The building's own systems, connected to the business that runs on them.
BACnet, Modbus and KNX data pulled out of the panel that only facilities ever looks at, and wired into the ERP, ticketing and accounting systems that run the rest of the company.
What this is
A building management system already knows almost everything worth knowing about a building: every air handler's state, every zone's temperature, every alarm the moment it fires. Almost none of that ever leaves the panel it is displayed on. The BMS runs on protocols built for control rather than reporting, BACnet, Modbus, KNX, or a vendor's own layer sitting on top of one of those, on a network that was designed to be separate from the office network on purpose. The data exists. Querying it from anywhere else does not, until somebody builds the path.
The actual work is rarely the protocol itself. It is what decades of renovation leave behind: a building accumulates BMS vendors the way it accumulates tenants, one per contractor who ever touched a wing of it. The newest section runs BACnet over IP cleanly. An older wing runs a vendor's proprietary variant over a serial fieldbus that only that vendor's own software fully understands, with point names that were never standardized, three different labels for the same air handler depending on which controller you ask. The integration is mapping all of that to something consistent before it is anything else.
This is a different job from connecting two pieces of business software. If what needs connecting is two systems with documented HTTP APIs, that is System integration, and it is genuinely simpler than this. What makes building work different is that one side does not speak HTTP at all, runs on a network that is often flat and was never meant to be reached from outside, and the fastest way to get data out of it is also the easiest way to open a security hole that was not there before. Somebody has to sit in the middle who can read a BACnet object list and write to an ERP's API in the same afternoon, and who treats the OT side as something to be careful with rather than one more endpoint.
Once the data has a path out, the payoff is direct: a chiller alarm opens a work order instead of waiting for someone to notice, energy use maps to the cost centers that actually drove it instead of arriving as one number on a utility bill, and a facilities manager can ask a question about the building without a site visit. The other end of that path is usually an ERP. If the ERP itself still needs to be built and the building is only one source feeding it, start with ERP implementation; building data becomes one more input to that rather than a project on its own.
What you get
Protocol and point audit
What the BMS actually exposes, controller by controller, written down once instead of left in one contractor's head.
Gateway layer
Translates BACnet, Modbus or KNX into something business systems can consume: an API, a message queue, or a database the ERP can query.
Point mapping and naming, cleaned up
So the same air handler means the same thing in the BMS and in whatever reads it afterward.
Alarms routed as work orders
A fault becomes a ticket in the ERP or maintenance system, not a light on a panel somebody has to notice.
Energy and utility data by cost center
Usage broken out by system or department and wired into the accounts that already track cost.
OT network segmentation kept or put in place
The integration does not become the reason the building network is suddenly reachable from anywhere.
Documentation for facilities
So a new device can be added later without calling us every time.
When this fits, and when it does not
A good fit
- The building already has a BMS, any age, any mix of vendors, and its data lives on a panel nobody outside facilities ever looks at.
- Maintenance still runs on someone walking the floors and calling in a fault the BMS already knows about.
- Multiple buildings or multiple retrofits over the years, each with its own controller and its own point names, and nobody has one picture across all of them.
- Energy costs show up as a single number on a utility bill and nobody can say which system, floor or tenant actually drove it.
- You already run an ERP, ours or somebody else's, and want the building to be one more system feeding it rather than a separate world.
Not a good fit
- You are specifying a new BMS from scratch and have not chosen the automation vendor yet. That decision comes first. We integrate what gets installed; we do not sell or install the controllers themselves.
- The two systems you need connected are both ordinary business software with documented APIs and no building involved. That is System integration, a simpler job than this one.
- The ERP itself still needs to be built and the building is only a small part of that. Start with ERP implementation; building data becomes one more source feeding it.
- You need physical security or fire-safety certification. We connect the data a certified system already produces. We are not the certifying body and will not pretend to be.
- The building is small enough that a facilities manager checking a panel once a day is genuinely faster than any integration would be. Say so and we will tell you honestly if that is still true after a walk-through.
How it runs
- 01
Walk the building
Read what is actually installed, panel by panel and protocol by protocol, before anyone proposes an architecture.
- 02
Map the points
Clean, consistent names for what the building actually measures and controls, written down once.
- 03
Build the gateway
The translation layer from BACnet, Modbus or KNX into something the business systems can consume, with the OT network kept separate rather than opened wide.
- 04
Wire it into the business
Alarms into work orders, usage into cost centers, the picture into whatever the ERP or dashboard already is.
- 05
Hand over
Documentation for facilities, and a system that keeps working when a new device gets added, without calling us first.
Questions we get
Which BMS vendors and protocols do you work with?
We work at the protocol level. BACnet, Modbus and KNX cover the large majority of what is actually installed, including most vendors' proprietary layers once you get underneath them. If your controller speaks something else, tell us what and we will say honestly whether it is reachable.
Does this mean opening our building network to the internet?
No, and it should not. The pattern is a gateway that reads from the OT side and pushes out to the IT side, with the OT network kept exactly as segmented as it should already be. If it currently is not, that is usually the first thing worth fixing, before the integration.
Do you install or configure the BMS itself?
No. We connect what is already installed, or what a building automation contractor installs. If there is no BMS yet, that project needs a different kind of contractor before it needs us.
Can the ERP side be Alibera specifically?
It can be. If the ERP is Alibera, our own field service and ERP platform, alarms and usage data land directly in the system that already runs dispatch and invoicing. It works the same way against an ERP we did not build; the gateway does not change.
More digitalization
Have a building nobody can query?
Describe what is installed, or send a photo of the panel if that is easier. An engineer reads it and tells you honestly what is reachable and what is not.