Background
A healthcare network operating nine facilities engaged Advastar to bring building management system support in-house. The network had relied on vendor service agreements across a mixed estate running Johnson Controls Metasys in older buildings and Niagara-based systems in newer ones.
The Challenge
Vendor response times had become a clinical issue rather than a maintenance inconvenience. A failure affecting pressurization or temperature control in a procedure area cannot wait for a next-business-day visit, and the network had experienced several such delays. Building an internal team required technicians with depth in both platforms, which is less common than depth in either. Many buildings also had sequences that had been overridden over the years to resolve complaints, leaving systems that ran but no longer did what they were designed to do. Candidates would need to be comfortable working in occupied clinical areas.
The Solution
Advastar screened for genuine platform depth on both Metasys and Niagara, asking candidates to describe faults they had diagnosed rather than equipment they had replaced. A BAS supervisor was placed first to own the transition from vendor service, followed by three technicians distributed across the estate. Recognizing that overridden sequences would otherwise persist under new management, we recommended adding a retro-commissioning specialist to recover original design intent, which the network had not included in its plan. Occupied clinical environment experience was screened for throughout.
The Outcome
Building management support now sits in-house with response measured in hours rather than days. The retro-commissioning specialist recovered sequences across four buildings in the first year, producing an energy reduction the network had not anticipated when it costed the change. Vendor service is now retained only for specialist equipment work.