In the summer of 1998, the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District, also known as “City School”, had a new Director of Maintenance and a recently installed energy management system that performed within the original project conservation guidelines. All worked well, all seemed good with the world. Until Y2K, that is.
Less than two years later, just prior to the big Y2K event, the energy management company that had installed the system informed City School that their equipment was not Y2K ready. In fact, it would cost the school district a considerable amount of money to upgrade their relatively new energy management system in order to make them Y2K compatible. “Y2K had obviously been coming for some 2000 years,” said Dave Boyer, Director of Maintenance at that time, “and the installation of this supposedly effective system had taken place just five short years before. I found myself incredibly frustrated by the lack of forethought on the part of the people who installed an obsolete energy management project that was supposed to provide savings over a ten-year period. I also felt that we were being thoroughly gouged by this company.”
Dave Boyer had been hired as the key person to advance the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District Strategic Plan for School District’s facilities “to provide state-of-the-art facilities and equipment that promote quality education and accommodate community use.” This mandate includes improving and updating the facilities, making them adaptable to changing needs, and implementing technology that meets educational administrative needs. Boyer found himself in a situation where he needed to quickly find alternatives and solutions to correct he deficiencies within the existing energy management system. Boyer also found himself at odds with the mandate of the strategic plan because it appeared that he would be spending money on a system that obviously used older, obsolete technology – the plan needed to be revised and the work done.
Previously, Boyer had worked effectively with Teletrol Systems and with their local Systems Integrator, Traditional Building Systems. He contacted Jim Hartory at Traditional to learn if there were alternatives to the other manufacturer’s proposed expensive Y2K upgrade, especially given the tight schedule and budget limitations. Traditional responded with a creative proposal that was within Boyer’s budget and would achieve his goal of advancing the City School’s energy management technology and infrastructure.
Hartory recognized the need to be flexible and to make the maximum use of the resources at hand – time, people, expertise, and money. He negotiated an arrangement on behalf of the City School to establish a direct relationship between Teletrol and the district as a “site specific Systems Integrator.” The agreement was that City School would get several of their key people trained on the Teletrol equipment, and then purchase products directly from Teletrol for use within the school district. City School would contract with Traditional as project engineers and managers for the project, including all project oversight, engineering, and programming. The City School staff would also work closely with Traditional to identify and develop additional energy management strategies. The school district’s in-house maintenance staff would perform the actual field installation of the new system and peripherals.
At last the project was slated to begin. Keeping in mind that the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District consists of fifteen buildings spread over nine square miles and more than a million square feet of building space, this was to be no simple task. The new Teletrol system was to provide monitoring, control, and energy metering and management functions using over 12,000 points district-wide. This new energy management system would communicate across the district via a dedicated wide area fiber-optic network, enabling district personnel to access any point from any network port.
The project took just over six months to complete. Upon completion, the district realized an immediate reduction in energy costs of over $20,000 per month. Because of their direct involvement in the project, Boyer and his crew discovered and corrected many mechanical problems within the existing equipment. They also discovered equipment that the City School had paid the previous controls contractor to install which had never been connected to anything, even though there were wires running to them. Once the equipment was tied into the new Teletrol system and the various mechanical problems were corrected and running properly, the district once again saw another enormous reduction – this time in complaints from students and faculty.
The Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District continues to have a great relationship with both Teletrol and Traditional Building Systems. City School looks forward to further savings by developing the capabilities of its energy management system and making it a true, total facilities management system. Boyer, now the Director of Business Services for City School, plans to integrate Teletrol’s Panorama graphical user interface software with the security, fire and access control systems, along with work orders, preventative maintenance, and asset management software application. Excellence in results through excellence in planning!
