According to the National Electric Code, a building management system is “a system or group of components and devices that provide management, control, and coordination of the operations and functions of a building or group of buildings.” In other words, a BMS is responsible for keeping a building running smoothly and efficiently.
A BMS typically consists of four main subsystems:
-Monitoring: Collects data from various points in the building in order to get a complete picture of what is going on. This data can be used to optimize performance or troubleshoot problems.
-Control: Takes action based on the data collected by the monitoring subsystem. For example, if the temperature in a room gets too high, the control subsystem will turn on the air conditioning to cool things down.
-Communications: Allows different parts of the BMS to communicate with each other and with external systems. For example, the monitoring subsystem might send data to a central computer for analysis, or the control subsystem might receive instructions from an operator.
-Power: Provides power to all of the other components in the system. The NEC defines several different types of BMSs, depending on their intended use. Type 1 systems are designed for simple monitoring and control applications, while Type 2 systems are intended for more complex applications such as energy management.
