Following an initial launch earlier this year, American Air Filter Co. Inc., d/b/a AAF International, announced the release this month of TCO DiagnosticTM, a proprietary, cloud-based software program that offers the most advanced analytics capabilities in the air filtration industry. The technology provides commercial building owners and facility managers with locally optimized air-handling analysis based on their unique environments, systems and processes to help identify air filtration solutions that can dramatically improve performance and lower both energy consumption and TCO, or total cost of ownership.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, half of a facility’s energy costs come from heating, cooling and moving air, so optimizing HVAC energy expenditure is a crucial aspect of facility management. The first step in optimizing a facility’s clean air spending is to perform a comprehensive total cost of ownership analysis. AAF developed its TCO Diagnostic tool to offer a better and more accurate way to determine TCO.
AAF’s advanced diagnostic software assists facility managers in selecting the best filters for building air-handling systems by increasing their understanding of the filters’ sensitivity to each unique facility’s operating conditions. Unlike other diagnostic tools that use only generalized data and user assumptions for analysis, TCO Diagnostic combines real-life, local filter performance results with local operating costs to generate the most accurate filter system reports available in the marketplace. The result is more effective and efficient management of building HVAC systems.
“TCO Diagnostic further positions AAF International as a leader in high-tech solutions for the air filtration industry,” said AAF CEO Phil Whitaker. “Facility management teams can rely on us as a trusted advisor to perform filtration audits and other diagnostics to ensure their air filtration systems are performing at optimum levels at all times. We’re so confident in this product that AAF is using the software as a primary tool in our own research and innovation efforts.”
TCO Diagnostic analyzes a facility’s current HVAC filter system and compares it to up to three alternative options, taking into account the annual costs of maintenance labor, energy, total system airflow, filters, fan efficiency and more. The analysis utilizes comprehensive filter test reports in order to generate completely objective results. These results are tabulated in a report that clearly illustrates calculated savings for total cost of filter ownership, including potential energy savings. TCO Diagnostic contains the most complete database of test reports on manufacturers’ filters available and offers cross-platform capability on PCs, tablets and smartphones.
“What’s so great about this tool is that it uses real filter performance data, comparing a facility’s current filter system to other filter systems that could possibly save energy and money,” said Michael Osborne, a consultant for AAF and former Vice President of Global Research & Development who helped develop TCO Diagnostic. “Whenever I demonstrate this tool to clients, they really appreciate the fact that the analysis is generated from filter test reports and clear data.”
“TCO Diagnostic is such a sophisticated tool in terms of the analysis, but at the same time it’s completely transparent,” added Brian Abel, AAF’s North Texas Branch Manager. “The reports that this software generates are incredibly useful for facility managers, since they have system comparison breakouts for each filter system. TCO Diagnostic reports really support the findings by the Energy Systems Lab at Texas A&M University that energy use in buildings could be reduced by 10 percent to 40 percent by improving operational strategies.”
For more information about TCO Diagnostic, visit aafintl.com/en/aaf-all-solutions/tco-diagnostic.