Case Study: Carnegie Mellon University achieves 10% utility savings (~$2M/year) and smarter buildings with IBM Cloud

Launches Buildings Management analytics initiative with IBM

Carnegie Mellon University faced fragmented, legacy building-automation systems that limited campus-wide visibility, caused reactive maintenance, and wasted energy. To realize its Smarter Campus vision, Carnegie Mellon University partnered with IBM to implement a cloud-based buildings-management program using IBM Cloud (SoftLayer) and IBM software such as TRIRIGA and Maximo, augmented by SkyFoundry’s SkySpark analytics.

IBM delivered a SaaS solution hosted on SoftLayer with TRIRIGA coordinating alerts, Maximo managing work orders, and SkySpark analytics detecting root causes and prioritizing fixes, supported by IBM Global Business Services and analytics-as-a-service. The IBM solution will be rolled out to 36 buildings (4.5 million sq. ft.), is projected to reduce energy costs by about 10% and mechanical operations costs by at least 8%—nearly $2 million annually—and is expected to pay back the investment in roughly 24 months while enabling proactive, condition-based maintenance.

Carnegie Mellon University

Don Coffelt

AVP, Facilities Management Services