When it comes to leaning out operations, manufacturers would be wise to factor in their own four walls. Every building, from the corporate headquarters to the factory, has lighting, security, HVAC, and network cables for communications and control of those areas. But typically, these systems are managed in silos that have separate communications buses, gateways, and proprietary interfaces.
Moving all of those building automation systems into a unified physical infrastructure that can control the lights, security cameras, and climate from one box makes it easier to manage all aspects of the entire building and saves money as well.
Panduit Corp., a maker of cabinets and accessories for cable and wiring, as well as the communications applications for managing a unified physical infrastructure (UPI), has teamed up with IBM, Rockwell, and Cisco to create a reference architecture that describes how an interconnected architecture works, from gateways and servers to middleware and Ethernet IP. But Panduit is taking the concept a step further by building a new world headquarters in a Chicago suburb that will serve as a blueprint for a building of the future based on UPI.
The new building, due to open in the spring, will comply with the leadership energy and environmental design (LEED) program, a green building certification system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). It will comply with all applicable environmental manufacturing and facilities regulations, including RoHS/ISO 14001 and ISO 9001/WEEE, and will use Panduit’s UPI to connect the building system with the data center, as well as a central service center that will enable views into worldwide industrial facilities.