Guide

Building Management System Companies in the UAE

Most building management systems in this region are installed correctly and commissioned badly. The difference shows up in the electricity bill about a year later.

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The real failure mode

A BMS does not usually fail. It gets switched to manual

The common ending for a building management system in the UAE is not a breakdown. It is an operator who could not get the schedules to behave, put the air handling units into hand, and left them there. The graphics still work. The head end still shows a building. The building is simply no longer being managed by it.

That happens because commissioning is the part of a BMS contract most often compressed when a handover date slips. Cabling, panels and point installation are visible and get inspected. Whether the chilled water valve actually modulates in response to the space temperature, and whether the schedule survives a power cycle, are not visible and frequently do not get proved.

Almafor installs and commissions BMS as part of a wider controls scope, on mosques, learning centres, industrial buildings and mixed developments in Abu Dhabi. The list below is what we would check if we were buying one.

Scope

What a building management system actually covers

The term is used loosely, and two bidders can price very different systems under the same three letters. Pin down which of these are in scope.

HVAC control

Air handling units, fan coil units, chillers, pumps and the sequencing between them. This is the part everybody prices. It is also where the energy is, so it is where commissioning quality pays back.

Electrical and metering integration

Reading main and sub metering into the same head end, so consumption can be attributed to a floor, a tenant or a plant item. Frequently descoped early and expensive to add later.

Lighting and life safety interfaces

Lighting control zones and schedules, plus monitored interfaces to fire alarm and Civil Defence systems. Interfaces are usually monitoring only, and the boundary should be written down rather than assumed.

Head end, graphics and reporting

The workstation, the graphics, alarms, trends and reports. Ask to see graphics from a delivered job rather than a brochure, and ask who owns the licence when the contract ends.

Before you sign

Nine things to check on a UAE BMS contract

Is a full points list attached, with source, address, scaling and alarm limits for every point
Who witnesses commissioning of each control loop, and is that time in the programme
Are seasonal commissioning visits included, because a chilled water system tuned in January behaves differently in July
Who owns the software licences and the engineering tool at handover
Is the system open protocol, or does it lock you to one contractor for every future change
How many points are genuinely integrated versus simply monitored
What happens to schedules and setpoints after a power failure
Is operator training included, by name, for the people who will actually use it
Who answers the phone during the defect liability period

Track record

Buildings we have done this on

A mosque, an oil and gas learning centre, an industrial development and a manufacturing plant. Different building types, same discipline.

BMS for Mosque Ras Ghurab Island

General Authority for Islamic Affairs and Endowments Crown Prince Court Emirates of Abu Dhabi

Date2014-10-10

CategoryAutomation, Panel Building

BMS & Chiller Modification in MLC-MEA Learning Centre ADNOC

Schlumberger Technical Services Inc.

Date2016-11-17

CategoryAutomation, Panel Building

BMS, Energy Management System, Lighting Control System

China – UAE Industrial Capacity Cooperation (JIANGSU) Development and Management LTD

Date2019-10-10

CategoryAutomation, Panel Building

Centralized Energy and Water Metering & Monitoring System

Al Tala Board Manufacturing Company Ltd

Date2017-06-06

CategoryAutomation, Panel Building

See all 19 delivered projects →

Platforms

What we integrate with

Open protocols matter more than brand on a BMS, because they decide whether your next contractor can work on it.

Schneider Electric
Siemens
BACnet
Modbus
KNX
OPC UA
PcVue

Common questions

Questions we are asked about this

How much does a BMS cost in the UAE?

It scales with point count rather than floor area, which is why two buildings of the same size can differ by a factor of three. The more useful question at tender stage is what the price per point includes: whether commissioning of each loop, seasonal revisits and operator training are in it, or whether they arrive later as variations.

What is the difference between BMS and BAS?

In practice they are used interchangeably in this region. Building management system is the more common term in UAE tender documents; building automation system is more common in North American specifications. Neither tells you anything about what is actually in scope, so read the points list.

Can you take over a BMS another contractor installed?

Yes, and it is a large part of this work. The first step is a survey of what is genuinely connected versus what is on the drawings, because the two rarely match on a system that has been through a few years of tenant fit outs. Undocumented changes are the normal condition.

Should a BMS be tied to one manufacturer?

Preferably not. A system built on open protocols such as BACnet and Modbus can be extended or maintained by somebody other than the original installer. A closed system is cheaper on day one and more expensive for the rest of its life, and that trade is worth making deliberately rather than by accident.

Do you do energy metering as part of BMS work?

Yes. We have delivered centralised energy and water metering and monitoring as its own scope as well as inside a BMS. If metering is likely to be wanted later it is much cheaper to allow for it in the original points list than to retrofit it.