With ever-changing lighting technology, deciphering between which technologies and materials to install in your facility, and which will be a passing trend, can be difficult. This presentation will give a high-level overview on lighting and controls updates, including tunable white, glare control, efficiency, wireless controls and IoT. Attendees will learn what to look for in lighting products to improve maintainability and sustainability, such as material choices and warranties.

This session will describe different types of video surveillance for facilities – NVR (both IP and hybrid), all-in-one camera, and cloud. Discover which application will best meet your project requirements to ensure a secure facility.

Over the next few years, Fort Worth will complete several transformational projects across their municipal, higher education, and community support sectors.  The City has plans for one of the leading City Halls in the country, currently renovating the former Pier1 building in Downtown Fort Worth. This 20-story, 260,000 sq ft property overlooks the Trinity River and will feature many sustainable efforts, including the build of a new council chambers facility, slated to meet LEED standards. The Project Director on behalf of the City will give an overview of the concepts and sustainable elements being designed into the new building.  He will be joined by Fort Worth’s Chief of Strategy and Innovation, to give a virtual tour of two remarkable college campuses under construction.  The Texas A&M Research and Innovation Center will change Fort Worth’s skyline and brand it as a dynamic, forward-thinking City in the country’s energy and business capital.  Additionally, Tarleton State University’s Fort Worth campus is adding two state-of-the-art buildings to its growing footprint. Hear how these three projects will become national models for sustainability and efficiency.

This session will discuss power quality fundamentals, and provide symptoms of poor power quality in a facility. The speaker will describe how poor power quality adversely impacts energy usage and costs, and causes problems regarding facility maintenance, equipment longevity and process uptime. Learn about power quality metering solutions to measure and record, generating the insights to make improvements.

According to a report by the National Fire Protection Association (Fire Safety Challenges of ‘Green’ Buildings and Attributes), there can be unintended consequences of focusing on a single attribute of building performance, such as sustainability, without also considering potential fire safety challenges. This session will discuss some of the green building materials or systems that may perform differently than conventional from a fire safety standpoint. These include: electric vehicles and charging, PV roof panels, energy storage systems, construction safety, and other hot topics. Any facilities engineer in a green building should keep informed about pertinent facts concerning that building. Find out details in this session.

This presentation will help you understand the various options for physical barriers to intruder resistance at points of egress. It will focus specifically on door openings and windows with details on product attributes, capabilities, as well as test methods used in the development of these products. Attendees will gain an understanding of which products to be used at various locations within a building to either stop, deter, or slow an intruder in an active shooting event.

Around the country, leadership level commitments to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 is impacting how you operate your buildings. Facilities and Energy Managers are sharing the burden of “How are we going to get there?” while being faced with budget and other limitations. This presentation aims to share challenges, initiatives, renewable technologies, and yet-to-be discovered innovations that will drive how facilities teams are building road maps and managing to milestones along the way. The speakers will discuss energy-use reduction strategies, long term planning needs, and operational and engineering limitations, along with other seemingly counterintuitive aspects that make this endeavor one that is necessarily addressed on a case-by-case basis

Radio communications have become critical to facility management for communicating with maintenance teams, groundskeeping, security, and management. Instant group communications, voice and video calling, private and secure communications, and GPS location tracking provide the tools that increase operational efficiency and improve worker safety. This presentation will review the options facility managers have for radio communications systems and provide an impartial comparison and contrast of the different technologies. These include traditional digital two-way radio systems that use FCC licensed frequencies and push-to-talk over cellular radio systems that use mobile carrier LTE networks and facility Wi-Fi networks. Both can provide single-site and wide-area coverage with dispatching applications, but there are key differences and strengths for each type of system. The presentation will also cover the different types of communications devices, including handheld radios, mobile radios, smart devices, and bodycam radios. 

The 2021 edition of the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) has new requirements to measure, monitor, record, and report energy consumption data.  This session will focus on how Circuit-Level Metering enables facility managers to monitor multiple individual circuits in a panel to create a refined, granular, view of how electrical energy is consumed in a building and to allow for segregation of cost across multiple users, tenants, or devices.  The capacity to monitor energy consumption at a granular level creates an opportunity to capture energy savings by identifying “high-use” HVAC systems, common loads, individual tenants, or even individual pieces of equipment. Gain information that will help you be IECC Code-compliant.

Probably every facility manager is familiar with Energy Star Portfolio Manager, the free energy-tracking benchmarking tool offered by the U.S. EPA.  But not as many facility managers are familiar with an equally valuable free tool called Arc, which was created by Arc Skoru, U.S. Green Building Council and Green Business Certification Inc.  Focusing on five key performance indicator metrics – energy, water, waste, transportation, and human experience – this tool helps facility managers and building operators to track and measure their facility’s performance and improve sustainability. This free tool is a must if your building is looking to achieve LEED 4.1 O&M certification, but also can provide valuable performance insight for any building or portfolio. Find out the details in this informative session.

This presentation will discuss important considerations for facilities professionals when faced with emergency situations that can threaten business continuity. Included will be a discussion of planning for emergencies, using situational awareness, and building emergency plans that will allow for business resumption.

This session will discuss how mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) systems affect building energy use, user experience, and long-term maintenance needs.  Small building design decisions at the earliest stages of a design can have an outsized impact on building energy usage and sustainability.  Collaboration between MEP and facilities engineers – both during new building design and existing building renovation or commissioning – can often lead to cost effective sustainable solutions that improve the ownership experience and reduce ownership costs for decades.  Finally, a mechanical and electrical engineer will discuss new technologies on the horizon, and the impact and improvements those technologies will make on the built environment in the coming years.

Electricity is a powerful force that can cause serious injury and death.  NFPA® 70E® (“Electrical Safety in the Workplace”) defines a qualified person as one who has skills and knowledge related to the construction, operation and installation of electrical equipment, and who has received safety training on the hazards involved. So, how do you know that your workers are qualified, and who requires training?  Employers need to evaluate the workplace for known hazards; this has long been an OSHA requirement.  In general, most companies are familiar with possible shock hazards, and are aware that OSHA requires their qualified workers to be properly trained to work on or near exposed energized electrical circuits or parts.  Many, however, are unaware that it is also an OSHA requirement to train unqualified electrical personnel on how to recognize and avoid electrical hazards.  Unqualified electrical workers may include:  maintenance personnel, painters, cleanup crews, laborers, mechanics, etc., who are not expected to work on exposed energized circuits or parts, but they must still receive sufficient training to ensure their safety and the safety of others in the workplace. This session will examine electrical safety training practices, worker assessments, and requirements of training.

Today public and private facilities are increasingly required to have electric vehicle (EV) charging capabilities.  This presentation will explore the challenges and opportunities associated with EV charging infrastructure for commercial buildings. Installing and maintaining charging stations can be complex, and there are many things you need to know. The presentation will discuss strategies for overcoming barriers and leveraging new opportunities including solar power, battery storage, and smart charging technologies to optimize energy use and minimize costs.

In this presentation on the basics of commercial boilers and piping, the speaker will discuss the do’s and don’ts of boiler piping and installations, best practices for maintaining your boiler, and what to look for when selecting a new boiler. Gain information that will help you improve your boiler system’s efficiency and dependability.

In this session, you will learn how to assess whether your roof and building have been damaged by a storm, what you can handle yourself, and when it's time to call a professional. Every building weathers storms, but some storms are big and can cause real damage.  Inspecting your building after a storm can mean the difference between handling the damage immediately after, or ignoring it until it becomes really expensive. This presentation will give you the information you need to protect your investment.

Learn how predictive maintenance testing can help safeguard your facilities and employees. Focusing on electrical systems, the speakers will discuss how thermographic scans can catch heat buildup or hot spots, system overload, damaged components, and faulty wiring. And they will describe what your PdM team needs to know about arc flash hazards and assessments.