Part of the message we received from our education sessions in Atlanta was “give us more information sooner, and for different levels of expertise. This certainly seemed like a goal that Engineered Systems and my online publication (www.automatedbuildings.com) should be able to help achieve. To try to get a handle on this, I have created a graphic depicting the automated building evolution. Once completed, it became very clear why there might be a cry for education.

The automated building evolution follows the growth of the pneumatic control industry for a century, seeing the gradual introduction of pneumatic transmission, electric, and electronic control. In the mid-1960s electronic control evolved to multiplex control systems that rapidly evolved into head end computers that quickly gave way to mini computers and then it quickly ended with the personal computer and the direct digital control (ddc) revolution. The ddc revolution hit in the late 70s and early 80s.