Vendor Neutral: Your Project, Your Choice
Exclusive arrangements with single vendors and technology lock-ins lead to increased maintenance/repair costs, higher lifecycle costs, and reduced flexibility when adding buildings or renovating existing spaces. In short, vendor dependence shifts control away from clients and toward vendors.
We believe that vendor independence is the key to putting our clients in control of their equipment, materials, building automation platforms, and, most importantly, their projects.
Our vendor-neutral approach means we can select the best products, materials, and services that perfectly align with your project’s unique needs. Unlike companies tied to specific suppliers, we prioritize your interests, ensuring every decision is made with your goals, budget, and quality standards in mind. This independence allows us to negotiate the best deals, explore a broader range of options, and create customized solutions without compromise. The result is a project that truly reflects your vision, with optimal value and flexibility at every stage.
Our Selection Process
We are not tied to any manufacturer or vendor of materials, specialist equipment, control systems, mechanical installation, or any other physical element of project delivery. We do not represent a particular brand. This independent approach to vendors means that we are free to apply the selection criteria that matter to the owner.
Before we provide solutions, we ask the following questions. We make sure every answer is ‘yes’ before we begin, ensuring confidence in delivering the best outcome.
- Is this the most relevant technology?
- Are the materials most fit for purpose?
- Will this choice of vendor equipment effectively and efficiently combine with other elements in our solution to provide the client with the expected outcome?
- Can we ensure effective and durable systems programming?
- Is this the best value for our client?
Key Considerations and Prioritization
When making equipment recommendations, we carefully consider several key factors to ensure the best fit for your project, including:
- Flexibility when future changes are required
- Training support for the facility staff
- Maintenance and service options
- Lifetime cost of ownership
By remaining unbiased and making the best choices for our clients, we can be certain that we put the client’s best interests first and that the client is always in control.
Vendor Independence in Building Automation Solutions
Innovative open architecture building automation solutions provide greater freedom in building automation design. With this flexibility, our team can design and construct spaces that fulfill 100% of your functional requirements without compromising due to the limitations of a single vendor’s product range.
This means you get a space tailored to your unique needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
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What are ways to control the total cost of ownership for a facility?
Across decades of the life of any facility, an extra and avoidable expense of facility ownership is incurred through:
- Underperforming equipment
- Inefficient control programming sequences
- Expensive and time-consuming repair processes
To better control the cost of ownership, Performance Services addresses these issues, starting at the design and construction stage. We are not a manufacturer of equipment or tied to any single building automation system, so we can recommend equipment and controls platform based on high-performance standards. We write control system code ourselves to assure accuracy, energy efficiency and an optimal environment.
Our holistic and integrated approach to projects enables lower total cost of ownership for the life of the facility. Accurate controls and location-specific programming ensures environmental quality. Vendor independence means access to a wider pool of maintenance partners, allowing owner control, flexibility on future changes, service options, and lower total cost of ownership.
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What is a building automation system (BAS)?
When facilities managers talk about your BAS, they are referring to the centralized control system of your building’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), along with other systems such as lighting, security, and power generation. The BAS is responsible for keeping your learning environments optimal and your building running efficiently throughout the various seasons.
It is important not to get caught up in system protocols, or how the equipment communicates, when deciding on a BAS for your facility. Most systems on the market can communicate with multiple protocols. The real focus should be on your controls platform. Obtaining an open platform provides the ability to easily integrate almost any kind of protocol; avoiding proprietary systems will save owners the associated risks.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, proprietary protocol systems create “captured facilities” by tying BAS to a single vendor or equipment company. Initially, the BAS could be less expensive to install, but over time the associated costs continue to increase. Servicing, repairs, and replacement parts must now all come from that single vendor, which in turn eliminates cost advantages that come with vendor independent service options.
