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Building Automation in the Retail Sector

 28 April 2023

Keeping Stores Running Smoothly

No matter how diverse and differentiated the retail sector may appear, it’s all driven by the same motivation: selling products! Building automation can make an important contribution by providing an optimal environment – for customers, salespeople and store management alike. Therefore, solution providers need to follow two key rules: “understand your market” and “provide a simple, secure solution.” With its selection of products specifically for the retail sector, WAGO has spent years demonstrating what this looks like in practice.

Here’s How WAGO Supports Retail:

  • Ideal lighting, pleasant temperatures, efficient use of energy: Intelligent building automation provides optimal sales conditions in retail stores.
  • Recording current state information: The modular WAGO I/O System 750 lets you combine all your sensors and actuators through different fieldbus protocols.
  • The brains of the control unit: All of a store’s building systems are connected and controlled centrally through the PFC200.
  • Developed specifically for retail: WAGO’s Building Control application includes pre-programmed functions for configuration to meet specific requirements of the retail sector.

Some people go every week, some even go every day, but we all do it: shopping! Supermarkets, specialty stores, discount outlets, boutiques, gas stations, shopping centers and malls – besides online shopping and vending machine purchases, physical buildings play a key role in the shopping experience. In most cases, customers don’t consciously pay attention to the sales space, the store design or the building. They’re more interested in product availability, price or freshness. In contrast, the store operators worry about several factors: Does the air-conditioning work? Is the lighting in the sales area optimized? Is the temperature setting in the store at the ideal level? How much energy is being consumed, and where can energy be conserved? For these and many other questions, they need a clear answer at all times.

Is there a system that can answer these questions for a huge variety of different building systems? Or rather: Does a solution exist that keeps store operators from even having to pose these questions, because intelligent building automation ensures optimal sales conditions in the store? It does indeed exist, and it consists of hardware and software – plus, upon request, cloud services – that are designed to work together perfectly. What’s just as crucial is comprehensive experience with and knowledge of the specific challenges facing the retail sector. WAGO’s expertise combines all these elements, and its solutions have been meeting the needs of well-known retail sector customers for years.

To allow individual stores to concentrate fully on their core business while optimizing their operating efficiency, three success factors have proven crucial above all: use of central control hardware, configurable control functions, that can be tailored to individual stores’ specific requirements and a high level of service expertise on the part of the solution provider.

Success Factor 1: Communication-Capable Hardware

If you want up-to-date information about the state of electrical loads like refrigerated counters, or of subsystems ranging from ventilation systems to individual light points, you need a comprehensive data basis. The first step is to combine data from sensors and actuators across very different fieldbus protocols. The modular design and functionality of the WAGO I/O System 750 make it perfect for these tasks. More than 500 specific I/O modules and fieldbus couplers allow both ETHERNET standards and connection to all the bus systems typically used in buildings, in addition to specialized subsystems from the building technology environment such as wireless systems and lighting controllers. One central PFC200 Series controller is capable of connecting all of a store’s building systems, regardless of their manufacturer or the communication protocols required.

A reliable classic for controlling building automation: WAGO’s modular I/O system is fieldbus-independent and, in addition to ETHERNET standards, allows connection of all relevant bus systems typically used in buildings, as well as specialized subsystems from the building technology environment.