Notre Dame, SOUTH BEND, IN

VALUE DELIVERED

Increased building management flexibility and control; expert assistance in identifying optimum solutions; professional implementation of leading-edge technology applications; greater facilities management efficiency; clearer, easier to read graphics; more effective response to the varied needs of many facilities with diverse environmental requirements.

OBJECTIVES

To upgrade its facility automation system (FAS) and connect it directly to the University’s intranet communication infrastructure.

SOLUTIONS

An early adopter of facility automation and direct digital control technologies, Notre Dame originally turned to ECS Midwest in 1978 to install an energy management system for 22 campus buildings with one central workstation. Since that first project, the company has continued to provide design, installation, renovation, and maintenance services to the University, expanding the initial control system network to 76 facilities and adding approximately three buildings each year.

The complexity of this task was increased by the campus’s diverse range of buildings. In addition to classrooms and administrative offices, these include medical, scientific and computer research laboratories; a full-scale museum and art gallery, libraries, a variety of sports facilities, retail stores, a hotel, and 27 residence halls. The result is a wide array of environmental control requirements.

To meet these diverse needs, ECS Midwest upgraded the client’s existing control system to support network communications and provided a user interface via standard web browser software. This put all building control systems directly on the University’s intranet network infrastructure, where the school could reap the benefits of local and wide-area networking.

As the project began, ECS Midwest worked with the client to evaluate emerging wide-area networking technologies and design the upgrade transition plan. The company then self performed each phase of the implementation. As each phase was completed, the client gained increasingly greater ability to monitor and adjust temperature sensors, occupancy schedules, equipment run times, and energy consumption from any of the University’s intranet-connected PCs, even those in off-campus locations. In addition, significantly clearer and easier to use graphics enabled the client to take maximum advantage of the system’s expanded flexibility and control features. This further increased facility management efficiency and helped to ensure a consistently optimum learning environment for students, faculty, and administrators.

BACKGROUND

Notre Dame University has grown from a three-building Indiana frontier mission site in 1842 to a world-renowned research university with 132 buildings covering more than 7-million square feet. Ranked as one of “America’s 100 Most Wired Colleges”, Notre Dame is regarded as one of the most technologically advanced universities in the country, maintaining superlative computer and communication technology standards.

OPERATING COMPANY:
ECS Midwest

CLIENT:
Notre Dame University

MECHANICAL CONTRACTOR:
ECS Midwest

PROJECT DURATION:
2 years

CONTRACT AMOUNT:
$900,497

		New Construction
		Design/Build Retrofit
		Electrical Construction
		Construction Services
		Facilities Services
		Consulting Services