Five years ago, engineers dreamed about control systems from different control companies that could work together. There was no alternative to standalone control systems. Exasperated engineers routinely left the control system design to the control companies.
Then those unfulfilled dreams became reality as a new wave of technology enabled engineers to try to fill that control void. Since its introduction in the 1990s, the open protocol for building automation communications, called BACnet (Building Automation Control Network) has given building system integration a big boost. One recent publication has even listed BACnet among the top 125 innovations in the last 125 years.