Development of a decision support system for proactive energy and maintenance management decisions

Energy efficiency of commercial and institutional buildings is a topic that has continued to gain interest as sustainability, green and high performance buildings gain the attention of building owners, facility managers, engineers, architects and other professionals within the built environment. To support this area of interest, tools are needed. The aim of this paper is to summarize the development and testing of a decision support system that links energy and maintenance management to help facility managers make proactive energy and maintenance management decisions to help achieve sustainability and energy efficiency goals for heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. The decision support system was developed using a multimethodlogy, mixed methods approach. Three case studies and a questionnaire were used as the foundation to develop the rules to code the decision support system. The decision support system was tested by 56 industry participants and evaluated by 38 of the test participants. Overall, the evaluations revealed that the decision support system was helpful to very helpful and useful to very useful. It is concluded that the decision support system can be an effective tool to help facility managers make combined energy and maintenance management decisions to meet sustainability goals and transition more proactive energy and maintenance management practices.