Seek for solutions to the inconveniences in phase 1 of the project

The Republic of the Philippines is a country consisting of more than 7,000 large and small islands in the Pacific Ocean. Tourists from all over the world enjoy marine sports on beautiful resort beaches as well as shopping and spa treatments in a lively atmosphere unique to Southeast Asia. The Philippine government has been actively promoting tourism since the presidency of Gloria Macapacal Arroyo. The government’s efforts to attract more tourists have included to construct new roads and other infrastructure and to launch worldwide advertising campaigns.

Currently, the Philippine government is developing the Manila Bay Entertainment City resort site in the bay area near the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila.

Four large-scale casino resort complexes are participating in the development of this area, one of which is Solaire Resort & Casino, developed by Bloomberry Resorts Corporation. The Solaire complex includes hotels, a theater, shopping mall, casino, restaurants, and conference rooms. The construction of the complex is proceeding in phases. In March 2013, Bay Tower, a 500-room hotel, and other facilities were completed in phase 1 of the project.

“For phase 1 of the project, a company in the Philippines was the system integrator which constructed the monitoring and control system for the air conditioning and electrical equipment. However, after the Bay Tower area opened, various problems related to the equipment occurred. For example, there was a problem with temperature measurement: although 22 °C was displayed by the central monitoring system, when the temperature in the room was measured in response to a customer complaint, it was 27 °C. There were more than a few cases in which the room temperature displayed on the central monitoring unit was different from the actual temperature,” explains Michael Ordaniel of the Engineering Department.

Operation quality of equipment dramatically improved by switching to a proven partner

After that experience, Solaire started the development of the Sky Tower, a 300-room hotel, and related facilities as an extension of phase 1. In consideration of the inconveniences that were experienced at the Bay Tower, Solaire chose Azbil Philippines Corporation as a new partner, and decided to introduce a monitoring and control system built around the savic-net™FX building management system.

“Azbil Philippines has a lot of experience providing monitoring and control systems for equipment in large-scale office buildings and commercial facilities in the Philippines, and Azbil is well known as a superior supplier of building management systems in the Philippines as well as Japan,” says Mr. Ordaniel. “We highly evaluated the performance of the company and decided to select it as our partner.”

The Sky Tower area facilities opened in December 2014. The new system developed by savic-net FX provides proper control and operation based on accurate temperature measurement, and also prevented the temperature monitoring problem in the Bay Tower area.

“Once the operator sets the room temperature to 24 °C on the central monitoring system, you can keep the room at 24 °C,” says Mark Pajid, an operator of the building management system. “Due to this system, customer complaints concerning air conditioning have disappeared. For a resort facility offering a comfortable space for an extraordinary level of enjoyment, accurately controlling the room temperature is very important for customer satisfaction. Also, the monitoring and control screens of savic-net FX are very easy and simpler to use than those of the previous central monitoring system, which has significantly reduced the burden on the operators.”

“Achieving proper equipment control based on accurate measurement also contributes to energy conservation,” adds Mr. Ordaniel. “In addition, I am convinced that both the hardware and the software of the system are excellent in quality. We monitor the operation of the equipment 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, so it is a great help to our operators when Azbil Philippines so quickly provides the instructions we need if a situation occurs. We are very satisfied with their quick support.”

The savic-net FX system monitors and controls the equipment in the Sky Tower area, which was constructed as an extension of the phase 1 project. The intranet of the Solaire Resort & Casino was utilized for the communications for savic-net FX monitoring and control, in order to eliminate the burden of building a new network, as well as to prepare for future extensibility within Solaire.

The savic-net FX system manages the operation of an air conditioner for realizing a comfortable environment.

Envisioning future integration of the monitoring and control system of the facilities

Solaire Resort & Casino has achieved the hoped-for results in the Sky Tower area. It also has a vision of integrating the system used in the Bay Tower area, which began operating earlier, into savic-net FX in the future to enable centralized management of the equipment in both facilities.

“Meanwhile, we are preparing for phase 2 of the project on the same premises following the completion of Bay Tower and Sky Tower, as well as the construction of a new casino resort complex in Quezon City. We will be recommending Azbil Philippines as our partner in these projects as well. In the future, we would like to explore the possibility of integrating the equipment management of all three facilities,” says Mr. Pajid.

“Currently, about 3,000 customers visit the facilities we operate in Manila Bay Entertainment City every day. One of our most important missions is to ensure a comfortable environment for all customers. We have high expectations that Azbil Philippines will continue to be a source of strong support for our projects in the future,” says Mr. Ordaniel.

A hotel room in Solaire Resort & Casino. Azbil’s monitoring and control system provides an optimal environment, making guests comfortable during their stay.

The development project of Solaire Resort & Casino

savic-net and savic-net FX are trademarks of Azbil Corporation.