Are designers keeping up?

April 13, 2012 by 1 Comment

BS EN 12464-1, Light and Lighting, Part 1 indoor workplaces, was first published in 2002. It included a schedule of recommended minimum task illuminances for a range of industrial, institutional and commercial applications. These values were similar to those previously in the Society of Light and Lighting Code. Originally the SLL values were ‘general’ illumination for the complete floor area thus enabling equipment and workers to be positioned anywhere in the space. A convenience when electricity was cheap.

However the BS specifically refers to ‘task’ illumination, normally only a small part of the gross floor area. The rest of the room would require less illuminance and thus considerable capital and operating cost savings can be made. But where are the task areas? Often the client has no idea when the lighting design is carried out. The designer then has to revert to ‘general‘ illumination to guarantee adequate lighting of the task. However the client will pay for the over lighting of the ‘non-task’ areas.

This problem of insufficient information is compounded by the changes included in the revision to BS EN 12464-1 last year. Introduced for the first time is the requirement for mean cylindrical illuminance in the space to provide good visual communication and recognition of objects. This should be no less than 50 lux, and for areas where good visual communication is important like offices, meeting and teaching areas not less than 150 lux. Although the concept of cylindrical illumination is not new it has not been widely considered for the routine lighting of workplaces.

How do many existing lighting schemes meet these new requirements? Very few published photographs of interiors include a full complement of ‘workers’ so there is little subjective evidence of how modern lighting affects the appearance of the human face. Accurate measurement could be a problem. Added to this is the same problem outlined above, the lack of occupational information of the space.

The Standard only considers the requirements of ‘workers’ so places where customers or visitors dominate lighting requirement need to be considered separately.

Filed under Building Management, Building services, Cost efficiency, Customer Satisfaction, Design, Electricity, Energy, Lighting, Occupant Satisfaction Tagged with , , ,

Are Compact Fluorescent Lamps welcome in your home?

November 2, 2011 by 2 Comments

Fluorescent lamp technology is certainly not new and when linear lamps became available after the Second World War their advantages were rapidly recognised by both industry and commerce so that by the 1970s fluorescent lighting had become a standard method of interior lighting for most buildings.

It therefore seemed reasonable that Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) introduced in the 1980s would be equally well accepted in the home by domestic consumers. However home users were not immediately impressed by the long-term savings, and were deterred by the high initial costs. Indifferent or poor colour rendering, physical incompatibility, mercury hazards, unfulfilled marketing claims and slow warm up were perceived as disadvantages.

 The arguments for and against CFLs became polarised and European governments decided to tip the scales by “banning” domestic filament lamps. Retailers meanwhile adopted “loss leader” pricing of CFLs and the popular national press reacted with health scares from mercury and ultraviolet radiation. The consequence was consumer confusion. However the argument has shifted with rising energy costs having a significant impact on domestic budgets and technological progress has addressed to some extent the earlier quality issues.

 There is now the opportunity to make a more rational judgement. Most information has been biased one way or the other. However there is now an independent and thorough assessment of CFLs that factually examines many of the issues and is well worth reading:

“An examination into the use of CFLs in the domestic environment”. James Thomas Duff (2011) has been published in the new CIBSE SDAR Journal for September. 

 No single lamp type can solve all lighting problems. The choice should be determined by the particular activities and thus the lighting needs of the occupants, rather than the architecture or design of the dwelling. Many building services operate in part to preserve the fabric and environment whereas lighting is only required when the space is occupied. As soon as it is vacated the lighting can, and should be switched off. Lighting is for the people, and the home is where personal character prevails. The choice is yours but hopefully it can now be based on sound facts rather than scare-mongering or “prohibition”.

Filed under Cost efficiency, Customer Satisfaction, Electricity, Energy, Lighting, Performance, Technology Tagged with ,

Integrated working – is it the right time again?

September 7, 2011 by Leave a comment

For those of us who remember back to the early 1990s, the current drive of the Government’s construction strategy to get better value from construction by reforming procurement may seem like a case of history repeating itself (see The Latham Report “Constructing the Team”, 1994).

What is interesting to note is that both reports followed severe recessions in the construction sector which had themselves followed relatively long periods of growth in construction output. Of course this might be no more than coincidence, or it may be an attempt to embed some much-needed structural changes at a time when the industry is experiencing a buyer’s market, so that when times improve there is less tendency for the industry to revert to type.

I welcome the kinds of change that are now mooted: involving suppliers at the time they can add value to a project, which generally means earlier than usual; clients focusing on specifying output performance and designers/contractors working together to develop integrated solutions; supply chains engaged on serial orders that will encourage research and innovation.

We need more fundamental changes

I believe, however, that this will need a wider set of more fundamental changes to be put in place than just exhorting traditionally separate disciplines to work together. There are a number of hidden drivers that I suspect will also have to be tackled for this change to be effective.

These include the fragmentary nature of the client, the underlying power of the finance and insurance industries, and the tendency to think short-term.

A fragmented client comes from devolution of budgets, which itself promotes budgetary responsibility, but which also means that more organisations become occasional clients and don’t have the chance to develop the skills to deal with a sophisticated and confusing industry.

Finance and insurance underpin many of the choices made by developers and designers in terms of the technical standards they build into their schemes – no landlord wants to be left holding a difficult-to-let office block because the permitted floor loadings are outside the norm, irrespective of whether this capacity is ever needed. Manufacturers may feel the need to offer warranties to give their customers a safety net – difficult to achieve when a technology is new and may be favoured from an energy efficiency point of view.

Short term thinking is natural, but is often the enemy of good decision-making. It drives lower capital expenditure at the expense of higher operational costs. This may come from governments not seeing beyond the next election, or officials not seeing beyond their current posting, or organisations behaving as though they were not going to be around for more than a few years. Which is all understandable, but not really defensible. We have tools to help make good, long-term decisions – such as life-cycle costing – all we need to do is not be afraid to use them.

Integrated working for all supporting stakeholders

In my view, the desire for more integrated working must not be restricted to the primary members of the construction industry, but must also extend to all the supporting stakeholders and really engage with the operators and maintainers of buildings and infrastructure – a distinction which is unnecessarily perpetuated by the separation of CAPEX and OPEX budgets inside client organisations.

So, is it the right time for integrated working?

Filed under Construction, Cost efficiency, Performance, Recession Tagged with

Taking lighting to task

September 1, 2011 by Leave a comment

For many years the conventional method of interior lighting for workplaces was by ‘general illumination’. As lighting was not expensive to purchase, install or operate, the principle was to provide illumination over the whole floor area with a high degree of uniformity. This enabled plants or furniture to be subsequently positioned anywhere in the space and easily moved without recourse to changing the lighting array.

Council House 2 - Offices. Spot the five sources of light....

 However for the past decade UK lighting codes and standards have recommended not ‘general’ but ‘task’ lighting. The significance of this change has either been ignored or gone largely un-noticed as the illumination values were basically the same. The new concept recognised that the main critical visual task is only carried out over a small part of the total floor area. The rest of the space is used for circulation, storage, filing and similar activities all of which are less demanding in terms of illumination. Lighting the whole area to the highest illumination required can use about a third more energy than matching the illumination to the different activities.

Energy costs are continuing to rise and therefore providing the right amount of light only where it is needed is beneficial both economically and environmentally. Also variation in illumination can make the space visually more interesting than overall uniformity. Normally the reason for still providing ‘general’ illumination is because the building is a speculative development and there is no client to determine the furniture layout, or simply that the layout has not been decided yet. I think potential tenants need to be aware that for lighting to be visually efficient the equipment should be electrically efficient and the lighting design should suit the activities across the space. Providing light where and when it is not needed is inefficient regardless of lumens per watt performance of the luminaires.  

Recommended illumination levels in the past were based upon the need to determine detail in the visual task, together with the amount of contrast critical nature of the work and the importance of colour discrimination. Recently there have been massive changes to how we read the written word with print on paper largely being replaced by self-illuminated screens of computers, tablets, telephones, information signs, cash registers, etc. At the same time there has been the move towards ‘hot desking’. No longer does a space have a constant lighting need. The visual task performed at any point will depend upon the occupant at any one time. Does this mean we should revert to general illumination?

Or does the lighting of our buildings require a fundamental rethink so it is more appropriate to today’s sometimes conflicting needs of energy conservation, use of electronic media devices and flexible occupancy of spaces?   Modern lamps have long lives and therefore lighting is only infrequently changed. Installations over twenty years old are not uncommon, a time span when most other electrical equipment will have been replaced several times. 

Filed under Building Regs, Cost efficiency, Energy, Lighting, Sustainability Tagged with

Measuring happiness: what do your customers value?

June 10, 2011 by Leave a comment

Competitive tender is the norm in our building and construction world. Awarding a contract to the lowest price bidder may seem to be both the easiest and fairest way. However, there are adverse side effects to this practice. The most obvious issue is that the whole industry becomes far too cost-focused. Everybody is trying to be more productive whilst delivering the job at the lowest cost, and as a result they are sometimes cutting corners without considering the long-term impact of this attitude, including on their customers.

Customer satisfaction is widely known as being crucial to a company’s success, and can impact the following areas within a company:

  • Driving market share
  • Customer retention ratings
  • Stock price
  • Process improvement

Customer satisfaction surveys can provide a useful wake-up call if you are not really satisfying your customers, and also provide a good way forward for process improvement. Surveys can establish areas for development in a company and help you to stay ahead of the competition (techniques include the Likert scale, and tools like the ACSI, below).

Competitive Advantage

Recent research studies show an important relationship between customer satisfaction and economic performance (Fornell et al., 2006). Firms that receive positive customer feedback are likely to improve the level and stability of their net cash flows, and even benefit from high return with low risk.

Customer satisfaction, as measured by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), can be correlated to the market value of equity. It has therefore been suggested that securities research needs pay closer attention to customer satisfaction and the strength of customer relationships. From a corporate CEO perspective, it is clear that the cost of managing customer relationships and the cash flows they produce is fundamental to value creation.

Customer Value Models

Achieving higher customer satisfaction may require more resources and incur higher costs. So, it’s important to invest well. With data from a carefully designed customer satisfaction survey, we can develop a Customer Value Model for our customers and find out what services or produces they most value.  For example, should you invest in hiring more engineers or instead invest in new technologies? Customer Value Models can help a company focus on the highest value areas, and hopefully benefit from the bigger financial return.

Example:

A client has asked for a quick response on a service request. A.) Your engineer could spend a few days preparing a thorough quotation whilst the customer is waiting. B.) Alternatively the engineer could respond with a basic quote and deliver the service with a short lead time.

You know your customers – your Customer Value Model indicates that they place a high value on quick results. Go with B.) and as a result the client will feel you listened to their needs, and your company will be the winner.

Yes, it can be that simple! Do you have a model in place – and when’s the last time you measured your customer satisfaction? Are they happy?

The next question is how can you put a proper process in place to work things out?

References

[1] Claes Fornell, Sunil Mithas, Forrest V. Morgeson III, & M.S. Krishnan (2006), “Customer Satisfaction and Stock Prices: High Returns, Low Risk,” Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 70 (January 2006), 3-14

To view this article you will need to register with CFI (http://www.cfigroup.com/resources/articles.asp)

[2] Claes Fornell, Donald C. Cook Professor of Business Administration and Director of the National Quality Research Centre

Filed under Cost efficiency, Customer Satisfaction Tagged with

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.