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Industry and Technology

Why BMS not PLCs for


Building Automation?
Modern building automation solutions are required to
fulfill many often diverse and demanding objectives.
Foremost among these are the need to provide comfort,
security and energy efficiency. Depending on the purpose
of the building, facility, campus or enterprise, other
common requirements include: fire detection and life
safety assurance, enterprise system integration,
regulatory compliance support, critical parameter and
cleanliness level maintenance, data logging and alarm
management.





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INTRODUCTION
In recent years some debate has arisen as to whether Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) are suitable as an
alternative to Building Management Systems (BMSs) to meet these needs. This paper is intended to provide a
concise historical review of the technologies and an objective comparison between the two solution platforms,
their relative merits and application suitabilities.

SOME EARLY HISTORY
The PLC was invented in 1968 by Richard Morley and his colleagues within Bedford Associates, a small,
New Hampshire based engineering consulting firm. The Modicon (Modular Digital Controller) Company
was incorporated in 1969, building a substantial business around these new devices. The initial sales
success of PLCs was in the area of transfer lines in automotive plants. Over the years the capabilities
and application scope of PLCs have dramatically increased but automotive manufacturing remains their
most significant market. Nearly four decades later, the PLC is arguably the most widely used product
type in the industrial automation business, with a worldwide market of several billions of dollars per year
and available from hundreds of different sources, in many different form-factors (including embedded)
and prices ranging from tens of thousands of dollars (for triple redundant, failure-proof systems) to
commodity, catalog products at less than a hundred dollars.

In 1975, Mr. Morley was also a founder of Andover Controls. This companys first product, the
Sunkeeper, was targeted at the solar energy management market and introduced the worlds first Direct
Digital Control (DDC) system. The companys products quickly evolved encompassing much wider
building management responsibilities. The product lines included the highly successful AC256 introduced
in 1981, the Infinity system which debuted in 1989 and the currently available Continuum system which
followed in 1997.

One may speculate as to why PLCs were not simply applied to
building management applications from the very beginning. Were
business and technical needs left unmet, giving rise to building
automation companies such as Andover Controls? The simple answer
is yes; the deficiencies of PLCs for building management applications
effectively spawned the modern digital Building Management
Systems market. Indeed, in a recent interview with Mr. Morley, he
explained anyone trying to apply PLCs to building automation
applications is investing in excessive, divergent performance.

Today, both of the product heritages of Modicon and Andover
Controls are owned by Schneider Electric, the worlds power and
control specialists. This uniquely privileged position allows us to
present a fair and balanced comparison between these two
categories of powerful automation solutions.





Richard Morley with the worlds
first PLC, the Modicon 084.





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KEY REQUIREMENTS DIFFERENCES
It should be kept in mind that a fundamental difference in design intent exists between BMS and PLC
systems. BMS systems are primarily intended to control and protect the environment around people,
physical assets and data. PLC systems are primarily intended to control and protect the production
capacity of machines and manufacturing lines. This basic distinction underlies many of the following
comparison points not just in terms of the enabling technologies but also the types of companies and
people involved in the successful completion of building automation projects and the ongoing service
and maintenance of these systems.



















SYSTEM TOPOLOGIES
Buildings are big. Space control requirements can range from a few hundred square feet well into the
millions. This space may be distributed across several buildings of a campus or even many multi-
building facilities across a country or continent. BMS systems have evolved to meet this type of control
challenge. PLC systems are usually physically limited to a single machine or production line within a
single building.

NUMBER OF USERS
BMS systems are designed to have many users with diverse needs interacting with the system on
several levels through multiple devices. This can range from an office worker changing the setpoint on
their local thermostat through to a Facility Director viewing plantwide energy efficiency statistics through
a web browser. Configurations supporting various classes of users with a wide range of privilege sets
are common. From an all-powerful administration account through to read-only access to a few points
on a single screen, modern BMS systems can easily be configured to provide vastly different users
experiences to a common system depending on the location, function and authority level of the various
user types.

PLC
BMS
Bits & Bytes
Object Oriented
Human Comfort & Safety Machine Efficiency




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In contrast, PLC systems often have only very localized user interfaces. This makes sense because of the
need for close proximity of the operator to the machine to verify its correct operation and to perform
mechanical maintenance. Where connection to enterprise systems is provided it is often through
standardized interfaces such as OPC. 3rd party SCADA vendors provide many of the system level views
of PLC-based configurations.

DEGREE OF DETERMINISM
Generally speaking, BMS systems operate around human time. Air conditioning control sequences are
triggered by occupancy conditions and the comings and goings of facility area occupants are captured in
familiar time/date formats.

In contrast, PLCs are usually designed to operate in the 1-50 millisecond scan-time range and are
generally concerned with machine time (i.e. their operation is based upon mechanical and electro-
mechanical system dynamics.) As a consequence, all other functions are subjugated to logic and I/O
processing in order to ensure highly deterministic system operation. BMS systems are typically more
adaptive in that they give communications functions a much higher priority. Part of the reason for this is
that the individual controllers have been designed from the very outset to be part of a larger system and
hence awareness of their availability and ability to interact with the rest of the system is fundamental to
the overall system operation.

An example of an important difference in communications approaches between the two types of systems
is that BMSs, along with regular I/O scanning mechanisms, have long featured (over 20 years) built-in
report-by-exception capabilities.

Three types of information can be reported by exception:
1. Alarms
2. Change of value
3. Object attributes referenced by other controllers

This mixed scanning/exception reporting approach makes highly efficient use of communications
bandwidth, thereby delivering optimal system performance, while only minimally impacting overall
system determinacy.

Although both BMS and PLC field controllers can function in a standalone manner, it is much more
common for PLCs to act as localized islands of automation. While there is a very significant trend in
networking PLCs over various fieldbusses, they remain far more functionally isolated than controllers in
a typical BMS installation.

ALARM DETECTION AND MANAGEMENT
Alarms within BMS architectures are generally detected at the field controller level. The various alarm
limits and notification destinations (where the alarms should be sent) are basic attributes of the
monitored values and are distributed and processed as close to the signal source as possible. In PLC-
based architectures alarm management is almost always performed only at the SCADA level. While
functional, this is a far less robust approach, as the workstations are much more likely to become
unavailable than the PLCs. Another disadvantage to this approach is that transient alarm conditions are




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far more likely to be missed because of the communications overheads and asynchronous task
processing of the two system levels.

DATA LOGGING
BMS systems are often used to provide both short and long-term records of environmental parameters.
Great quantities (1,000s) of these logs can be stored near their signal sources within distributed field
controllers as well as being aggregated in more centralized database resources. BMS systems are
designed to automatically provide this capability with simple configuration options. Of course, PLCs have
local storage capabilities but are generally oblivious to human real time (time of day etc.) and a great
deal of custom application programming is required to even approximate the logging functionality
natively available within a BMS field controller.

NATURE OF THE MEDIUM
One often overlooked attribute of the air handling aspect of building automation is that the medium
under control (the air) affords the control system a degree of natural fault tolerance. BMS
architectures are designed to allow subsystems to be temporarily taken out of service for maintenance
or repair without dramatically impacting the quality of the overall environment. This is due to the fact
that other operational subsystems will generally compensate for the non-functional unit. The overall
system may be temporarily unbalanced but a comfortable environment is normally maintained. BMS
systems have evolved to anticipate such circumstances. In contrast, systems controlled by PLCs are
usually rendered entirely inoperable should the PLC fail.

PURPOSE BUILT = LOWER INSTALLED COST
When contrasting the I/O types of PLC and BMS systems it soon becomes evident that the BMS I/O is,
not surprisingly, more adapted to control the types of devices commonly found in air handling and
security management applications. For example, BMS field controllers are available with built-in airflow
sensors and damper actuator motors. These controllers are purpose-built to be mounted directly onto
ductwork. No equivalent to this exists in the PLC world.

Another feature of BMS field controller I/O is that of built-in signal conditioning. This often overcomes
the need for separate and expensive signal conditioning blocks. A variety of signals from input devices
such as thermistors and airflow sensors are characterized directly within the firmware of the I/O module
to provide the software with linearized SI and Imperial standard signal representations. In most PLCs,
costly, specialist I/O modules are required to perform the equivalent task. It is also very common for
BMS field controller I/O to feature built-in manual override switches and potentiometers - so called
Hand/Off/Auto switches. These are extremely useful during system commissioning and servicing and
when a controller is temporarily offline from the rest of the system. It is very unusual to find this feature
in PLCs.










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Thermistors are a good example of fitness-for-purpose of sensors in building automation applications. As
PLCs became applied to an ever widening range of industrial control applications, the absolute and range
of temperatures they became expected to monitor and control were only able to be provided from
thermocouples. Thermistors, on the other hand, while less linear are far more cost-effective and
practical for the temperatures typically encountered in building automation applications. In fact, one of
the earliest and still very evident differentiators of PLCs and BMS field controllers is in their ability to
natively condition thermistor signals.





INTEGRATION NOT INTERFACING
PLCs are sometimes interfaced to a few complementary automation devices. This frequently requires
custom coding and significant engineering time. In comparison, BMSs usually support extensive, native
integration capabilities and are often tied to dozens of facility subsystems. As shown below, such
subsystems include: power, utilities, process, security and life safety. The BMS can also form a
consistent means to integrate with higher level enterprise business applications such as Manufacturing
Execution (MES) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. For example, to support security
integration; BMS systems have dedicated I/O modules to perform functions such as door controls. Along
with dedicated digital I/O (request to exit, door strike etc.), these modules incorporate specialized
communications protocols (such as Weigand) that allow easy integration with a huge variety of ID
verification devices including proximity card readers and biometric recognition devices.


+
Airflow Sensor
+
Actuator
+
Room Sensor
+
Signal Conditioners
+
Lots of Engineering
+
Enclosure (Plenum-
mount)
=
PLC High Installed Cost




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SOPHISTICATED OBJECT MODEL
BMS are built around a sophisticated, distributed software object model. The system database holds a
complete topological map, data/program image and revision history for every physical and logical entity
within the system. This approach supports a high degree of automatic configuration management. The
object types themselves range from simple discrete I/O to complex compound objects such as doors.
While outwardly a door may appear to be a simple control object, dozens of attributes may apply to
each instance.

REGULATED INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS
In highly regulated industries such as pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing, a common
requirement is to be able to provide proof of compliance with regulations through the use of automated
systems. A clear advantage of BMS systems in this area is that they are database centric. PLCs are local
memory centric. This means that a BMS has a far greater capacity to keep long term records of all
critical facility related events and parameters. Indeed, a fundamental requirement of the Electronic
Records and Signatures regulation (21 CFR Part 11) is that comprehensive audit trails be maintained.
The database centric nature of a BMS makes this a straightforward task to accomplish. In contrast, the
limited local memory of a PLC has little, if any, capacity to capture this critical information.

THE MYTH OF IEC 61131-3
The IEC standard 61131-3 has been available now for over 15 years. The intention of this standard is to
provide a high degree of basic functional uniformity from the control products of industrial automation
systems manufacturers. The idea was that system users would be able to create rich, vendor-
independent libraries of reusable control code.

While this is a commendable objective, it has met with limited success. From a building automation
standpoint a fundamental problem is that the standard is written around the use of traditional PLC
programming languages and software structuring tools - Ladder Diagram, Function Block Diagram,
Instruction List, Structured Text and Sequential Function Charts.

These languages are well suited to machine and production line applications but not to BMS applications.
They are not particularly object oriented and do not intuitively map to common BMS control
requirements.

Another major problem is that the IEC 61131-3 languages are extensible. This means that the different
manufacturers can and do create proprietary extensions to their implementations which severely limits
the degree of portability and reusability of any application code developed.





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NETWORKING DIFFERENCES
BMS and PLC networks have evolved separately and differently. Today almost all BMS manufacturers
offer systems based on either or both of the open standards, LONWorks and BACnet. These
communications standards are sophisticated, well-defined and their implementation is well controlled.
This affords BMS users a high degree of integration capability. These networks natively support the
object types and services required by the building automation world. LONWorks and BACnet are also
natively supported by a wide range of complementary devices such as variable speed drives, power
monitoring and metering equipment and lighting controllers.

The network standards prevalent among PLCs are generally less sophisticated and rooted in the
proprietary technology of the larger vendors. Profibus and DeviceNet are good examples. While these
network technologies are highly functional for machine automation applications, they are cumbersome
to implement and not a good fit for building automation applications.

DON'T PAY FOR WHAT YOU DONT NEED
As PLCs were originally invented to replace cabinets full of electro-mechanical relays situated near (and
sometimes even on) production equipment, it was imperative that they were able to withstand the
electrical and mechanical rigors of these harsh environments. The I/O boards of PLCs therefore generally
feature a high degree of channel to channel isolation, electrical noise suppression capability and
mechanical ruggedization. Some models even allow defective I/O modules to be replaced under power
or so-called hot-swapped. While these features are necessary for such industrial control applications,
they do add significant cost to the design of PLCs. BMS field controllers have been designed to operate
in the utilities environment of a facility which is typically far less severe. The electrical and mechanical
design of BMS field controllers has therefore evolved to be better suited to such conditions. A significant
commercial advantage of BMS field controllers over PLCs is that the user does not pay for a degree of
product ruggedization unnecessary for the application.



PLC Program BMS Configure




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EASE OF SOLUTION
Perhaps the greatest single advantage of BMS over PLCs falls in the area of ease-of-solution or
engineering costs. As the workhouse of the industrial automation world, modern PLCs are undoubtedly
highly flexible and reliable devices. Given the target physical application domain of facility management,
there exist no significant reliability difference between BMS and PLCs. However, a tremendous difference
does exist in application engineering time and costs. In part due to the very flexible nature of PLCs, the
amount of work required to perform even rudimentary facility automation tasks with these devices can
be many times that required when employing purpose-build BMS solutions. For example, consider the
work involved in setting up a control sequence for a fan-coil unit application as shown in the figure
below. This would require a great deal of bespoke code development in a PLC while a BMS controller
would only require straightforward configuration of its built-in functionality.














CONCLUSION
PLCs and BMS have evolved into powerful automation solutions. PLCs are extremely versatile and with
enough effort can be used to meet the needs of almost any automation application. BMS, on the other
hand, have a more restricted application domain but a far higher degree of fitness for their intended
application scope. As shown in the diagram below, for small standalone system installations PLC and
BMS costs may be comparable but for larger, more sophisticated installations, overall engineering,
maintenance and operating cost will become increasingly higher for PLC-based over BMS based systems.
Another important consideration is that PLC-based systems will reach practical application size,
complexity and manageability limits long before BMS-based solutions.




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Of equal, if not greater, importance than the control equipment used on a building automation
application is the expertise and experience of the organizations and individuals providing system
engineering and support services. It should be recognized that, generally speaking, PLC integrators
typically have no building automation expertise and their staff are traditionally from electrical
engineering backgrounds. In more recent years this type of integrator has been taking on more staff
with software development expertise. Equally, BMS integrators rarely have process or machine control
expertise and their staff are traditionally from mechanical automation backgrounds. In more recent
years this type of integrator has been taking on more staff with IT expertise.

As we have seen, while they have some historical and technical commonalities, PLC and BMS systems
have followed necessarily different evolutionary paths with BMS systems being more highly adapted to
the building management applications domain. Equally, PLCs perform a vitally important role in the
industrial manufacturing and process automation worlds.

P PL LC C
B BM MS S
Application
Complexity
Low
Intelligent
Building
High
Installed Cost
Simple
Equipment
Control




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It is important to appreciate that these two automation solution platforms deliver complementary
functionality. As industrial processes and the surrounding environments of the machines and people that
control them are increasingly recognized to be interdependent, integrating PLC and BMS systems is
becoming ever more common. Fortunately, straightforward integration is facilitated by many network
protocol, software interface and database standards such as Modbus, TCP/IP, XML, OPC, SQL and ODBC.


Low
High
Applications
SCADA
PLC
BMS
Fitness


The following diagram summarizes the key differences between PLC and BMS systems for use in building
management applications.











Copyright 2007, TAC
All brand names, trademarks and registered trademarks
are the property of their respective owners. Information
contained within this document is subject to change
without notice. All rights reserved.

WP-BMSvPLC-US
05/07











www.tac.com


Centralized architecture

Single point of failure

High installation costs

High engineering costs

Limited connectivity

Very limited sub-system
integration capabilities

Inconsistent support

Limited channel expertise

General purpose

Fully programmable

Distributed intelligence

High availability & resilience

Low installation costs

Low engineering costs

Good connectivity

Excellent sub-system
integration

Broad support coverage


Excellent channel expertise

Application focused

Configurable and programmable

PLC BMS

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