CIM and PEAK FAQ: The Full-Loop Building Operations System

This page answers the questions people most often ask about CIM and PEAK: what the company does, how the full-loop system works, how it connects to existing buildings, how it is priced, and how it compares with other platforms. Each answer is written to stand on its own.

CIM at a glance

About CIM

Who CIM is, who it serves and how it is owned.

What is CIM?

CIM is the company behind PEAK, the full-loop building operations system for commercial property. PEAK's AI does not just find faults and opportunities across a building; it drives every one through to verified action, whoever runs the building. CIM works with owner-operators and with the FM, building services and engineering firms that run buildings for clients, across more than 600 buildings in 11 countries.

Who founded CIM, and when?

CIM was founded in Sydney in 2013 by David Walsh, who previously worked as a systems engineer for SAP and Intel. He bootstrapped the company and built the first version of the software with university colleague Colin Cullinan, and CIM completed a Series A funding round in late 2022. The founder story covers the early years.

Where is CIM based, and which markets does it serve?

CIM is headquartered in Sydney, Australia, with teams in Ireland and the United States. PEAK runs across more than 600 commercial buildings in 11 countries on four continents, with the largest deployments in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

Does CIM operate in the United States?

Yes. CIM operates in the United States through CIM US Co, based in Colorado, and the US is one of PEAK's largest markets. US users include Aero Performance Group, a Chicago-based commissioning firm, and a K-12 schools portfolio deployed with a US energy infrastructure provider. PEAK reads the BMS platforms common in US buildings, including Tridium Niagara, Johnson Controls, Siemens, Honeywell, Automated Logic and Alerton.

Is CIM independent of equipment and BMS manufacturers?

Yes. CIM is fully independent. It is not owned by, or affiliated with, any equipment, controls or BMS manufacturer. That matters because the record of whether a fault was fixed should be trusted equally by the owner, the service provider and the engineer, which is only possible when the platform has no stake in whose equipment or work is being assessed.

How many buildings does CIM monitor?

CIM's PEAK system runs across more than 600 commercial buildings, covering more than 100 million square feet, in 11 countries. Across portfolios running the full loop, 97% of identified actions are verifiably completed, and customers see average energy savings of 19% per asset, built on more than a decade of verified outcomes.

What awards has CIM won?

PEAK won Digital Innovation of the Year for Operational Efficiency at the 2025 Energy Awards in London, and CIM received Software Advice's Best Customer Support award for a second year in 2025. CIM has also featured in the Australian Financial Review Fast 100 and the Financial Times High-Growth Companies Asia-Pacific ranking, as listed on the CIM awards page.

The PEAK full-loop system

What PEAK is, how its AI works and how it gets issues to verified action.

What is PEAK?

PEAK is CIM's full-loop building operations system. It connects to a building's existing BMS, meters and sensors, uses fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) to find faults and improvement opportunities, prioritises them by impact, assigns each to the right person and verifies in the data that the fix held. Where most building analytics stop at the alert, PEAK drives every issue through to verified action.

Is PEAK an FDD platform, a building analytics platform or a building operations system?

All three describe part of it. Fault detection and diagnostics is the engine and building analytics is the data layer, but CIM describes PEAK as a full-loop building operations system because it goes past detection: it assigns, follows up and verifies every action. In buyer terms, PEAK is a turnkey FDD platform with the rule library, workflow and verification included.

What is the PEAK full loop?

The PEAK full loop has six stages. Acquire connects every building system into one data feed. Assess scores live equipment health against peak performance. Alert identifies the root cause of underperformance. Action assigns an engineering-grade fix to the right person. Accountability verifies the resolution and benchmarks performance across the supply chain. Augment uses that history to plan, forecast and improve, and verified outcomes feed the next cycle.

How does PEAK use AI?

PEAK uses four kinds of AI. Detection: a rules engine applies thousands of engineering templates continuously to find and diagnose faults, ranked by impact. Assurance: an AI agent reviews alerts and actions, flags false alerts and reopens fixes that did not hold. Escalation: overdue work is chased against agreed service levels. Governance: portfolio performance is reported on verified data. Machine learning also labels BMS points during onboarding.

What faults does PEAK detect?

PEAK detects equipment and control faults across HVAC plant, terminal units, meters and other connected systems, including out-of-hours operation, simultaneous heating and cooling, leaking valves, stuck dampers, short cycling, sensor drift and failure, energy waste, comfort issues and safety and compliance risks. CIM's analysis of the most common HVAC faults across 600+ buildings shows what it finds in practice.

How does PEAK prioritise faults?

PEAK scores every issue by business impact, including estimated energy cost, comfort, equipment risk and compliance, and assigns a priority from P1 down. An alert is raised only when a significant fault, failure or tuning opportunity is found, so engineers work the most consequential issues first instead of scrolling through raw BMS alarms.

How does PEAK verify that a fault was actually fixed?

PEAK keeps running the rule that raised the fault after the work is closed. If the fault condition clears in the data, the fix is verified; if it returns, the action reopens. Verification matters: in a CIM sample of closed tickets, about 1 in 6 were closed before the building data confirmed the fix, as set out in CIM's guide to verifying that a fault was actually fixed.

What action completion rate does PEAK achieve?

Across portfolios running PEAK's full loop, 97% of identified actions are verifiably completed. Portfolios are held to an 80% monthly completion standard on P1 and P2 actions, with a named CIM engineer triaging unassigned issues, an AI agent chasing overdue work and monthly reporting that escalates backlogs. CIM measures success by actions completed and verified, not faults found.

Can AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude or Microsoft Copilot access PEAK data?

Yes. PEAK supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP), so authorised users can ask questions of their own portfolio data from AI clients such as Claude, ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, such as which sites have the most open P1 actions or which assets ran overnight last week, without exporting data or building reports by hand.

Integration, data and security

How PEAK connects to existing buildings and how data is protected.

Which BMS platforms does PEAK work with?

PEAK is BMS-agnostic. Platforms connected in production include Trend, Tridium Niagara, Schneider Electric, Honeywell, Siemens, Johnson Controls, Distech Controls, Delta Controls, Alerton and Automated Logic. Rather than relying on a fixed brand list, PEAK connects through open protocols and vendor APIs, which covers most commercial building management systems, as detailed on the BMS integrations page.

How does PEAK connect to a building?

PEAK connects through one of four paths: reading BACnet/IP directly on the BMS network, reading BACnet MS/TP once it is routed to BACnet/IP, reading the BMS through the vendor's API, or receiving scheduled CSV exports where no live connection is possible. Live paths give higher fidelity and lower lag, so CSV is used only as a last resort.

What hardware does PEAK need on site?

The only hardware PEAK needs on site is the BACER collector, a small edge device that reads the BMS network and sends data securely to the cloud. PEAK does not need new sensors, field devices or controls replacement. For CIM's engineering partners, edge hardware is included in the licence at no additional cost.

Does PEAK replace or control the BMS?

No. PEAK reads the existing BMS and analyses its data; it does not replace it. Fault detection is read-only: PEAK does not command plant or change the control strategy. In some optimisation scenarios a customer can choose to let setpoints be adjusted automatically, but that is a separate, explicitly authorised capability. CIM explains the difference in PEAK vs a BMS.

Does PEAK work with poor-quality or inconsistent BMS data?

Yes. Real BMS point lists are inconsistently named and often incomplete, so PEAK uses machine learning to propose normalised metadata for each point, which CIM engineers review. Templated equipment can be mapped in bulk, and PEAK raises faults on flat-lining, drifting or dead sensors so gaps are visible. CIM's guide to BMS point naming and normalisation explains the method.

What data sources does PEAK use besides the BMS?

Besides the BMS, PEAK uses electricity, gas and water meters and sub-meters, interval and utility data, temperature, humidity and CO2 sensors, lift controllers, HVAC plant feeds, weather data and occupancy data. PEAK consolidates these into one normalised portfolio dataset and can calculate virtual points where meters are absent.

Does PEAK integrate with Slack, Microsoft Teams or maintenance systems?

Yes. PEAK's workflow automation routes alerts to Slack, Microsoft Teams, email and SMS out of the box, and to other tools through Zapier and API webhooks, so each issue reaches the right technician or contractor with the diagnosis attached. Routing can use site, priority, equipment type or assignee.

Where is PEAK customer data hosted?

PEAK is built and hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), with customer data stored in AWS data centres in Sydney, Australia. Data is encrypted in transit with TLS. Customers with specific data residency requirements are asked to raise them with CIM before deployment, as described on the CIM security page.

How does CIM secure customer data?

CIM operates an information security programme that follows the SOC 2 framework and undergoes independent third-party assessments of its controls. CIM runs an independent penetration test at least annually, performs vulnerability scanning and logging, applies least-privilege access with single sign-on and two-factor authentication where available, and reviews access to sensitive systems quarterly.

For owner-operators

How organisations that own and operate their buildings use PEAK.

Who uses PEAK?

PEAK serves two kinds of organisation: owner-operators that run their own portfolios, such as REITs, super funds, universities and government owners, and the FM, building services, engineering and commissioning firms that run buildings for clients. Building engineers are the daily users in both. Public customers and partners include Charter Hall, QIC, UTS and Aero Performance Group.

Which types of building does PEAK suit?

PEAK suits commercial buildings with central plant and a BMS, including offices, shopping centres, airports, universities, hospitals, hotels, museums and cultural institutions, schools and life sciences facilities. It delivers the strongest returns where energy spend is material, plant is complex and portfolios span many sites.

What results do CIM customers achieve?

CIM customers see average energy savings of 19% per asset, and 97% of identified actions are verifiably completed across portfolios running the full loop. Published examples include Charter Hall's 58-site office portfolio, a 33% energy reduction from correcting overnight operation, and a US schools deployment where five sites went live in under 60 days and energy use fell 29.5%, all on the CIM success stories page.

How can building owners verify that a contractor actually fixed a fault?

In PEAK, every action has a named owner and is checked against the building data after it is closed: if the fault condition clears, the fix is verified; if it returns, the action reopens. Owners and service providers work from the same verified record, so a good contractor can prove the value of its work rather than argue about it. CIM's guide to verifying a contractor fixed an HVAC fault explains the method.

How are energy savings from PEAK verified?

Energy savings are verified through measurement and verification (M&V), usually under IPMVP: metered consumption is compared with a baseline adjusted for weather, occupancy and other changes. PEAK supplies the continuous data, the record of which faults were fixed and when, and the evidence that each fix held, which is what utility programmes, performance contracts and green finance reviewers ask for. See CIM's guide to measurement and verification.

How does CIM help with NABERS ratings?

CIM's NABERS tracking service gives Australian office and retail owners a monthly decimal estimate of NABERS Energy and Water ratings for each site, portfolio, region and fund, with a dedicated sustainability analyst, quarterly reviews and scenario modelling. PEAK then finds and drives to resolution the equipment issues that put a rating at risk.

How does PEAK help with US building performance standards such as Local Law 97?

Building performance standards such as NYC Local Law 97 and Boston's BERDO set limits buildings must meet every year from measured data. PEAK finds and verifies the fixes to the operational faults that drive avoidable consumption, which keeps a building compliant between audits rather than only at them.

Does PEAK help with UK MEES, EPC and ESOS requirements?

Partly. MEES sets minimum EPC ratings, and an EPC is an asset rating modelled from a building's fabric and services, so operational fixes do not change it directly. PEAK cuts measured operational energy, can supply the metered and equipment data behind ESOS energy audits, and shows which plant is underperforming, which helps target the upgrades that improve an EPC.

Does PEAK monitor indoor environment quality?

Yes. PEAK's indoor environment monitoring tracks thermal comfort, humidity and air quality against setpoints in every zone, raises faults on failed or drifting sensors, and traces comfort problems back to the equipment causing them. That continuous record supports NABERS Indoor Environment, WELL, BREEAM, LEED and RESET reporting.

Can PEAK support capital planning?

Yes. PEAK scores equipment health continuously and keeps a history of faults, recurrences and repairs for every asset, so owners can tell plant that is genuinely failing from plant that is simply badly controlled. That evidence helps extend the life of existing equipment, defer replacements that are not needed and bring forward the ones that are.

For partners who run buildings for clients

How FM, building services, engineering and commissioning firms use PEAK.

What is the CIM Partner Program?

The CIM Partner Program is for organisations that run buildings for clients: FM providers, building services and mechanical contractors, engineering consultancies and commissioning firms. Partners use PEAK to cover more contracts with the same team, prioritise what their engineers act on and prove every outcome to their clients. More than 20 engineering partners deliver services on PEAK.

How do FM and building services providers use PEAK?

FM and building services providers use PEAK to run more buildings without adding engineers. AI checks every site continuously and routes prioritised, diagnosed issues to the right technician, so site visits go to fixing rather than finding. Every completed action is verified against building data, giving the provider proven outcomes to bring to each client review.

How do engineering firms use PEAK for RCx and MBCx?

Engineering firms use PEAK to replace the manual investigation phase of retro-commissioning with a ranked, diagnosed fault list, then keep it running as a monitoring-based commissioning retainer. Aero Performance Group, a Chicago-based RCx and MBCx provider, grew its active project portfolio by 50% without adding resources.

How is PEAK priced for partners?

CIM licenses PEAK to partners per data point, so the platform cost scales with the size of each client's building and can be built into the partner's own pricing. Edge hardware, cloud hosting, onboarding support and team training are included, there is no limit on users per building, and commissioning services are available as an optional add-on. CIM does not publish price figures.

Does PEAK help partners win utility incentives?

It can. Several US utility programmes fund monitoring-based commissioning and pay incentives on verified savings, and they increasingly require evidence that faults were resolved, not just found. PEAK records resolved faults over time and supports measurement and verification against an adjusted baseline, so the evidence pack builds as the work happens.

For building engineers

What PEAK means for the engineers who use it every day.

Does PEAK create more work for building engineers?

No, it is designed to remove work. PEAK filters raw BMS alarms down to the prioritised issues worth an engineer's time, raises an alert only when a significant fault or opportunity is found, and attaches the diagnosis and step-by-step guidance so the engineer is not starting from a blank trend log. Actions can be updated, with photos, from a phone on site.

Will AI replace building engineers?

No. CIM's view is that the best-run buildings are run by great engineers, and PEAK is built to support them, not replace them. The AI finds, diagnoses and prioritises; the engineer decides what to do and does the work. Every fix an engineer delivers is verified and recorded, which gives them evidence of their impact for budget, resourcing and recognition conversations.

Can engineers create or change fault rules in PEAK?

Yes. PEAK's rules engine requires no coding, so engineers can modify existing rules and create new ones from day one. A team can capture its best engineer's diagnostic knowledge as rules that run continuously across every site, alongside CIM's library of thousands of fault detection templates.

Pricing, cost and buying

How PEAK is priced, what FDD costs and how to evaluate it.

How is PEAK priced?

CIM licenses PEAK to direct customers per square metre of floor area, and to engineering and service partners per data point. Pricing depends on the size and complexity of the portfolio and the services included. CIM does not publish price figures, because the right scope differs from one portfolio to the next.

Does PEAK charge per user?

No. PEAK is licensed by floor area for direct customers and per data point for partners, rather than per user. Partner licences carry no limit on users per building, so site teams, contractors, asset managers and executives can all be given access without the licence cost rising with every login.

How much does fault detection and diagnostics software cost?

Published benchmarks from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory put median FDD implementation at about US$8 per data point, with about US$2.70 per point a year in software and US$8 per point a year in labour, on a typical 1,300-point deployment (2020 data). Monitoring-based commissioning programmes cost a median US$1.00 per square foot in LBNL's benchmarking. Vendors price per point, per building or by floor area.

How do you build a business case for PEAK?

A PEAK business case usually starts with energy: CIM customers average 19% savings per asset, against independent benchmarks of 7 to 9% median savings for FDD and MBCx users and a 2.5-year median MBCx payback. It then adds avoided reactive maintenance, extended equipment life, protected ratings and compliance, and engineering time returned. The FDD platform comparison helps frame the options.

What should you ask when evaluating an FDD or building analytics vendor?

Ask whether the platform verifies that fixes held rather than only detecting faults, whether it is independent of your equipment and BMS vendors, which BMS platforms it reads without new hardware, how it handles poor point naming, what action completion rate it achieves and who tunes the rules. CIM's building analytics RFP guide sets out 37 evaluation questions and a scoring matrix.

How long does it take to deploy PEAK?

Most buildings go live on PEAK in weeks rather than months, because machine-learning-assisted tagging removes most of the manual point mapping that slows other platforms. A US schools deployment had five sites fully live in under 60 days. Timelines depend mainly on BMS access, point naming quality and IT approval.

What does PEAK onboarding involve?

PEAK onboarding involves confirming how the site's BMS exposes data, installing or connecting the BACER collector, mapping and reviewing points, tuning fault rules to the plant actually installed, and agreeing who owns alerts and how contractors receive work. CIM engineers lead the process alongside the site team.

What support do PEAK customers receive?

Every PEAK customer gets a dedicated customer success manager, and CIM's customer success team are qualified mechanical, electrical and mechatronic engineers. They tune rules, interpret ambiguous faults, train site teams and review performance regularly. CIM received Software Advice's Best Customer Support award for a second year in 2025.

What is CIM's building optimisation service?

CIM's building optimisation service pairs PEAK with a dedicated CIM building performance engineer for a structured 12-month programme. The engineer audits the building, reviews the control strategy against best practice, works with site teams and contractors on improvements, retunes seasonally and measures and verifies the results.

What do customers say about PEAK?

PEAK holds a 4.7 out of 5 rating on Capterra from more than 60 reviews. Reviewers most often highlight CIM's engineering support, the clear process for identifying, assigning and closing issues, and the history of faults by equipment, as collected on the CIM reviews page.

How PEAK compares

How PEAK differs from other systems and vendors.

How is PEAK different from a BMS?

A BMS controls the building: it holds setpoints and schedules and raises alarms when thresholds are crossed. PEAK assesses how well that control is working, finds faults before any threshold is breached, prioritises them, assigns the work and verifies the fix. Almost every PEAK site runs a BMS underneath it, as explained in PEAK vs a BMS.

How does CIM compare with Clockworks Analytics, Bueno and other FDD platforms?

CIM PEAK, Clockworks Analytics, Bueno and CopperTree are all turnkey FDD platforms with pre-built rule libraries. PEAK's distinguishing features are full independence from equipment and controls manufacturers, a full loop that drives every issue to verified action, a 97% verified action completion rate, engineer-led support and a partner model. CIM's FDD platform comparison sets out the differences.

What are the alternatives to Clockworks Analytics?

Alternatives to Clockworks Analytics include other turnkey FDD platforms such as CIM PEAK, Bueno Analytics and CopperTree Kaizen, programmable analytics such as SkySpark, and BMS manufacturer suites such as Johnson Controls OpenBlue. CIM PEAK suits buyers who want an independent platform that verifies fixes as well as finding faults. CIM's comparison of FDD platforms covers each option.

Who owns the main FDD platforms?

Ownership differs across the market. Clockworks Analytics is backed by Schneider Electric's venture arm, CopperTree Analytics is majority owned by Dar Group, BrainBox AI is part of Trane Technologies, and Copeland has acquired Bueno Analytics. CIM is independent and not owned by any equipment, controls or BMS manufacturer, as the FDD platform comparison sets out.

Is PEAK an energy management system?

PEAK includes energy management, but it goes further than a typical energy management system. Energy tools show that consumption rose; PEAK finds the equipment fault causing it, assigns the fix and checks the saving held. Meter, sub-meter and utility data sit alongside BMS data in one system.

Is PEAK a CMMS?

No. A computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) manages work orders and maintenance history. PEAK generates the evidence for the work, routes it to the right person or contractor and verifies the outcome in the building data. PEAK works alongside a CMMS rather than replacing it.

Does PEAK control HVAC autonomously like BrainBox AI?

Not by default. PEAK's core is diagnostic and operational: it reads the BMS, finds faults and drives them to verified action through people. Autonomous control platforms write setpoints back to the BMS continuously. PEAK offers AI-powered adaptive setpoint control as an optional capability in some scenarios, but detection and verification do not depend on it.

More about CIM and PEAK

For deeper reading, see the complete guide to fault detection and diagnostics, the comparison of FDD and building analytics platforms, the building analytics RFP guide and the monitoring-based commissioning guide. To see PEAK on your own buildings, watch a demo or talk to the partner team.