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A Technical Director of a Leading Systems Integrator
Born and raised in Newcastle, England, Keith Dunlop is a big fan of technology and engineering. Despite holding a Philosophy degree from university, Keith has always been keen to explore sockets along with Socrates. He completed an electronics course post-university and then immediately found employment in the industry. Keith worked on ICL mainframes as a test engineer near Manchester, but eventually moved to the southeast on his quest for more work.
In January of 1999, Keith started working for Andromeda as a technician. Eight years later, Andromeda has flourished into a much larger and leading UK specialist company and Keith has worked his way up the ladder to Technical Director.
Andromeda Telematics Limited is a leading systems integrator that offers technology and services that manage and control buildings. These “intelligent buildings” allow occupiers to control their environment, from heating and ventilation to lighting.
Andromeda specializes in KNX (formerly EIB) intelligent building control installations, a world-wide standard that certifies intelligent building products, training centres, and contractors.
Project: British Library
The British Library is in the midst of refitting their existing lighting control system, and brought on Andromeda to create a KNX intelligent building solution.
Before Andromeda (and Keith) could commission the project, Balfour Kilpatrick had to rework the wiring with new KNX controls.
The project began in March 2005 and should be completed by the end of the summer.
June 28, 2007:
| 7:00am: | Despite a long and busy day ahead of him, Keith rises from his slumber bright and early. Not a big fan of breakfast, he opts for a nice cup of tea before he takes a train into Surrey. This is where his office at Andromeda is located. |
| 10:00am: | Now at the office, Keith performs some checks on data. One of Andromeda’s current projects, The British Library, is about to do carry out a major upgrade in software. “This data needs to be heavily tested before being implemented,” says Keith. |
| 1:00pm: | Time to fuel up. Keith steps out for a quick bite to eat. |
| 2:00pm: | Back at the office, Keith receives a maintenance call from Lough Waste Recycling Centre, a previous project. They want Andromeda to send an engineer to their facilities to do a health check on their system. Keith sorts out prospective costs and sends it to the client along with a purchase order request. The Andromeda sales team then approaches Keith with a potential upcoming project that has yet to be won. They want Keith to look at the specification from a technical perspective to determine if and how they can do it. |
| 6:00pm: | Time for a quick re-fuel before catching a train into London. |
| 8:00pm: | Keith begins his evening shift at the British Library. He does his work during the off-hours of the building to minimise disruption to the library's core activities. On route to find John Batten, the library representative overseeing the lighting control upgrade, Keith makes a quick stop at the coffee vending machine. Caffeine seems like a good idea while working a night shift. Keith finds John Batten in the Estates Office, and is assigned the task of programming an outstation and commissioning soft-switches that control a set of outdoor lights on level four. John gives Keith the design drawing of the outstation control that needs to be programmed. |
| 8:30pm: |
Keith then sits down with his laptop in the lighting control office (stores the head PC and back-up) where he uses ETS III software, which designs and configures KNX intelligent building control installations. The software creates a number for the soft-switch input. Keith then adds a group address to the application. “This is where I drag and drop the inputs and outputs,” says Keith. He leaves the office and head to the location of the outstation. On route he checks out the outdoor level four lights that are about to be programmed. |
| 9:00pm: | To commission the device, Keith attaches his laptop to the mainline vertical. Here the laptop will communicate with the devices and tell them their unique address. The EC panel is then put into program mode where the ETS III will give the group address. Keith then checks his work by manually testing the soft-switch for the library’s level four outdoor lights. The first set of lights has positive results, but the second do not switch off. This means Keith has to go back to the outstation and check his programming and the design. In situations like this where there is control troubleshooting, the lights can be testing by switching the sockets off. It is determined that the lights are being controlled from another outstation. “They are defaulting into a safe state,” says Keith about the lamps staying on during the manual override. “That’s a great feature of Andromeda systems.” Keith then locks up, packs up and chats with John to discuss next week’s assignments. Says Keith: “This building of books is my little baby.” |
| 10:00pm: | After a long and tiring day, Keith is happy he hasn’t missed the last train home. He looks forward to relaxing in Surbiton with his wife and the internet. |
To view photographs of Keith's evening shift at the British Library, please click on the slideshow below.
Click on the attachment below to read more about the British Library's lighting control upgrade.