Inside a University FDD Pilot: What It Took to Turn Findings into Fixes

This NexusCon 2025 session digs into a year-long pilot that paired BuildingLogix FDD with HEAPY’s Intelligent Building Management Service across complex university buildings. Amanda Alvarado (Optimization Engineer, HEAPY), Nick Cassidy (Energy Engineer, BuildingLogix), and Asher Ensmenger (Energy Engineer, IUPUI) walk through how they monitored air handlers, central plants, and terminal units in labs, classrooms, and offices. The core challenge wasn’t finding faults—it was navigating public-sector procurement, IT security, and stakeholder buy-in while keeping research and occupant needs untouched. The result was a continuous process designed to improve building health over time, not a one-off retro-commissioning exercise.

Behind the paywall, you’ll see what actually helped move issues from dashboards to fixes: how roles were split between owner, service provider, and FDD vendor; why tools like Jira mattered more than reports; and where human judgment was essential. The team shares what surprised them about implementation friction, which savings estimates translated into action (and which didn’t), and how they identified roughly $185k in potential savings while prioritizing operational reliability. This recording is especially relevant for FM and energy teams working in labs, campuses, or other mission-critical environments where “just save energy” isn’t a winning argument.

Watch the full recording inside Nexus Pro →