Controls emerge from the shadows

At the launch of a new qualification for building controls engineers,  Building Controls Industry Association (BCIA) President Steve Harrison told a story about the time 15 years ago when his company was struggling to attract the right calibre of new staff.
They had plenty of interest in two posts for controls engineers, but were rebuffed by a number of potential recruits because there was no appropriate professional qualification on offer at the end of the training period.
‘The best we could give them was qualified electrician status,’ he told guests during the high profile launch event held in The Shard. ‘We knew it wasn’t really appropriate for the skill level involved in the job, but there was nothing else.’
So it was with some delight that he was able to unveil the Building Controls Professional Assessment (BCPA) last month.  This has been developed to give apprentices, and existing industry operatives, a professional qualification at the end of their vocational training – a badge that will be recognised across the industry and by all the sector’s employers.
Stepping stone
The BCPA is a stepping stone to full engineering status for the controls profession and can be used as a launch pad for suitably qualified operatives to move onto a fully-fledged engineering degree and, eventually, chartered engineer.
This is a huge leap forward for the controls industry.  It offers the trappings of ‘professional’ status for an industry that has long struggled to emerge from the shadows despite its vital role in making buildings work properly.
More HVAC equipment is supplied with controls already on-board these days putting even more emphasis on the integration strategy to make multiple ‘intelligent’ system components interoperate – particularly as buildings become more complex.
Challenge
Integration, more generally, is rapidly becoming the most critical aspect of building services engineering. Adding renewables to existing buildings and trying to make them work in tandem with conventional heating and cooling systems is a huge challenge – successes are still depressingly rare.  With experience this will get easier, but without a proper integration strategy there is no chance. Contractors have to crack this problem because we cannot afford to be continually returning to sites to put things right – there is no profit in spending precious time firefighting.
That is why we at B&ES see the launch of this new qualification as extremely important and timely. We are also delighted to be working more closely with the controls industry via the BCIA as we seek to bring our professions closer together to deliver buildings that do not disappoint their owners.
This is something the two associations will be focusing on heavily during the rest of this year culminating in a major conference at the Barbican on November 27 – find full details of the Building Services Summit here.