01 · The Context
A vendor failure became
a design opportunity.
A large university campus had tendered for a centralised Building Management System. Scope: monitoring and control of close to 100,000 data points across every building — HVAC, lighting, water, gas, fire systems, and energy infrastructure.
The awarded vendor couldn't deliver. Two blockers:
- The platform couldn't meet the required level of customisation
- A global software licensing suspension had locked BIM operations across all major commercial BMS platforms
The client had an additional non-standard requirement: the Azim Premji Foundation's ownership of Wipro Limited placed this project in scope for mandatory BRSR ESG reporting — covering energy, emissions, resource management, and ecological impact.
SUN BIO IT was brought in to build a prototype demonstrating the full system was achievable.
The foundation
The Managing Director identified the BEM Server — developed under the EU's HIT2GAP initiative — as the open-source foundation. Using BEM gave us an internationally recognised framework for building energy management and reporting, without building the compliance engine from scratch.
🏭System overview — building schematic or architecture mapHigh-level view of the BMS/SCADA system scope
02 · The Approach
Start with the physical space.
Build the architecture from there.
Before designing anything, I conducted a site visit to the campus. Walking the actual infrastructure — identifying IoT gateway points, understanding the scale, seeing the control rooms — grounded the IA in operational reality rather than assumptions.
The system hierarchy I designed:
- Campus → Building → Floor → Zone → Room → Device
Every dashboard level maps to one layer in that hierarchy. Operators can act at campus scale or device level — and move between them without losing context.
🗺️Information architecture diagram6-level system hierarchy — campus to device
🏛️Site visit — campus infrastructureIoT gateway mapping, control room context
03 · Design Decisions
High-Performance HMI conventions —
applied to a real system.
Industrial control system design has a rigorous, battle-tested visual language. I drew on High-Performance HMI conventions directly — because they exist for good reason.
Hierarchy
🚦
Greyscale base, selective colour
Colour reserved exclusively for status and alert conditions. Not decoration. In a high-density monitoring interface, every pixel of colour carries operational meaning.
Navigation
🗂️
Four-level navigation
Overview → Process unit control → Process unit detail → Support and diagnostics. Operators find information in seconds, not minutes.
Awareness
📈
Delta indicators and trend sparklines
Value changes visible at a glance. Recent history embedded in compact form — no secondary navigation required to understand what changed and when.
Compliance
📋
ESG reporting built into the IA
Every monitored parameter mapped to a BRSR framework field from the start. Reports generate from live data automatically — not retrofitted as an export function.
🖥️Main dashboard — operational viewReal-time monitoring, alarm states, floor plan navigation, energy metrics
⚠️Alarm management screenThree-tier prioritisation — critical, warning, advisory
📊ESG reporting viewBRSR-compliant report generation from live data
"
HMI design isn't a UI challenge — it's a systems thinking challenge. The interface is the surface. The real work is the architecture underneath it.
— Shridevi S S
04 · Outcome
Prototype delivered.
Approach validated.
The working prototype was delivered and handed to the primary vendor — demonstrating that the full build was technically feasible and the UX approach was sound.
Beyond the prototype: a system like this changes how a facility operates. A facilities manager can detect a pipe anomaly from sensor data before it becomes visible damage. They can manage energy across an entire campus from one screen. And they can generate a full ESG compliance report automatically — instead of assembling it manually from disconnected building records.
ESGBRSR-compliant reporting
built in from day one
4-levelNavigation hierarchy
across 100,000 data points
0 weeksBrief to working
prototype delivered
🏆Delivered prototype — final screensFinal interface or validation documentation (anonymised)