Efficient Billing System Example for Building Services that Streamlines Your Workflow

Billing system example for Building services

Hi welcome to this presentation which is an  overview of building services engineering industry   and also the college courses that we run at Leeds  College of Building. My name is Richard Lease and   I'm the curriculum manager at the college and I'm  going to run through, very briefly, the industry,   the skills required to work in the industry,  and what you may be good at at school and   what you've enjoyed at A level or at GCSE and how  that would fit in with what we're doing building   service engineering. A very quick overview on  the units and what qualification options we run   at the college in terms of HE higher education,  and then look at the pathways and career options   that you that you may have if you wanted to become  a building service engineer, and then a very quick   look at the college in terms of building  services, the building and the facilities.   So what is building service engineering? Building  services is a form of engineering that's kind of   overlooked and people are unfamiliar with it and  unfamiliar with what it does unless you sort of   work in the industry or you know someone who works  in the industry, it kind of goes under the radar   a little bit. So building services is essentially  making the building work, and making the building   work for the people that live in there or work  in the building. I've used an image there the   Leeds General Infirmary which is a project that  I've watched a long time ago, the jubilee wing,   and you can imagine as a hospital it's just a  shell. The construction part is just a shell, the   architects do the design part and make it look how  the client wants, and then the building services   (our role) then is to make the building works  and you can imagine inside a hospital it's not   just heating ventilation, lighting, there's all  sorts of specialist areas and specialist rooms   that have to perform a job and have to make  the building work and again, every building is   different, from prisons, hospitals, schools, they  all have different needs but ultimately keeping,   you know, making the building work and keeping  the occupants comfortable, able to do the job   (what the building is built to do) and a lot of  that is kind of behind the scenes and you very   rarely see sort of the pipe work and the duct work  and the ventilation that's involved in that. But   that's what the engineer does. To be able to  to do that and be a building service engineer   there's lots of maths involved, and that  doesn't mean it's all maths so please don't   go away thinking "oh it's all about maths and  I'm no good at math". Maths is part of it,   it's science-based, it's lots of physics in  there, pressures, fluids, electrical principles,   and I put a very quick example there of heat  loss, so that's a way just to give you an idea of   some of the maths you know it's a very simple  multiplication there but understanding as well   what those variables are, so what goes into  that, you values are looking at the type of   wall and is it an energy efficient wall, does  it have lots of insulation in there and so on.   Looking at being able to calculate the area of  the wall and then the difference in temperature,   and some of those variables will change so it's  not just the math part, it's understanding what   those are. For example you value will change  from building a very modern building with a very   modern high very low sorry new values  that are given through legislation to   try and prevent heat loss. There's lots about  climate change in co2 and that's a big part of   building service engineering is to make buildings  energy efficient nowadays. So I'm making the   system work but use as less energy as possible to  meet various targets and co2 emissions, being able   to calculate the wall and then the difference in  temperature could be the design, something inside   could vary so if it's a restaurant or an office  block or hospital that would vary, knowing what   those are and where to find those figures and then  thinking about where the building is. So is it in   the middle east, it could be in Dubai, lots  of building work going on in the middle east,   it could be in Scotland, it could be in London,  it could be anywhere in the world where you'll   get different temperatures and obviously that  would affect your calculations in terms of your   building services design. So that just gives you  an idea and that's an example of how you calculate   heat loss going from a room, you know, you've then  got a building made up of several rooms, hundreds   of rooms, being able to calculate the heat loss,  how big the radiator, the air conditioning, the   convectors need to be and then calculating the  pipe work, the pumps, that's all going to work   and make that system efficient. But being able to  work and, of course, be able to be controlled. In   terms of the college and where we teach, in terms  of HE (that's higher education) we would start on   an hnc so that's a higher national certificate at  level four in Building Service Engineering. You   can see the example of units there, there's three  mandatory units and then we have the specialist   units that we bring in, which are specialized  to the industry, to building services. then   the natural progression from hnc is to hnd level  five. The hnc level four is is the equivalent to a   foundation degree, so the first year of  a foundation degree level five, and then   level six would be a degree. Currently we're in  talks with validating a level six qualification,   so if you want to do a hnc with us or an hnd  with us by then, you know, by the time they came   to completing that there would be a natural  progression to level six, which would be a   bs science degree (bachelor in science degree).  Most of the units are coursework so they're   all coursework based, but what we try to do  is mix up a variety of assessment methods.   So we could have presentations in there, we could  have some time assignments in there, we've tried   to put more practical experiments in there, so,  rather than you just get to theory actual users   use the systems and use the equipment that we've  got in the lab to actually have a go at yourself.   Just in terms of careers, the sort of three  main types of a career that in building   service engineer would work in, so it could  be design, most commonly design. So you work   for a company that gets given a brief from a  client, so it could be a school, it could be a   health authority once in a hospital or health  centre bill, it could be a prison, it could be   an office block, a private client wanting an  office block, or a restaurant, hotel and from   that you then design the system and what generally  happens is you specialize in a particular area.   So you might specialize in lighting design, you  might specialize in ventilation and cooling design   depending on who you work for and it's  about putting that design together,   putting all the drawings together and putting  the equipment required and sizes required. The   design consultant role is more of a check, so  that's taking the designs in from, it could be   a variety of companies or your own company, and  then it's looking at that and making it better.   Does it work, first of all, can i make it better,  can I make it cheaper, can I make it more energy   efficient. As an example there's some modelling so  you might do some modelling using software where   you're looking at the shadowing, the heat,  depending on where the sun is and so on. So   hopefully when the build is built, it's going to  work and it's going to work how we expect it to.   Then building services site engineer. So this  is actually site based, so you're out on site,   you're taking the designs and they're being  installed, so we'd have trades people installing   them but you're there to sort of guide them, solve  any problems that come along that the designers   have not seen in the office, and then hoping  that the project goes in on time and on budget. The college itself for building services  is predominantly based at our South Bank   2 Hunslet campus, which is a brand  new purpose-built building. It's   great for building services because we have all  the workshops, so we have the heating and vent   workshops and refrigeration workshops are  in there. We've also got involved with the   design of the building so we've asked that we  can get access to plant rooms and the system   so we can use the actual working system to see  examples of ductwork, heat exchangers, boilers,   hair handling units and so on. Then we've also  had a lab so we put a lab in there, we spent   lots of money on equipment that we're using there  for the experiment part so it's not just theory,   it's actually hands-on, getting involved. Very  personal, so the classes are kept at 20 so   there'll be no more, it's not like university  where you have 150 in a lecture theatre,   it's very personal, you get to know your tutors,  you have the same tutors for each unit each week,   there's an open door policy with the  staff so you can come in, you can   ask them any questions you need after the  lessons, very welcome to ask for extra support and   we'll try our best to catch up accommodate  where we can. Staff are all industry trained,   so we've all been in this, all worked, we're not  academics, we've all worked in the industry and   gone into teaching following that so we've  got experience of the industry and so on. So thank you for listening and hopefully  that's given you a very brief insight into   the building service industry. Hopefully raring  to go and become a building service engineer.   If you do have any questions please  feel free- there's contacts name and   email on there, please ask any questions that  you've got through the email or contact college   and speak to one of us in the building  services team but thank you for listening.