat and wear out due to insulation degradation. Transformer failures are often catastrophic and emit noxious fumes or fire; they can result in facility closure for days and a variety of health and safety consequences.

For this to be a problem, three things must happen together:

1. The transformer must be loaded nearly to capacity (unusual);
2. The transformer must have a poor “K” factor rating (bad proximity effect design); and
3. The load in the building must be mainly PCs. This is a real potential problem especially in situations where a large number of PCs have been deployed. Again, the location for concern is typically an office environment with high PC density such as a call center.

Abatement and mitigation of harmonic problems
There are a number of approaches to avoiding harmonic problems. These include:

1. Specifying equipment that does not create harmonics
2. Correcting harmonics
3. Oversizing neutral wiring
4. K-rated transformers

Specifying equipment that does not create harmonics
In the case of networking equipment, the problem is solved because of the IEC regulations. In the case of PCs, it is more difficult since a large amount of the harmonic contribution comes from the monitor. One approach is to use PCs and monitors with lower power draw overall, such as the use of LCD monitors or laptop PCs. This avoids both building wiring and transformer problems.

Correcting Harmonics
If a UPS is used in conjunction with the equipment, then in some cases the UPS can correct or eliminate the harmonics. Some single phase UPS eliminates neutral current entirely. If a power factor correcting UPS is used to power clusters of PCs, the harmonics problem cannot pass upstream to the building wiring or power transformers. This approach has the advantage that it can be retrofit to an existing building, and used with existing loads. It also corrects both the wiring and the transformer issues. For other types of loads, such as large industrial motor drives which are not covered by the harmonic regulations, specialized products are available that can absorb harmonics near the source.

Oversizing neutral wiring
In modern facilities the neutral wring should always be specified to be the same capacity as the power wiring (or larger). This is in contrast the electrical codes which may permit under sizing the neutral wire.

An appropriate design in the case of a large Personal Computer load like a call center is to specify the neutral wiring to exceed the phase wire capacity by about 50% (2 wire gauges in USA i.e. if the phase wiring is 8 gauge, the neutral wiring should be 6 gauge). Particular attention should be paid to wiring in office cubicles. This protects the building wiring, but does not help protect the transformers.

K-rated transformers
Modern office facilities with high densities of PCs should always be specified to include transformers with a “K” rating of at least 9. These transformers have been specially designed to withstand harmonic currents. For datacenters, a “K” rating of 9 would be sufficient to ensure harmonic carrying capability for the fraction of the datacenter consisting of old legacy loads, PC loads, or lighting loads.

Conclusion
International regulations have dramatically affected the power requirements for computing systems.

Networking equipment, once rightly accused of “power pollution” and of causing fires due to overheated transformers and wiring, have transformed into one of the “cleanest” loads to be found in a modern commercial or industrial establishment. Datacenter design standards specifying double neutrals or transformers with K=20 ratings are driving needless expense and should be updated.

Posted in EMC, IEC 555-2, Nonlinear loads, Harmonics | No Comments »

20/06/2009 by David Slade.

As technology plays a greater role in the management and operations of our buildings, the relationship between property management, facility management, and IT is essential to success.

The role of IT in building management and operations, including the benefit of “networked” systems, intelligent green building technologies, wireless communications, process automation, and business solutions for finance and administration.

The value of incorporating IT into the real estate strategy, is essential, for the next generation of property and facility management.

Posted in facility management, IIT | No Comments »

20/06/2009 by David Slade.

Overview
Moving innovation to the centre in hotly competitive and increasingly global business environments; companies are examining every aspect of their operations for opportunities to improve performance and to gain competitive advantage. No major business process or function has escaped executives’ scrutiny—from the supply chain, to construction methods, to building CAPEX/OPEX, finance control, to customer relationship management.

Innovation is increasingly a vital element across these and other efforts. In fact, it has become the pillar of many organizations’ overall growth strategies. Companies that are consistently rewarded in the market and weather the storms of economic and leadership changes are superior and become successful business and valuable market brands over time.

Innovation

Innovation is about social applications of inventions, not about the inventions themselves. Engineers, scientists and mathematicians sometimes don’t get this. It’s not part of their culture. We see time and again, engineering-driven corporate cultures failing because they don’t address the social needs of their customers and they don’t address the social ramifications of invention. Client focus in others words.

Motorola, for example, has working touch-screen cell phones in China years before the iPhone (works great with complex Chinese writing system) but wouldn’t bring it to the US because the engineering-dominant company leaders focussed on technology and features, not use.

True “innovation” or “transformation” comes from cooperation between disciplines. Product/Service development is a spectrum. If you ignore research, design, OR engineering, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage.

All good working definitions of innovation pair ideas with action, the spark with the fire. Innovators don’t just have their heads in the clouds. They also have their feet on the ground. The company 3M, one of the first to fully embrace innovation as the essence of its corporate brand, defines it as “new ideas - plus action or implementation - which result in an improvement, a gain, or a profit.” It is not enough to just have a good idea. Only when you act, when you implement, do you truly innovate. Ideas. Action. Implementation. Gain. Profit.

All good words, of course, but there’s still one piece left out. People. That’s why I prefer the InnovationNetwork consultancy’s definition: “People implementing new ideas that create value.”

Innovation is definitely not self-starting or self-perpetuating. People make it happen through their imagination, willpower, and perseverance. And whether you are a team member, a group leader, or an executive, your only real path to innovation is through people. You can’t really do it alone.

“Innovation is all about the roles people can play, the hats they can put on.”

Innovation is all about people. It is about the roles people can play, the hats they can put on, the persona’s they can adopt. It is not just about the luminaries of innovation like Thomas Edison, or celebrity CEOs like Steve Jobs and Jeff Immelt. It is about the unsung heroes who work on the front lines of entrepreneurship in action, the countless people and teams who make innovation happen day in and day out.

Individuals and organizations need to constantly gather new sources of information in order to expand their knowledge and grow. Driven by the idea that no matter how successful a company currently is, no one can afford to be complacent. The world is changing at an accelerated pace, and today’s great idea may be tomorrow’s anachronism. People who absorb external knowledge are humble enough to question their own worldview, and in doing so, they remain open to new insights every day.

“Opportunities for collaborative research between industry members exist wherever there are common technical or market objectives. Collaborative market research or R&D projects are a very cost-effective route for developing market-driven technology solutions. Collaborations can be one-on-one or can be multi-party with several organizations pooling resources to share costs and risks. In collaborative research projects, Davmark works to manage the project between multiple partners. Any organisation undertaken this role, is best to also acts as an agnostic platform; to ensure that realistic and neutral research results are achieved.”

The barriers to innovation

Every business discipline, whether it is engineers or marketers has a spectrum of personalities from conservative to those who are willing to try anything at least once. The vast majority of scientists and engineers are not inventors or even innovators. They make processes more efficient or run cost analyses. They maintain. They supervise. That’s an entirely different business from coming up with new ideas. Once the idea has been implemented, by the early adopters, they will follow on behind slowly and tell the world of the new idea they have discovered.

The next barrier is the financial and marketing functions that are can be unwilling to invest in a new product or service, unless they had a high degree of assurance that it would enhance sales.

Knowledge leverage

Knowledge leverage goes the next step. Innovation is not the result of a single creative spark from single genius - it is usually the culmination of many technical breakthroughs and series of insights that are somehow brought together through group intelligence. This can be easy to embrace - but a set of initial conditions that allow for authenticity to flourish, an environment that accepts and builds on weakly connected ideas, and a group that is both challenged and empowered by the task at hand will yield innovation in almost any problem space - regardless of the disciplines on the team. This form of leverage builds scalable relationships across large numbers of companies that help to accelerate the development of all participants. When done right, it creates powerful opportunities, rapidly increasing the value delivered to the marketplace and allowing all participants to reap increasing rewards.

Innovation should be pursued in rapid increments. Rather than reimagining from the ground up a fundamentally different way of organizing activities across thousands of participants, companies need to find pragmatic ways to move from where they are today in ways that generate near-term financial returns. The well-known case of Procter & Gamble’s (PG) “Connect and Develop” program illustrates some of the opportunities that can be reaped by building broader networks to source promising product ideas. Nearly 50% of P&G’s products today have benefited from some form of external collaboration. Other companies might follow this example to position themselves to pursue even more powerful forms of capability and learning leverage, especially once the economy recovers.

The bottom line is that innovation should not be an afterthought in times of financial and economic pressure. Innovation can be reconceived to provide powerful economic (rather than financial) leverage at a time when there is an imperative to do more with less. Simply cutting headcount or programs while demanding that the remaining employees do more may work for a while, but it is a diminishing-returns game. The challenge, and opportunity, is to find ways to generate increasing returns. The insights generated from these efforts will serve companies well not only during the downturn, but in more prosperous times as well. In fact, the companies that harness this potential will develop a new edge, positioning themselves as long-term winners.

History shows that technical innovation creates wealth.

Route to market:
It’s really quite simple. Solutions (technology, products and services) flow one way and money flows the opposite direction. The key word here is flow. Where there is no flow, there is no progress, no business, no solution, no profit, and no better buildings—just a lot of frustrations. As an industry, we have to focus on getting the flow going, and then increase the flow into a rapid torrent.

The challenge here is that everyone in the route to market has an agenda, normally a commercial agenda to be successful in their business—not unreasonable at all. I learned in high-school why rivers bend and curve; this is strange behaviour for rivers as water wants to take the shortest route to its destination (the sea), and curves provide anything but the shortest route. I learned that these rivers typically started off straight until something got in the way of the flow, typically on one side of the river (a tree falls, a mud-slide or some man/animal-made blockage).

The mission of the river is to meet with the sea, and it will find a way around the blockage in this pursuit no matter what. So the river focuses its efforts on the other side and with years of flow will start to create a curve in its path. As the blockage gets rooted, it also grows, and as it grows, the river focuses even more on the other side. Before long, we have a curve in the river.

The point of this is that the flow of the route to market is fundamental and the market will navigate away from any agendas that do not support the flow. Players in the route to market need to understand the purpose of the flow, the commitment and inevitability of the flow, and ensure that their agendas are in sync with the flow and not blocking the flow. Any agendas not in line with the flow will eventually be bypassed.

I see a big dam in the building systems route to market and a bunch of blockages.

So, what are we to do in the route to market?
The first thing to do—a most fundamental action—is to accept that things are going to be different. If you cannot accept this it will be difficult to participate in tomorrow’s smart building; you will be a blockage to the flow and it will go around you however big you are. It may take a while for the market to circumnavigate a deeply rooted enterprise, but it will. Acceptance is a wonderfully liberating thing because once you realize that sticking to the status quo is as dangerous as assuming something different, you can channel your efforts toward increasing the market.

Think of this as creating a new tributary to the river, to increase the flow and not get in its way. I see a number of channel companies (contractors, integrators and consultants) that have done this, have accepted that they need to do things differently, and in all cases, they are very busy with a very profitable flow of business.

Once you accept change, it becomes critical to educate. I’m talking about educating yourself, your team, your suppliers, and of course your customers. This is probably the most difficult task in this process. As in most cases education is unlikely to be a natural thing you want to do. You would typically want to sell, engineer, specify, project manage, or do any of the other myriad activities that a contractor, integrator or consultant does on a daily basis. Unless you can train those around you that the old, deep-rooted behaviour is not the way to go, your acceptance has little impact on the market and your business.

The successful companies I know of that have accepted this change and who are very successful in business spend a significant amount of time educating. They immerse themselves and their organization in a new view of buildings, they develop new ways to sell, they use new products and technologies, and they allocate a significant amount of time and budget to actively participate in industry events and organizations promoting intelligent buildings. This is an investment that these successful organizations justify easily; they see the results in their growth and profitability.

Once you have accepted change and made a commitment to a new way of doing things, you have to do your number one job: provide some form of value or solution to your customers. But, beware. If you have come this far you have made an enormous commitment to a new world, and you have to understand that the way you provide your solution now is also very different. Not only are the technologies, products and tools different, but your customers should also be different (If they are not, you are doing something wrong.).

So what is the fundamental difference here?
How does one provide a value in the new world?
The answer to this lies in with the building owner.

Building owners:
First, the term building owner is a misnomer. Although the building owner may be a single legal entity, the building owner that the buildings industry works with is rarely a single entity. There are in fact numerous individuals that exist in that group we commonly call the owner. In the new world of intelligent buildings, the number of individuals you will need to deal with increases dramatically.

As a vendor of a single system (HVAC, lighting, or even a smaller component such as a non-integrated product) you would typically be talking with one or two individuals who have a need for that particular service or product. This could be an energy manager, a security manager or a facility person. In the old world, the needs of the owner are broken up into smaller needs that are typically satisfied separately, with purchase responsibility handed down accordingly.

If you, for example, are selling sensors, you would be dealing with the engineer who has the responsibility of purchasing sensors. The engineer would have a specification for the sensors required, a budget, and some other parameters on how they will eventually select a sensor supplier. This business is extremely cost conscious which is understandable since the budget is probably a significant buying motivation for that engineer. To make the sale, you have to convince the engineer your sensor is better (performance, quality, etc.) and at a cost that is acceptable (better than alternatives source for it). Service and relationship may also come into the equation.

Of course the above example is simplistic, and in most cases we are talking about projects that could in fact go into millions of pounds, but the fundamental goals of non-integrated building purchases are similar:

a) they are based on achieving some specific technical and functional need, and

b) the cost price is acceptable. This purchase is typically seen as a grudge purchase, and this is a cost that needs to be reduced at all costs (pun intended).

Competition can be fierce since several vendors can provide the same solution and companies often find it easy to justify reducing margins to get or retain that valuable customer.

The building as an asset

Many astute organizations that own or use buildings (pretty much all organizations) are now beginning to understand that their buildings and facilities are critical elements to their business. Many organizations are now being squeezed by their shareholders to perform better; the buzzword of this decade (and possible century) is efficiency. We see this in enterprise-based systems that manage personnel, supply chain and customer relationship management. These systems basically take masses of data and organize it into usable information for managers, directors, VP, presidents and the CXO staff to make business decisions that will allow all of their resources to achieve more with less.

Buildings are the second most significant expense in most organizations’ overheads, second only to the cost of people. It is not going to take long for most organizations to realize that they can look at their buildings as an asset that can actually contribute to the success of their organization. To do this they need data and information systems that will measure their building’s contribution against their objectives and put into place building control systems that will contribute to these objectives. This is the fundamental value of intelligent buildings—one that contributes to the owner’s or occupants’ objectives, whatever they may be.

You will notice two things here. Firstly, such a view of buildings requires IT-based systems, systems that these organizations already have in place for their other efficiency drives (ERP, CRM, Supply Chain, etc.). Secondly, you will notice that in this view the concern is not the cost, sensor performance, some component of the building, or even the specific system in the building such as HVAC, security or lighting.

The problem statement is simply how the building can contribute to the organizational objectives. I was taught a long time ago about the difference between cost and asset. Your home electricity bill is a cost. You will do all you can to reduce this cost. You may change electricity suppliers to do this, or you may install a new water heater to reduce this cost, but the only way to go is down as far as cost and the amount of cost reduction—although initially could be significant—very quickly gets smaller and smaller. Imagine if your bills are £1,000 a year; once you reduce this by a huge (and improbable) 50%, it is unlikely that you can achieve this level of reduction again, and even if you can save 100% of the cost, the value of this savings is finite.

Your home on the other hand is an asset that you want to grow. While you would want your mortgage payments to be as low as possible, you would invest money into your home to improve it. You would remodel it, put on a new roof, install a pool, or build an extension because such investment in your home would be worth more to you as an occupier or to someone else should you wish to dispose of it. Here the increase in value is not finite. You can (theoretically) invest £x every year to increase your home size by some relevant size to increase your home’s value by £2x, and you can do this until you run out of land, and then you could invest in buying extra land. The point is that increasing the value of assets is not finite.

To many building owners, the costs of their buildings and facilities have in the past been essentially a cost to be reduced by whatever means possible. The buying behaviour of the past is clearly an indication of this. As more and more organizations that own or occupy buildings are starting to realize, their facilities are a becoming potential goldmine to increase efficiencies, and in turn to improve their bottom line. Realizing that IT can be the vehicle that achieves this liberation of value, owners are starting to look at their facilities as asset, and with all assets, and there is a desire to increase them even if it means spending money.

Selling the new Solution
It is becoming clearer that the most significant value proposition of integrated and intelligent buildings is not in the technology, not in the increased flexibility of suppliers, not even in the reduction in staffing to manage disparate systems. These are all enablers for the real value to come. The most significant value is in how organizations that own and occupy buildings can now view buildings: as a holistic entity that becomes an integral component of their enterprise system; as an asset they can monitor and control in real time; and by business terms, ways to measure whether the facility is contributing or detracting from their business objectives – and take action accordingly.

The successful and very valuable service you can provide building owners is in realizing this potential in their facilities.

Organizing the Industry to Provide Valuable Solutions
By this point it is important that we agree upon some key assumptions before we talk about what needs to change. The most important assumption is that if you have read this far, you have accepted the fact that the buildings industry is changing and that you will need to change in order to participate in tomorrow’s world of building-IT convergence.

We can safely assume that we understand new technology is all around us, but the impact of this must not be underestimated, especially in this case because we’re not talking about an incremental change, but a whole revolution of new products, services, tools and practices. These new technologies require a completely different approach in many cases.

Another assumption we should accept is that new players, new products and new services will come into the future of buildings. Your future competition will thus not likely to be your old foes; they will not compete with you based on any constraints in which you have operated before – Beware!

I would like to talk about change from a number of angles.

Perspective
Lyrics from a Paul Simon song reverberate in my mind when talking about perspectives: “One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor”.

There are many areas where this is relevant in this discussion:

• One man’s problem is another man’s opportunity
• One man’s new technology is another man’s old technology
• One man’s core business is another man’s peripheral [uninteresting] business

One of the most significant challenges I see is bridging the gap, the gap between the buildings systems industry and the new building owner, specifically including IT/enterprise-minded folks. The significance of this gap cannot be underestimated, not if building owners are going to benefit from what many understand can be implemented today.

So, some could wonder who’s job is it to make all of this work? Is it the building systems industry or the other side—the IT industry or enterprise or owners? When I talk with many in the building systems industry, there seems to be an expectation that building controls and automation is something that IT-centric owners need to care about, and it is in their best interest to understand the challenges, technologies and benefits of all these wonderful advances we are making to operate smarter and safer buildings.

While the early adopter owners would make the real effort to understand what lies behind all of these changes and advancements, we need to accept that early adopters are a unique breed of people and that they are in the minority. Not only are early adopters different from the mass market, they are the exact opposite in terms of their behaviour, expectations, risk adverseness and general buying process. This is one of the classic challenges in marketing new technology; vendors get good traction with early adopters and simply ramp up their business expecting there to be 100 times the opportunity based on the same behaviour shown by the early adopters.

While there may be 100 times (or more) the opportunity with the mass market, we must adjust how we go about getting business from the mass market, and be sensitive to the way they make their buying decisions.

This is where perspective comes in—we have to turn things upside-down in order to speak to this new, more pragmatic customer.

The principles of doing this are easy: don’t talk about what you have to offer, instead talk to the customers about their problems. When you understand their problems, you can adjust your offering to solve them. Then communicate your offering as a way to solve their problems– NOT because of any other reason, however cool or fancy your technology offering may be.

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19/06/2009 by David Slade.

Landlords imprisoned for fire safety breaches 17/06/2009

Two landlords of bedsit accommodation in north London have been sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and ordered to pay £5000 costs each for breaching fire safety legislation. The prosecution followed a fire on 31 March 2007 at a house converted into bedsits on Hampden Road, London N8.

Michael de Havilland and Sally Fox of Muswell Hill were sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court on Friday 12 June, after previously pleading guilty to several breaches of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. These included inadequate fire detection systems, a lack of proper fire doors for bedrooms or for the communal kitchen, no emergency lighting in the building’s stairway, a lack of firefighting equipment such as a fire extinguisher or fire blankets, and no fire risk assessment available for inspection.

A further inspection was arranged where an enforcement notice was issued, explaining that the breaches needed to be dealt with. But after further contact with the co-owners and further inspections over a number of months, inspecting officers found that no remedial work had been completed.

“This is our second prosecution resulting in a custodial sentence and again sends out a strong message to landlords and building owners,” said Brian Coleman, chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. “Our role is to keep Londoners safe, and where we see that you are not taking your legal fire safety responsibilities seriously, we will take action.”

Posted in Fire safety, Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order | No Comments »

16/06/2009 by David Slade.

All radio stations broadcasting on national and local DAB multiplexes will cease being broadcast via FM by the end of 2015, according to the Digital Britain report (16 June 2009).

FM spectrum freed up by the switchover will be used for a new tier of “ultra-local” commercial services and community stations, the report added.

Radio licensing legislation needed to enable digital coverage to be extended and to encourage investment by the commercial sector - and the BBC - in new digital content, will be put in place.

In the report presented to the House today by Ben Bradshaw, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the Government said it recognised the investment needed to achieve the Digital Radio Upgrade timetable will have to be made by the existing radio companies.

Currently, new licences run only for three or four years and the Government proposes to grant Ofcom new powers to extend the licence period of all national and local licences, broadcasting on DAB, for up to a further seven years.

To achieve the 2015 switchover date, the report proposes the BBC extend its national DAB coverage so it is at least comparable to its FM output.

In addition to providing for low-cost digital radios, the report includes a recommendation that all new car radios be digital by the end of 2013 and sets out a five- point plan to support the uptake of digital radio in cars. The Government plans to:

• Work with manufacturers to ensure that vehicles sold with radio are digitally enabled by the end of 2013
• Support a common logo for digital radios and ensure that non-DAB radios, and their limitations, are clearly labelled
• Encourage the development of portable digital converters, such as the Pure Highway, and the integration of DAB into other vehicle devices such as Sat Navs
• Promote the introduction of more sophisticated traffic information via DAB and comprehensive marketing by broadcasters
• Work with European partners, including the European Commission, to develop a common European approach to digital radio.  The report said: “We have approached the European Commission to encourage them to lead a community-wide effort. Such an approach, as was adopted in digital television, could provide certainty well in advance for vehicle manufacturers and those providing in-car devices to bring the unit price of conversion down.”

Andrew Harrison, chief executive of industry body RadioCentre, said he welcomed the target date of 2015 and added that the provisions of the Digital Britain report would enable RadioCentre’s members to plan and invest for their future.

The Government has asked Ofcom to consult on a new map of mini-regions for Digital Radio. In addition, by the end of August, the Government will publish a community radio consultation document, seeking views on changes to the current licensing regime.

In the Interim Report, released in January, the Government set out two migration criteria: when 50% of listening is to digital; and when national DAB coverage is comparable to FM coverage, and local DAB reaches 90% of the population and all major roads.

In the report released today, the Government said the precise switchover date would be formally announced two years in advance but it was confident it could achieve its target of 50% of all radio listening via digital by the end of 2013.

Posted in Ofcom, Digital Radio, DAB | No Comments »

16/06/2009 by David Slade.

The UK economy is stabilising with the worst of the quarterly falls in GDP behind us but it will take until the beginning of 2010 before we see a return to growth, CBI Director-General Richard Lambert has announced
The UK’s leading business group expects modest growth to resume during the first three months of 2010, with the pace of growth gradually picking up during next year.The CBI predicts that UK GDP, supported by low interest rates and quantitative easing, should flatten out during the second half of 2009, with quarter-on-quarter figures of -0.1% and 0% in Q3 and Q4, and modest quarter-on-quarter growth of 0.1% and 0.3% in Q1 and Q2 of 2010.

Richard Lambert, CBI Director-General said: “The world recession has deepened, so it is not surprising that the UK economy has continued to suffer. However, the harshest period of the recession looks to be behind us, the economy is stabilising and this should continue during the second half of this year.

“The return to growth is likely to be a slow and gradual one; difficult credit conditions are still affecting business behaviour. For positive growth to return, lenders need to feel more confident so that credit can start flowing again.

“Some commentators have been carried away by recent tentative indicators as evidence of ‘green shoots’. It will take some time before we can be sure these shoots have roots we can depend on for sustainable growth and, in the meantime, the government must do everything it can to help firms get access to credit.”

The CBI expects that, by the end of the recession, the economy will have shrunk by a cumulative 4.8% - not as severe as the 5.9% seen in the early 1980s - after five consecutive quarters of falling GDP.

The CBI expects there to be very slight growth from the start of 2010, with the pace picking up slowly, such that trend growth rates are restored only by the end of the year. For 2010 as a whole, this profile yields an average annual GDP growth of a modest 0.7%. This follows a fall this year in GDP of 3.9%.

CPI inflation is expected to fall below the Bank of England’s target of 2% in 2009 Q3 and remain there throughout the forecast period to the end of 2010. Quantitative easing is expected to continue for some months yet, but by the spring of next year, the Bank is expected to wish to return monetary policy gradually towards a more normal footing, with very modest increases in the official rate of interest from its current 0.5%.

Significantly, the labour market is proving to be even more flexible than hoped, with many more private sector employees accepting wage freezes and short-time working than in previous downturns. This should help limit the pace of job losses through 2009, and the CBI now expects unemployment to peak at a slightly lower level than previously thought. Unemployment is still expected to continue to rise until Q2 2010, to a peak of 3.03 million (9.6%), before edging lower during the remainder of 2010.

Consumer spending will be constrained not only by the rise in unemployment, but also a more elevated savings ratio and only modest increases in incomes. Through 2009 and 2010, the savings ratio is forecast to remain at a similar level to the two-year high of Q4 2008. Meanwhile, average earnings (including bonuses) should continue to fall on a year ago during Q2 and Q3 2009, followed by weak growth from Q4 and into 2010.

As a result, the CBI’s figures show household consumption shrinking by 2.9% in 2009, and growing only modestly in 2010 (0.5%). The weakness of construction investment over the early part of 2009 has led to a modest revision in the outlook for business investment. Business investment is expected to shrink by 12.4% this year, from the -9.3% expected in April, and by a further 1.4% in 2010.

Whereas firms have reduced their stock at a rapid pace at the start of this year, this should now begin to ease and firms should start re-building their stocks next year.

The public finances are expected to be under growing pressure from the recession and net borrowing is expected to reach £172.3 billion in 2009/10 and £182.2 billion in 2010/11, representing 12.2% and 12.6% of GDP respectively.

Ian McCafferty, CBI Chief Economic Adviser, said: “We still have some way to go before the UK economy is truly out of the woods and we see sustainable growth. For consumers, some of the worst fears of earlier in the year may now not be realised, but they will still face tough times as higher saving and lower income eat in to their ability to spend.

“However, the restraint shown by businesses and their staff in setting pay awards and accepting short-time working should help to curb the pace of job losses, lessening the pain for some, and shows the real strength of Britain’s flexible labour market.”

Posted in Construction workload | No Comments »

16/06/2009 by David Slade.

Introduction

In both retail operations and the retail sales floor, the competition is fierce and the profit margins are slim. To stay on top, retailers have to seize every advantage they can. This often means adopting the latest technological advances as they become available. That’s why today nearly every aspect of retail operations, from inventory to hiring, is computerized and networked. Now is the time to add video surveillance to the list.

IP (Internet Protocol) video surveillance gives retailers new tools and capabilities for improving loss prevention and store performance. By enabling video to be captured as digital information and accessed anywhere on an IP-based network, IP video surveillance allows your loss prevention staff and other departments to view, analyse and manage surveillance video. Built-in intelligence also enables cameras to automatically detect and alert staff to potential thefts, suspicious behaviour, and other events.

The advantages hardly stop there. This same intelligence opens the door to new in-store research methods for determining the effectiveness of store layout, display design, and employee behaviour. What’s more, through advantages in using common networking and digital camera technology, stores can achieve everything from a lower total cost of ownership to higher resolution imagery that improves forensic evidence and re purposing for training and other uses.

Where traditional (analog) video surveillance falls short
As both a deterrent and a source of evidence, video surveillance is recognized as an essential element to any retail operation’s loss prevention program.

How effectively used is this video?
Not very. Inventory shrinkage continues to be an expensive problem for the retail industry. More than 1.5 percent of total retail sales. This percentage changes little from year to year, yet as overall sales continue to grow, billions more dollars are added to the total amount of losses. If a company could reduce its percentage of losses from shrinkage by even a tenth of a percent across its stores, it would see a significant improvement to its bottom line.

A major weakness in loss prevention techniques today is the inability of analogue video equipment to detect criminal behaviour and alert personnel. Someone has to be constantly watching store monitors – or later search through hours of video to find a particular instance of theft. Poor video quality also hurts effectiveness. Analogue surveillance cameras are only capable of video resolutions equivalent to 0.4 megapixels, whereas the latest digital video surveillance cameras provide much higher resolution. Blurry, low resolution analogue images often fail to provide conclusive evidence in theft prosecutions or insurance fraud cases, such as bogus injury claims. Such images aren’t sharp enough to read license plate numbers, work poorly in training videos, and have no value for other uses, such as facial recognition systems.

What if:

• That video was sharper and could alert you to a theft?
• There was a way to tap the incredibly rich information in all this video for activities such as store design research?
• You could use it as an operations management tool measuring how long it takes for an employee to help a customer waiting at a customer service kiosk?
• You could do searches for organized crime behaviours and create training videos for employee showing these behaviours?
• The video was so sharp you could see enough detail to read an employee badge number?

The answer is IP -Surveillance
IP-Surveillance brings all the advantages of network cameras and IP networking to video surveillance. Using digital cameras, it gives you sharper colour video, greater coverage, and better zooming capabilities. Incorporating video surveillance into your local area network (LAN) makes the video collected at every store available throughout your network. This means other departments can use store video capabilities for training, consumer behavior research, testing store layout and display design, and many other uses. What’s more, the cameras can be more “intelligent.” IP-Surveillance systems can actually “watch” for certain kinds of behaviour, events and actions. You no longer need people monitoring the monitors.

Here’s a look at five key advantages of IP-Surveillance:

Improving loss prevention
The programmable intelligence capabilities of IP-Surveillance and network cameras enable detection of suspicious behavior by customers or employees, reducing the need for dedicated loss prevention staff to monitor shoppers. In fact, smart network cameras may be more effective than staff. After 20 minutes or
so, the average person’s attention wanes watching monitors. A smart camera is always attentive. Intelligence at the camera level closes many gaps in loss prevention.

IP-Surveillance systems can be set up to:

• Detect suspicious behaviours, such as a consumer taking multiple units of an item not normally bought in bulk, or a cashier deliberately not scanning a purchase.

• Capture organized crime behaviours in a store and enable you to quickly communicate them to other stores in your chain.

• Integrate video surveillance with electronic article systems (EAS) to ensure proper procedures are being followed, such as stopping customers who set off the alarm at the door.

• Directly connect video with point-of-sale (POS) systems to uncover employee sweethearting (giving unauthorized discounts to friends) or other improper sales. For instance, video can be activated everytime an age-restricted sale is made or a refund given.

Delivering greater business value
Intelligent network cameras and the ability to store and access video on the network is driving many of the smartest retailers in the industry to investigate new uses of video surveillance to improve their bottom line. Some are working with the Loss Prevention Research Council in a program called StoreLab™ to co-develop and test innovative store layouts, work processes, and technologies to maximize sales, profit and productivity, while minimizing losses and crime. For one study, nearly a dozen stores of all different types (mass merchant, drug, home improvement, club, department, and speciality) are giving researchers access to their networks to test ways IP-Surveillance can be used to study consumer behaviour, employee tasking, and loss prevention.

IP-Surveillance is ideal for these applications because it can be set up to recognize certain actions and events, plus makes it easy to search thousands of hours of video to find the few minutes of footage that correspond to your search.

Some ways your company could use the video your store collects every day include:

• Monitoring the number of customers entering and leaving and the length of checkout lines to provide alerts when more staff is needed.

• Providing alerts when shelves need restocking, spills have occurred, aisles are obstructed, or checkout lines exceed guidelines.

• Monitoring employee/customer interactions to improve service, detect gaps in training and management, spot and praise good behaviour, and identify employees avoiding customer contact or shirking other responsibilities.

• Studying and improving store design, traffic flow, and point of purchase displays to improve sales and reduce shrinkage.

• Developing training tools to teach employees everything from how to spot common shoplifting behaviours to ways to more effectively help customers.

Reducing total cost of ownership through IP -Surveillance advantages
For most retailers, nearly all important processes and operations are connected through a local area network (LAN). The exception is loss prevention. Legacy Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) systems are proprietary and typically have separate support and maintenance contracts. This precludes loss prevention from being able to leverage the lower infrastructural costs of the existing network and all the advantages of IP networking for video.

IP networking delivers cost savings in video surveillance in many ways.

• Your company already has the necessary IT expertise. Network cameras have IP addresses just like any other network device and can be inexpensively installed anywhere in the network and controlled centrally via software. This enables you to leverage existing infrastructure such as servers, switches and cabling. Your video surveillance infrastructure simply becomes another part of the IT infrastructure, allowing you to take advantage of the cost savings of IP networking, as well as standard IT policies (such as authentication, data security, etc.).

• IP-Surveillance systems use open standards and run on ordinary Ethernet networking. Using standard PC server hardware for video recording and storage rather than proprietary equipment such as Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) radically reduces management and equipment costs, particularly for large systems where storage and servers are a significant portion of the total solution cost.

• Availability of powerful software management tools for monitoring, accessing and storing video. Software makes it easy to add additional powerful capabilities such as combining video evidence with time-lined POS transaction data or integrating video with cash register transaction data for advanced, flexible searching and analysis.

• Easy, future-proof installations with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. Installation can be done in stages, integrating your analogue CCTV system with your network video solution. As analogue cameras reach their end of life, you replace them with network cameras that simply plug into the network.

• Greater archiving capabilities and storage reliability. Surveillance videos can be transferred through the network to off-site storage just like any other data and stored on standard servers.

• Ability to scale capacity and performance. To provide support for multiple servers, sites and cameras, allowing your system to grow easily with your organization. Saving staff time through centralized management and remote accessibility

Part of the problem with analogue video is that it’s usually only available at the store. Each camera has a cable that feeds its video into a monitor and, unless you have a network video recorder, a local recording device. If someone in another store or headquarters wants to monitor what’s going on in a store or see a particular incident, the video has to be recorded and mailed.

By having cameras connected to a network, you can achieve a higher level of surveillance with less people. Loss prevention personnel can monitor many locations from one office. Live camera feeds can be accessed over the Internet from any location, making it easy to check out an alert or event from any computer, laptop or other device with a wired or wireless Internet connection.

Network camera advantages
While traditional analog cameras can only provide the equivalent of 0.4 megapixel resolution, network (digital) cameras can deliver up to 16 times greater resolution, cover a larger area, and provide superior digital zoom capabilities. This can translate into such rich detail as the numbers on a license plate or the name on an employee badge. Their progressive scanning (versus analogue interlaced scans) also produces better detail within a moving image such as a person running away.

Network cameras are also less expensive to install. They don’t even require a power outlet. Using Power over Ethernet (PoE) technology, you can power a camera with same cable used for connecting it to the network. PoE also enables easier application of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) to ensure 24 hours a day, 7 days a week operation.
Switching to network cameras is actually common sense. If you were going out to buy a camera right now for personal use, what would you get, analogue or digital? You would buy digital. It offers the greatest return on your investment and opens the door to all kinds of value-added features through connection to the rest of today’s digital world.

Other digital camera advantages include:

• Intelligence at the camera level includes detection of motion, directional motion, abandoned objects, object removal, human presence, camera tampering, identification, and digital pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ).

• Network cameras can be equipped with image buffers that save and send the images collected before and after an alarm occurred.

• On a network, network cameras can be monitored, managed and updated just like any network

By David Slade - Davmark Ltd

Posted in Digital Video Recorders (DVRs), commercial off-the-shelf (COTS), Ethernet (PoE), Closed Circuit Television (CCTV), Loss Prevention Research Council, IP-surveillance, electronic article systems (EAS), point-of-sale (POS), Retail solutions | No Comments »

15/06/2009 by David Slade.

While we can expect the various networks to be interconnected and interoperate, it is helpful to think of them as distinct networks to assess consumption and savings, requirements for efficiency, and policy needs.

The network types are:

Electronic networks
These are oriented to either information technology, or to audio/visual entertainment – consumer electronics. These two are merging and are characterized by large volumes of data.

Lighting networks
Lighting is not traditionally considered a heavily networked end use, but it is arguably the first (albeit non-digital) example of networking in buildings with multiple fixtures often attached to a set of controls (switches, sometimes multiple). More recently occupancy and other sensors have been added, along with controls like dimming. Data rates are usually very low.

Climate control networks
Heating and cooling systems have sensors, actuators, thermal systems, and human interfaces. Like lighting, these are also a crude network, and also have yet to enter the digital age in most buildings.

These networks have been traditionally closed but would benefit from greater interaction and integration with other building networks. Data rates also low.

Electrical control networks
Control of switchgear, electrical generation, CHP, metering where a mixture of real time and data collection is required.

Metering data collection
Data collection of electrical, water, gas and energy consumption, for the purpose of either revenue collection or secondary metering, as to comply with building regulations.

Security networks
These include smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, fire alarms, security systems (window/door sensors, occupancy sensors), doorbells, security cameras, and leak detectors. Except for some cameras, all tend to have dedicated wiring.

Other networks
These cover principally appliances, and miscellaneous controls such as for windows. These are likely to be appended to other networks, not a driver of networks on their own.

In many buildings these networks will share information from sensors about occupancy and special states such as fire or other emergency. Expressing preferences and monitoring of building operation also will require interconnections.

Posted in Electronic networks, Climate control networks, Security networks | No Comments »