Introduction

KMC Commander is an industry-leading, cloud-native building automation system (BAS) solution. Dedicated to bringing data to the key stakeholders of a project, KMC’s API-first platform aggregates data from the edge BAS, securely sends that data to the independent KMC data layer and presents that data for monitoring and control of the system. To date, the cloud portion of the solution has relied on a local gateway from KMC partner Advantech. With the introduction of the new KMC Commander Gateway Service for Niagara, the local interface capabilities now include the highly powerful Niagara JACE ecosystem, which boasts over 1,000,000 deployments worldwide.

Improving Visibility for the Museum

A staple attraction in Massachusetts, the Norman Rockwell Museum has been telling the story of the famed artist since 1969, the same year KMC Controls was founded! Housing the largest collection of Rockwell art, including more than 800 original works, the mission critical nature of environmental control is paramount to preserve the collection. The Museum attracts over 100,000 visitors each year, and is committed to providing a quality, safe, and comfortable experience for its guests.

Spearheaded by their preferred HVAC and energy partner Nexus Consulting, Norman Rockwell Museum was looking for a tech-driven solution for their needs. With an existing BAS utilizing the Niagara framework, bringing a simplified solution for remote visibility and control was key.

KMC Commander was an ideal solution, bringing great dashboarding, trends, schedules, and alarms to the cloud. To deploy KMC Commander, typically an additional gateway needs installed, which communicates with the JACE via BACnet. But with the new KMC Commander Gateway Service for Niagara, no additional hardware was needed!

“Remote visibility is important to institutions that have spaces with sensitive indoor environmental conditions. Providing NRM with a solution that put this visibility in the palm of their hands, on a secure platform, was paramount.”

—Joshua Sprague, Nexus Consulting”

Fast Installation and Quick Turn-Around

The KMC Commander Gateway Service only takes a few minutes to install and license. It’s as easy as downloading the module, adding it to your Services folder, and utilizing cloud licensing to authenticate. Once installed, simply login with your KMC Commander credentials and select the project you want to associate the JACE with. And just like that, the connection is made. The rest can be done from the cloud, like discovering the devices and points of interest and setting up initial dashboards. Initial dashboards can be set up and delivered within an afternoon.

“All of us have experienced the hidden complexities of installing a new product and the frustration that goes along with it. Getting the KMC Commander service running was as easy as it’s described. I anticipated the connectivity portion to be the biggest hurdle, but that might have been even easier than the install; it just worked.”

—Joshua Sprague, Nexus Consulting

Current Uses and Applications

 

The Norman Rockwell Museum utilizes many of the features inside of KMC Commander:

Dashboards: With floorplans and user-based dashboards, individuals within the organization can see hot and cold spots, keep an eye on humidity levels, and ensure that all the major mechanical systems, like their chiller, are operating appropriately and efficiently.

Trends: Being able to have historical data on all points brought into the platform helps ensure efficient operation and troubleshooting of problems when they arise.

Alarms: With a subset of the most important alarms setup in KMC Commander to notify via text or email, not only can museum personnel get faster alerts, but their HVAC partner can get them as well and react with solutions proactively.

Reports: With being able to gather data for all relevant system points on an ongoing basis, the museum will be able to monitor and report on runtime, overrides, and general device setpoints quickly and with ease. These reports can also be exported via CSV files.

Future Applications

While the primary use case is largely around ensuring the system is programmed appropriately and running as intended, the use of the data is key for future endeavors for the museum. Utilizing this data for cloud-to-cloud analytics is on the short-list of future integrations, and with KMC Commander’s fully documented and supported API, this can be done with relative ease. This would allow the smallest of system settings, setpoints, and sensor data to be run through hundreds of rules to determine ongoing ways the system can be improved.

 

To learn more about the museum’s amazing exhibits or to schedule a visit, go to www.NRM.org.

To learn more about Nexus Consulting, visit nexus-consultingllc.com.

For more information about the KMC Commander Gateway Service for Niagara, please visit one of its product pages—CMDR-NIAGARA and CMDR-NIAGARA-3P—or contact the KMC Controls sales team.

The Norman Rockwell Museum and Nexus Consulting logos are the trademarks/service marks of their respective owners, who have not sponsored or approved any of this content.