In an era where buildings are getting smarter, too many engineering and energy professionals are still working like it’s 2005—manually extracting trend logs, collecting CSVs onsite, and juggling dashboards from multiple OEMs. The culprit? Fragmented and inaccessible building data.
Despite advancements in technology, MEP consultants and commissioning providers still face major hurdles gathering data from disparate systems: utility meters, building management systems (BMS), sub-meters, and standalone OEM equipment. This fragmentation leads to:
- Manual effort and multiple site visits just to get trend logs or verify performance
- Inefficient workflows that delay commissioning and optimization
- Limited visibility into whole-building or portfolio-wide performance
Why the data divide persists
Most buildings today operate with a patchwork of systems. A consultant might be working with Johnson Controls in one building, Siemens in another, and several proprietary vendor dashboards in between. Each has its own data format and export method, making integration a nightmare.
Even worse, sub-metering and peripheral systems, which are critical for granular performance insight are often offline or unconnected. Many facilities under 100,000 sq ft don’t have a BMS at all. In these cases, engineers still rely on clipboard readings or ad-hoc CSV exports to get data.
The result? More time chasing data than analyzing it, and more time onsite than delivering value.
The business cost of fragmentation
This issue isn’t just a technical nuisance, it’s an operational burden:
- Commissioning becomes slow and expensive. A study by LBNL highlights that traditional commissioning is still largely manual, increasing cost and delay .
- Data wrangling eats into productivity. Engineers waste hours reconciling spreadsheets, inconsistent data or mapping different naming conventions across systems .
- Missed insights. With siloed systems, fault detection and performance benchmarking are inconsistent at best. You can’t optimize what you can’t access.
As one expert put it: “People are best used to make decisions, not to write down numbers day in and day out” .
The need for integrated, flexible data ingestion
To deliver smarter, faster, and more scalable commissioning and optimization, consultants need platforms that can ingest, normalize, and analyze data from any source. That includes:
- Live integrations with BMS, meters, and IoT devices via edge computing
- Manual uploads of CSVs for offline systems or historical trend logs
- Cross-system asset tagging and metadata standardization
And because digital maturity varies across buildings, the solution must flex to each context, supporting advanced sites with real-time feeds and legacy buildings relying on spreadsheets.
How the PEAK Platform bridges the gap
CIM’s PEAK Platform is designed to solve this exact challenge. It allows partners to work smarter across the full range of systems and data formats by:
- Streaming live data via the Edge device from BMS and OEM equipment
- Supporting ad hoc uploads from trend exports or sub-meter CSVs
- Creating a standardized asset registry so that every data point is consistently tagged and queryable
This allows consultants to onboard sites faster, reduce site visits, and accelerate commissioning workflows. In fact, PEAK has helped reduce deployment timelines from months to weeks, with no additional sensors or capex investment required.
The outcome: fewer site visits, greater value
With integrated data in one place, engineering partners can:
- Commission faster with remote diagnostics and preconfigured workflows
- Work more efficiently by eliminating manual data wrangling
- Deliver deeper insights through AI-powered analytics and benchmarking across portfolios
- Maximize performance with continuous monitoring and early fault detection
This isn’t just about technology, it’s about shifting how the industry works. By embracing platforms that ingest data from anywhere and make it usable everywhere, engineering consultants are not just solving a data problem, they’re unlocking new levels of service quality. They can move faster, work smarter, and ultimately drive better performance outcomes for the buildings under their care.
Conclusions:
Fragmented data is holding the industry back. Integrated platforms like PEAK help consultants transition from reactive, manual work to proactive, performance-focused delivery. For those who manage complex portfolios and multiple OEM systems, this is a competitive edge, and increasingly, a necessity.
Smart buildings need smart data infrastructure. It’s time to break down the silos and empower better outcomes, across every project, asset, and portfolio.
Tired of wasting time chasing building data?
See how PEAK helps engineering and energy consultants access real-time and offline data from building systems, faster and smarter.
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