TAC Recognized By Frost & Sullivan For Integrated Building Systems

Frost & Sullivan, a global growth consulting company, has selected TAC (a company of Schneider Electric) of North Andover, MA for the 2006 Excellence in Technology Award in the field of integrated building systems.

According to Frost & Sullivan:

TAC received this award for understanding the pulse of the building automation industry and exercising its expertise to develop systems such as Andover Continuum(TM) and TAC Vista(TM). These systems are based on two building automation protocol standards, BACnet® and LONWORKS®. Empowering the end user with state-of-the-art integrated, “intelligent” building management systems, TAC’s solutions were recognized as being inherently scalable, flexible, expandable, and “open”.

Integrating the disparate systems of a building such as building automation system, service management, security management, building management, facility management, and expert systems has been the ultimate aim in building technology.

The presence of proprietary solutions as well as a niche concentration of companies at the integration of devices within the subsystems has been a major cause of delay. However, the building automation industry has of late realized that the centralization and integration of these subsystems, taking them from the network level to the enterprise level, is a vital process.

“Backed by a technology outlook toward seamless integration using the latest standard protocols in the building automation world, TAC’s solutions provide an edge over other contemporary technologies,” notes Frost & Sullivan research analyst Ankit Shukla. “What drives this approach is the concept that integration technologies need to be intelligent enough to ‘understand’ current solutions, have the ability to embrace future technologies and yet continue to provide all the solutions that are expected from an enterprise level solution such as Andover Continuum and TAC Vista.”

Technologies embedded in solutions, such as Andover Continuum and TAC Vista, aim to harness the “individual brilliances” at different levels in the system architecture into a smart integrated systems management that stretches the limits of intelligence in a building.

With systems and their integration comes the daunting task of treating the available information. This leads to issues of handling and transmitting data that is understood by each of the systems, taking decisions based on the available information, and archiving them for future reference. Given these issues, the technologies in TAC products simplify the entire process by focusing on the espousal of standard technologies such as XML, SNMP, SQL, and HTML, to name a few.

“In summary, Frost & Sullivan’s Award for Excellence in Technology acknowledges TAC’s efforts in developing cutting-edge technology solutions, Andover Continuum and TAC Vista, which are cost-effective, efficient, smart, and give users full control of their facilities,” says Shukla. “TAC has developed its technology diligently, understanding end-user requirements and it is the effort of companies such as TAC that drives the intelligent building concept on a journey of mass acceptance: an effort that was missing till now.”

Each year Frost & Sullivan presents this Award to a company that has pioneered the development and introduction of an innovative technology into the market; a technology that has either impacted or has the potential to impact several market sectors. The Award recognizes a company’s successful technology development that is expected to bring significant contributions to the industry in terms of adoption, change, and competitive posture. In addition, it also recognizes the company’s overall technical excellence and its commitment toward technology innovation.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.