Computational Design – Evolutionary or Revolutionary?

The field of computational design is both relatively new and diverse. Computational design can mean different things depending on its application and can employ of both established and evolving technologies.

A range of technologies fall under computational design concept from current parametric and emerging “algorithmic” design where parameters or rules are readily manipulated, to new data and computing-intensive tools such qualified experience design (QED), generative design and AI-powered tools.

Others describe computational design in terms that parallel software coding – creating (or encoding) powerful rules-based methodology for defining, refining and manipulating design parameters.

But common to all approaches and technologies is the use of massive data and computational capacity, linked to “instruction” approaches (e.g., algorithms, code-like rules, etc.) and 3D modeling and visualization tools. These approaches automate and generate hundreds, or even thousands, of design interactions and create new, faster and, perhaps, more innovative, insightful and personal design.

Changing Roles and New Opportunities

If computational design is churning out new “ideas and options,” what is the role for, and creative value of, building and electrical system designers and consulting specifying engineers? How will computational design shape the strategic directions in our industry over the next 10 to 15 years?

• Role in the Value Chain? – If computational design is accelerating time and options in the middle of the “define-engineer-execute” problem-solving value chain — will tomorrow’s consulting specifiers and engineers play a more important role up front in defining parameters? And then evaluating and executing on options and alternatives created by computational design?
• The “Craft” of Building and Power System Design: Will AI-enabled computational design tools take the “craft” out of design – or accelerate options and expand interactions between end users and engineers and specifiers?
• Design Assets as a New Commodity: If automated design “assets” become commercial commodities, will that create new product and revenue channels for electrical system designers, consulting engineers and specifiers?
• The Value of Data: Powering these massive computational design engines rely on new and exponentially growing data sets. Who will own, and manage, this data and does this create new roles and opportunities for consulting engineers and specifiers?

The impact of design technology over the next 5, 10 or even 20 years on the building and power distribution industry can be discussed with experts during one of the upcoming Schneider Electric Innovation Summits.

Together we can explore the challenges – and new opportunities – that will define our industry and new market leaders.

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Nemours’ medical technology

Electricity in a hospital is essential, the hospital and patients depend on reliable electricity. Pure, continuous power provides staff, patients and parents a constant peace-of-mind that is necessary to maintain a successful recuperation environment. Therefore, it is critical that the power is reliable for equipment and medical technology to function 24/7.

To meet this need, Nemours selected a team of four partners that developed a 3-tiered power system: critical power for operating theaters and essential medical devices; equipment power for AC, heat, and less critical medical equipment; and convenience power for lighting and amenities in non-critical locations. This was all made possible using Schneider Electric’s integrated system built on the IoT-enabled EcoStruxure for Healthcare architecture and platform. The EcoStruxure medical technology enables critical operational efficiency for this world-renowned healthcare facility. In addition, EcoStruxure Power ensures the hospital’s power control and power monitor abilities allowing Nemours to identify and prevent any potential problems.

The power of partnership

The hospital partnered with three technology partners; TLC, a national company with expertise in mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structural, life safety, fire protection, and energy services, Borrell Electric, a 70-year-old electrical service and contracting company with a proud 100% safety record. The third technology partner, Graybar is a Fortune 500 company and premier supplier of Schneider Electric products specialized in advanced supply chain management services for contractors. The fourth company Nemours partnered with, MC2 is a Schneider Electric Master EcoXpert partner certified in building management systems and critical power solutions. Through collaboration, innovation, and expertise, these four firms combined resources to make the Nemours vision for reliable power a reality, meet all the hospital’s expectations and create their power system.

Watch how these four partners came together to deliver a world-class solution to Nemours.

More about Schneider Electric’s EcoXpert Partner

“I feel that Schneider Electric comes to us as a partner, as part of the team. It’s no different than the confidence that you expect to have in your doctors and nurses taking care of your children.” – Nelson Roque, Director of Facilities and Operations, Nemours Children’s Hospital

Located in Sanford, Florida, MC2 is one of the 3,000 world-leading technology providers, known to Schneider Electric as EcoXperts, who exhibit best-in-class system integration competencies in facility optimization, reliable infrastructures and energy management, with its customers. The EcoXpert Partner Program enables certified partners and valued customers to share in the experience of ensuring that Life Is On everywhere, for everyone, and at every moment. MC2 is part of this local and global network of trained and certified partners. The company’s master-level status is recognition of their expertise and ability to deliver world-class products, systems, and solutions such as they did for Nemours Children’s Hospital with remarkable medical technology. When optimizing the usage of their equipment, Nemours looked to MC2 to bring designs and solutions together to achieve the highest level of system-utilization. MC2 acted as an extension of Schneider Electric as well as an implementation arm of EcoStruxure.

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Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there’s really no sugar-coating the situation. Joe Kava, VP of data centers for Google, summed it up nicely in a keynote address at the recent Data Center World conference, saying, “The greatest threat we’re facing is the race for talent.”

Even Google has trouble staffing data centers

A study last year by TEKsystems highlighted the issue, with 81% of the IT leaders surveyed saying it was difficult to find quality candidates for IT jobs. Nearly 50% of leaders with open positions didn’t expect they would fill them in the desired timeframe.

There’s reason to believe the situation is even worse for companies looking to hire data center infrastructure staff for a simple reason: the field is currently dominated by men who are nearing retirement age.

“The industry today is predominantly men,” Kava said in his keynote. “Even my own organization are majority men: white men, middle-aged white men.”

Meanwhile, as Data Center Knowledge reports: “IDC predicts that worldwide public cloud services and infrastructure spending will reach $160 billion this year, up 23 percent from 2017. Gartner says total cloud services revenue will increase by 87 percent between 2016 and 2020, reaching $411.4 billion.”

So, we’ve got an aging pool of talent coupled with rapid growth in data center demand. Clearly, we need a new approach to address the issue.

Diversity and education are keys to a solution

Diversity is clearly one avenue, starting with getting more women into the field. This will be a long-term endeavor, however, based on current statistics. The National Girls Collaborative Project, in a report on girls and women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), found:

• 22.7% of chemical engineers are women
• 17.5% of civil, architectural, and sanitary engineers are women
• 17.1% of industrial engineers are women
• 10.7% of electrical or computer hardware engineers are women
• 7.9% of mechanical engineers are women

Data center infrastructure staff can come from any one of those fields, but we’re effectively eliminating nearly half of the potential workforce from the start because not enough women enter the fields.

Education is another area, and we’re starting to see some movement there. In a guest post for CIO.com, Nancy Novak, Compass Datacenters’ SVP of Construction, says Southern Methodist University (SMU) has established a post-graduate degree program in the data center discipline, Marist University has a Bachelor’s Degree in data center science and Global Skills X-change Corporation (GSX) recently launched a Certified Mission Critical Operator (CMCO) program. I also happen to know that Northern Virginia Community College this fall will launch a Data Center Operations (DCO) specialization of its Engineering Technology associate’s degree.

Schneider Electric has trained 1,500 data center techs

That’s all good news, and hopefully more schools will follow suit. But let’s face it, it’ll be at least two years before these programs really begin bearing fruit.

I can speak from experience in saying that because Schneider Electric has long offered its own training program for the data center personnel who operate data centers for our customers around the globe. We target folks who already have experience in a relevant area – electrical or mechanical engineering, fire suppression, generator specialist or the like. They then enter an ongoing training program that focuses on continuous improvement and associated certifications. Eventually they reach Critical Environment Technician (CET) Level 3 status, meaning they are subject matter experts (SME) in all relevant disciplines. (See this previous post for more on our training program.)

We’ve trained at least 1,500 CETs by now, so we’ve gotten pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. The really tricky part is recruiting candidates to enter the program. For that, we look to various sources, including folks who are leaving the military, technical schools, lots of job fairs and plenty of word of mouth.

In fact, we’re constantly in recruitment mode, because we need to ensure that when one of our technicians gets promoted (or, rarely, leaves for another organization), we can quickly fill that position. Plus, like everyone in the data center business, we have to prepare for the rapid growth the industry is seeing and quickly execute when a customer decides to out-task data center operations to us.

Two Approaches to Address the Data Center Operations Staffing Challenge

If you’d rather not deal with the whole issue, you can always turn to our Critical Facility Operations solution, which provides valuable, fully trained personnel, tools, technologies, and processes to operate your data center at peak performance.

Or, to learn more about training your own team, download our free e-book, “Essential Elements of Data Center Facility Operations.” Get on the path to improved data center operations by downloading it now.

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