I've been in this industry for a few years now, in the HVAC side. I actually just stumbled into it after college out of sheer luck (or misfortune). I have a background in electronics and embedded systems configuration, networking, and computer science. So, I ended up mostly working on Tridium database and front-end builds.

Anyway, I don't know if this is just an issue with my office, but I really feel like my office's controls engineers' time is not respected. In a typical day, I'm pulled aside for at least one service department issue, called by at least one GC or commissioning / T&B guy to take a look at something, called by a service tech or project tech to help out with something or basically get yapped at about the status of a project for 30 minutes, and then I'm supposed to also create front-end / database builds with basically a quarter of the time that should have been alloted to engineering and programming.

I feel like my work consistently takes ages to do because there's no "protected" engineering focus time. Our culture is completely reactive, and then we act shocked when projects inevitably don't get finished in time or take entirely too many hours to complete due to constant interruptions.

Is my office just disorganized as shit or is this just how this industry is?

So I have my first controls interview this next week. I have experience in hvac (been doing installs for about 4 months) so still kinda new. And I've been studying cyber security online and working towards my A+ cert. I know nothing about controls and really don't see much online about it. Any advice? Apparently the company focuses on Siemens or something like that commercial of course. I've heard a little about BACnet and things like that. I can do a Lil programming in python. Just worried they are not gonna move forward with me. I've heard allot of people say companies rather train you new because you can learn how they do things easier. Thank anyone for giving some advice.

Our existing BAS graphic set is old and bulky. It was designed in a time when screen space limitations were solved by just splitting up the graphic some more. The modern, energy-efficient systems we contend with require a full picture, unified graphic. I believe High Performance HMI is a good starting point to address this, but it seems that it hasn't fully caught on yet in BAS. I haven't been able to find industry leaders or OEMs that produce these types of graphics, so we've been developing a hybrid (some might say 'bastardized') version in-house. Since we're essentially flying solo, I'm concerned that we're coming up with solutions that won't scale well, or spinning our wheels trying to develop solutions that already exist.

Issues... or Opportunities for Improvement

Datapoints. There are lots of good symbol packages out there, like the German DIN standard, but they don't accommodate datapoints. The datapoints end up being an afterthought, they overlap pipes, and get jammed in they can fit. The symbol is the easy part, displaying the associated data is the real challenge. For example, chillers have a great symbol, but often have a lot of associated data. What data needs to be displayed on the graphic? What data should be displayed separately, and how?

Pumps. Our pump symbol is big, and new graphics have 20+ pumps. Our hydronic layouts are heavily impacted by the pump space requirements, meaning we end up choosing a worse layout to accommodate them. We need to combine it into a compact package or come up with a better way to display them.

Pipe colours. HP HMI advocates for less colourful graphics, but when we began this endeavor we felt this was too big of a pivot from traditional hot water red, cold water blue, glycol green etc. For anyone in a similar situation, perhaps there is a different approach to make colour more usable -- like opacity adjustment, thinner line size, and so on.

Floorplans and room level control. An upcoming building has something like 20 AHUs. Our approach is a different floorplan overlay colour for each AHU. It's tough to come up with that many unique, easily decipherable colours. Old method uses solid overlay colours like red, blue, green, yellow, but that's completely against HP HMI standards. Do we need overlays, or is there a better way?

Secondly, we have a hard time shoe horning in the room level controls. What should be displayed on the floorplan? What data should be shown in a separate popup?

Example Graphics

Conclusion... help me

Over the past few years I've come to learn that solo development of a HMI standard is a bad idea. This needs to be a collaborative process, where we brainstorm ideas, realize those ideas are terrible, and eventually come up with something that works. That's where you come in, dear reader. If you happen to be in this niche space and want to bounce around ideas I want to hear from you. Reply here, or shoot me a DM.

If there is interest in this I will be happy to create a Discord channel or similar.

Our company is looking to hire experienced controls techs. We are a Schneider Electric partner in Montana. We are a local company to Montana and have a few offices across the state. Depending on experience and which part of Montana you choose to live in, our pay is $80-120k. We have a decent benefits package including PTO and paid Health Insurance for your entire family. Vehicle is provided along with all tools needed to do the job (Yes, we run Milwaukee). I have been at this company for close to a decade and started as a low level tech with no experience. I have worked my way through the company and an now a Project Manager. We usually have around 30-50 active projects across the state at any given time. Any one interested would have to have a valid DL and be able to pass federal background checks as quite a few of our jobs are either in government facilities or schools. Please ask any questions! We may be able to help with relocation as well. Our page link is below.

https://facility-improvement.com/index.php/careers/