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When I was a young man, the notion of getting plenty of rest was “good work if you can get it”, while raising kids and striving to get ahead.  After all, Winston Churchill once said that “four hours a night was all a chap should need”… well, maybe during the intense moments of WWII.  With the benefit of hindsight being 20/20, I would have to say, that without the benefit of quality rest, not much else is possible, long term.  Honestly, one of the best things that happened to me was, buying a Fitbit.  Now, it’s hard to hide from the truth, at least as it relates to sleep.

Here’s #5:

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

As hokey, and simplistic as this phrase may sound, it certainly hits home with me.  Virtually everyone that I know, personally, that has experienced significant financial reward has been an early riser that gets plenty of rest.  Rising early is settling for the soul, as it allows you to plan your attack for the day, leading the effort, as opposed to simply taking what comes, essentially playing defense all day, seemingly never catching up.  Getting your rest is a no brainer, yet most people ignore the fact.

KensMetaphors

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Building Controls and Services, Inc. (BCS) has expanded to a new location in Kansas City, Missouri. The office (9237 Ward Pkwy, Suite 108 Kansas City, MO 64114) is scheduled to be fully functioning by August 19, 2015. BCS will employ several full time employees out of the Kansas City office while continuing to grow in Wichita, Kansas.

BCS has experienced rapid growth in the past year and expanding to the Kansas City market was a straightforward decision. BCS has doubled in size in the past two years and our growth is reflected in our sales success, expansion was the next logical step.

BCS recently merged with Custom Air & Power Systems of Overland Park, KS. Custom Air will sell the AAON product line under the BCS name in the Kansas City area. Custom Air’s Equipment Sales Engineers, Allen Leet, Jim Conaway, and Doug Gephart, bring a knowledge of the product and industry that is invaluable.

Operating out of the Kansas City office, BCS Performance Solutions offers facility and asset optimizations programs. The Performance Solutions subsidiary develops prioritized plans to address deferred maintenance, delivers a financial model that reduces existing costs and lowers your Total Cost of Ownership, and creates a more predictable energy, capital, and facilities budget for the short and long-term. Performance Solutions has successful programs all over the state and hopes to continue this momentum as they expand into the Kansas City area.

Sales Engineers Brandon Bulla and Dane Pletcher will be representing KMC Controls and Dunham Bush and will conduct trainings in Kansas City in the future.

Building Controls and Services Vice President, James Herrman, expresses his excitement, “We are thrilled for the opportunity to service the Kansas City area. Building Controls and Services is well equipped to expand product lines and locations.

Building Controls and Services, Inc. provides high value products and services enabling facility managers and building owners to operate buildings safely, comfortably, and efficiently. Our employees provide technical expertise and support to assist in making the right facility decisions. BCS has served the Wichita, KS market for 30 years representing high quality product lines such as Siemens, AAON, LG, CDI, Cook, Ruskin, Titus, and Dunham-Bush.

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new brandBack in 2013, when Performance Solutions officially became its own division of parent company BCS, we knew we had something special to offer our healthcare, education, government and commercial clients.

But we never could have guessed how quickly we would grow.

Being an independent division has allowed us to deliver comprehensive asset and facilities optimization programs that create both short- and long-term financial benefits for our clients — leveraging the buying power of BCS when it is the best business decision, but giving us the freedom to offer other industry solutions when they are a better fit.

The strategic energy and maintenance programs we have delivered to clients have been so well received, Performance Solutions has outgrown not only its original location, but also its brand.

So we have two big announcements to make.

Our New Office

First, we would like to announce the grand opening of our new office in Kansas City. Our new office will enable us to serve a wider audience while continuing to grow our experienced team.

You can now find Performance Solutions at:

9237 Ward Parkway, Suite 108

Kansas City, MO 64114

Our New Brand

Second, you might have noticed that our website has a much different look and feel from our parent company, BCS. As Performance Solutions has established itself as a leader in asset and facility optimization, we have grown into a strong company in our own right – one that needs its own brand.

We wanted our new brand to convey the message that the old way of managing facilities operations with performance contractors is no longer the most optimal way to manage buildings and campuses. There is a better way – a more comprehensive and cost-effective solution: an asset and facilities optimization program from Performance Solutions.

Better Performance Solutions for YOU

Big things are happening here at Performance Solutions. We are excited to be on this fast growth trajectory – but we are also excited by what it means for our clients. We can now serve more organizations, and provide better tools and more expertise to help them realize bigger savings, more budget predictability and better decision making.

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Happy Metaphor Monday!

It seems that too often that the truly special moments in our lives are blown off because of exhaustion, or preoccupation.  I can recall them distinctly.  We always think that they aren’t as special as they seem, in the grand scheme of things, or that they will either re-surface as a bigger and better moment, or they simply are ordinary in nature….. Nonsense!  Seize the moment when it is truly yours.  Your gut will tell you so.

Most people spend all their lives chasing these three resources… Time, Energy, and Money, yet nearly everyone will attain only one, or two at a time, never achieving the third, for various reasons.  During my 50’s I was able to attain all three for an extended period of time…lucky me.  Productivity in my life at the time boomed.  If you are ever fortunate enough to attain all three, seize the moment, as it doesn’t get any better than that.

My metaphor is, “If the Circus is in town, you need to sell some popcorn”.

Kens Metaphors

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Asset Management on the CogwheelsYour facilities use energy — sometimes not in the most efficient manner. In fact, energy is a major factor in the cost of doing business.

And your facilities require money to manage them.

An asset and facility optimization program makes all of this work more predictably and cost-effectively. It breaks you out of the break-fix cycle and optimizes your entire system for the long-term.

When you optimize your facility operations, your organization can realize:

  • Energy efficiency
  • Reduced energy bills
  • Reduced maintenance costs
  • Better synergy between systems
  • Real-time monitoring of equipment
  • Data reporting that enables better decision making

An effective facility and asset optimization program assesses and fixes the root cause of immediate problems while also addressing energy waste. It produces immediate benefits and also sets you up for more predictable operations cost management. It creates better systems for monitoring equipment, as well as collecting and reporting the data.

It gives you immediate and future building intelligence – providing real-time data for on-the-fly decision-making while also giving you the data you need to anticipate future facilities needs.

It’s a more comprehensive and forward-thinking approach to maximizing building performance and cutting energy consumption.

Why Predictability Matters

A predictable energy, capital and facilities budget reduces budget spikes. You know – the ones that blow your entire budget on emergency maintenance without even the promise that it won’t happen again in a few years.

A predictable budget is not only easier for you and your organization to manage, it helps with your long-term planning and enables you to more easily invest in capital projects. It enables you to create more intelligent energy budgets and forecasts.

Other Benefits of Asset and Facility Optimization

An effective optimization program creates better cooperation and collaboration between executive teams, facilities teams and vendors.

It provides transparency so organizations can make better decisions, even in real time.

It reduces deferred maintenance and lowers energy expenses.

Finally, it helps executives deal with mounting pressures and prove ROI to stakeholders through tracking and validation of savings.

Break Tradition, Be a Hero

Hiring a performance contractor every few years to do a condition assessment or energy audit is fine. It’s the traditional route and the results are predictable.

But an asset and facility optimization program can offer you that PLUS increased ROI and more long-term value.

The end result? You look like a hero to the executive team.

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Sterling College was awarded the 2015 Facilities Operations Innovation Award at the annual KICA Business Affairs and Operations Conference.  This award, recognizes a KICA member campus that has enacted an innovative approach to campus energy management and efficiency.  BCS sponsors the innovation award and is proud to be a longstanding partner and supporter of the independent colleges of Kansas.

In addition, Sterling College received an expenses-paid trip to the 2015 National Association of College and University Business Officials (NACUBO) Annual Meeting in Nashville, TN, July 18-21, 2015.  Michelle Hall, Controller, will be attending on behalf of the college.

Matt Lindsey, president of the KICA, said, “BCS is investing in the skills of our people in a way that will yield positive results for years to come by providing support for a staff member to attend a prestigious and thought-provoking conference like NACUBO.  It’s an opportunity that’s tough for small colleges to afford and BCS understood immediately the impact they could have to strengthen Kansas’ private colleges.”

Criteria for the award includes acting as a model for other KICA campuses and higher education institutions for responsible and effective energy management efforts.  Sterling College implemented a $1.1 million Performance Solutions program in December of 2014 to decrease energy consumption and deferred maintenance.  The cost of the project will be paid for by the savings accrued through the improvements.  Annual savings will be over $158,000 per year, which is a 27% campus wide reduction in energy consumption.

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Dave Mosby presents Michelle Hall, Controller of Sterling College, with the 2015 KICA Facilities Operation Innovation Award.
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blueprintsYour facilities energy consumption impacts your bottom line, sure — but management of your facilities is not just a matter of dollars and cents. Cost of ownership is only one of the things you’re worried about.

Facilities management impacts:

  • Equipment performance
  • Your ability to make data-based decisions
  • Program and regulation compliance
  • The comfort of everyone who uses the facilities – from staff to customers and students

Considering the huge impact your facilities operations have on your organization, would you rather fix things as they break or have a plan to maintain and upgrade systems throughout their lifecycles?

There is a difference between a solution and a fix.

solution addresses immediate needs, then considers how to anticipate and manage future needs as well. A solution is specifically designed to address the broader requirements of an organization or business.

fix solves a specific, present problem. It doesn’t consider root cause or how the problem impacts other systems, nor does it consider how to prevent that problem from occurring again in the future.

Do You Need a One-Time Fix, or Do You Really Need a Long-Term Solution?

You might not think your temperature control system is life-and-death – but you’d be wrong.

A broken temperature control system was nearly the cause of a huge fine for one local hospital. The joint commission discovered that there were issues with temperature control in surgery rooms, and the hospital was on the verge of receiving a huge fine. We discovered the root cause of the problem and fixed it in time to avoid the costly fine, but it was a wake-up call for this hospital. It caused them to address their overall facilities management program to avoid these surprises in the future.

You don’t have to let that kind of crisis happen in the first place.

When you hire a performance contractor, they will fix your immediate problems. They’ll also:

  • Save you money on your energy costs
  • Perform industrial-grade audits
  • Solve short-term facilities operations issues

That all sounds great. But what happens when things break in the future? There’s no plan for that and no preventative measures taken.

An asset and facility optimization program is actually what you need to reduce surprises and plan for the long term. This program goes further than fixing immediate problems. This program approach is a true solution.

Here’s how we do this for our clients at Performance Solutions:

  • We improve your overall operation for the long term
  • We educate your staff to help them understand how to reduce energy usage and spot optimization opportunities
  • After taking the time to understand your business needs, we provide a strategic energy and maintenance program that works with your budget
  • We build a financial model and funding mechanism
  • We perform necessary repairs, recommissions and retuning of your equipment and systems
  • We identify the root causes of problems, then create and implement an plan for reducing future issues
  • We provide facility management technologies that make it easy to pull reports and view equipment data in real-time

Ultimately, this asset and facility optimization program creates predictability and transparency. This not only impacts your bottom line, it makes it easier for your organization to make better decisions.

The Solution is a SOLUTION

So what do you need? A fix or a solution?

If you are constantly surprised by energy management expenditures or unexpected facility operations costs, it’s time to get out of the break-fix cycle. Consider a facilities management solution so you can plan your expenditures and make better, data-based decisions now and in the future.

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Building Controls and Services, Inc. (BCS), of Wichita, was recently named Siemens Building Technologies 2014 Building Automation Independent Field Office Partner of the Year.  IFO of the Year is a highly competitive, nation-wide award presented to a Siemens distributor annually.  BCS achieved the highest combination of net and percentage sales growth of all Siemens’ U.S. IFO value-added partners, installing APOGEE Building Automation Systems in a variety of new and existing facilities in Kansas.

Scott Hamilton, Senior Sales Director for Siemens, presented the prestigious award at the 2014 National IFO conference in Chicago, and shared: “BCS truly had an exceptional year in 2014 and Siemens is pleased to recognize their outstanding performance. We are proud to work with BCS in serving customer building automation system needs in Kansas.”

BCS has been a Siemens partner for 30 years and has successfully installed the APOGEE BAS in diverse facilities such as K-12 schools, medical facilities, commercial buildings, and industrial locations. APOGEE systems regulate airflow, monitor energy use, and can be integrated with other building systems to deliver comfort, safety and energy efficiency.

“We are proud to be named the Siemens IFO Partner of the Year award winner,” says Ken Stoppel, President and CEO at BCS. “The combined efforts of our service, construction and control groups allowed us to leverage our HVAC and mechanical, service base into new projects for our building automation group. We found Siemens APOGEE control products to be a great competitive and reliable product for our customers.”

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Building Controls and Services, Inc. recently celebrated its 30 year anniversary. Ken Stoppel, Founder and CEO, reminisced on the evolution of the BCS logo.  “Getting a new logo felt like putting a pet down because its looks simply didn’t suit the standards of today,” he said.  “It was certainly painful, but absolutely necessary.”

Morphing and growing, BCS identified a need for a fresh brand image that portrayed the cutting-edge technological products and superior service that was quickly creating a reputation in the community. Thus, the symbolic hexagon was born.

Though simple upon first glance, the logo is rich with hidden meaning.  Generally, our logo represents the finite control of space. The shape itself creates a 3-D box that symbolizes our customer’s building envelope. The circle in the top right hand corner represents a degree symbol, the epitome of control, identifying BCS’s role in accurately controlling degrees of comfort, safety, and efficiency within our customer’s environment.

Our logo has evolved alongside us. It is a complete representation of all that BCS has and will continue to achieve. It’s pulled together in a simple, yet, bold manner that, like us, is strong and innovative.BCS Logo Lg 1024x607BCS Logo 1024x540

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