Interoperability - Building Systems Working Together For the Enterprise

Imagine the following scenario. A tenant or employee enters their
building after hours by presenting a card to a reader, or entering a
code on the keypad, at the main entrance. At that point several
things happen. The door unlocks. The HVAC system is notified
that the individual’s office on the 5th floor needs to have its temperature
setpoints changed to normal occupancy values so the
individual is comfortable when they arrive. The lighting system is
notified to turn on the appropriate lights for the office area on the
5th floor so the individual feels safe. Property management or the
accounting department is notified of the exact time when the
individual enters and leaves the building, so they can be billed for
after-hours energy usage. Everyone benefits.

Today’s facility executive wants to purchase systems and components
from various manufacturers and have those components
work together as one system. They want "open systems" that
allow the manufacturers to offer new features and add value without
locking the owner into a single vendor’s proprietary protocols.
In short, they want Interoperability.

Interoperability allows disparate systems to work together to
deliver application solutions not possible with separate,
proprietary offerings.

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