Case Study Showcase: Dalton State College

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Dalton State College is a four-year academic institution that serves nearly 6,000 students and faculty, located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia. When Dalton initiated a campus-wide heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) retrofit for its 11 buildings in 2009, the end goal was to implement an integrated enterprise control system managed by a common front end that could be accessed from anywhere at any time. The facilities team implemented a LonWorks technology-based building  automation system that would be the foundation for future campus efficiency strategies including energy conservation and resource optimization.

The school employed the new LonWorks Open Building Specification Guide as the basis of current and future open system standards, which enables building professionals to architect an open and interoperable system from top to bottom. The specification maintains an open procurement environment, both for the initial install and for the life of the building while maintaining a common system architecture and integration standard.

To further enforce an open environment, the guide's two-tiered building management system (BMS) specification is structured with built-in checks and balances where there is a division of contractor responsibilities. Dalton employs a Master Systems Integrator (MSI) who manages the overall project at the network level and acts on behalf of the owner to manage the various control system integrators.

Since the longer term scope at Dalton State will embrace many buildings spread out over the entire campus, the control system will use the campus IT backbone for connectivity between buildings. The IT group is engaged to ensure system reliability, security and maintainability. Working in partnership, both facilities staff and IT staff have a clear understanding of the system design and functionality.

The flexible and intelligent nature of the open architecture of Dalton State College highlights potential future applications, such as lighting, energy conservation, irrigation control, sub-metering and more.

To view more LonMark case studies please visit,  http://www.lonmark.org/connection/case.