How One Program Manager Turned 1,000 Aging Buildings Into a Smart Operations Network

Property managers across the United States face a problem that costs them millions but rarely makes headlines. Buildings waste enormous amounts of energy because their systems can’t talk to each other. A boiler runs at full capacity while windows stay open. Air conditioning fights against heating in adjacent zones. Security cameras record footage no one reviews until after an incident. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, commercial and residential buildings consume nearly 40 percent of all energy used in America, with operational inefficiencies accounting for a substantial portion of that consumption.

The situation gets worse when you look at how these buildings actually operate. Most property managers deal with five or six different systems: HVAC controls from one vendor, access management from another, utility meters that require manual readings, and work order software that doesn’t connect to anything else. When a tenant calls about a heating problem at midnight, the maintenance crew has to log into multiple platforms, check disconnected dashboards, and often drive to the building just to figure out what’s wrong. The average multifamily property still relies on infrastructure installed 15 to 20 years ago, back when “connected building” meant having a programmable thermostat in the lobby.

Turning chaos into a single operational system

Ashok Kumar Kalyanam walked into this mess while working on a technology overhaul for a portfolio of residential properties spread across multiple locations. Each building had its own setup. Energy meters collected data locally but couldn’t share it. Maintenance requests lived in email chains or paper logbooks. Nobody could answer basic questions like “Which buildings use the most energy?” or “How long does it take us to fix problems?” without spending days compiling spreadsheets.

“We had operational silos everywhere,” Ashok Kumar Kalyanam recalls. “A maintenance issue in one building wouldn’t show up in portfolio analytics. Compliance audits required manual data gathering across properties. Real-time visibility simply didn’t exist.”

The job required building a system that could pull information from decades-old equipment and modern sensors alike, store it in one place, and make it useful for people who weren’t engineers. He designed a hybrid architecture using AWS cloud infrastructure to create a central data repository. Building management systems, sub-meters, access controls, and edge devices all fed data into this hub. He implemented OKTA for identity management so property managers and maintenance teams could access what they needed without compromising security.

The hard part wasn’t picking technology. It was making everything work together. Older building systems use protocols that newer platforms don’t understand. Some equipment predates the idea of APIs entirely. His team deployed edge computing devices to translate these legacy data streams into formats the cloud could process. They built data pipelines that updated continuously, not once a day or once a week. Property managers got dashboards showing what was happening right now across all 1,000-plus residential units, occupancy levels, energy draw, equipment status, and open work orders.

Numbers that changed daily operations

The improvements showed up in ways anyone could measure. Administrative overhead for building management dropped by a quarter because staff stopped duplicating work across disconnected systems. Maintenance crews cut their average response time by 30 percent. Instead of driving to a building to diagnose a problem, they could see equipment performance data before leaving their office. That meant bringing the right parts, fixing issues faster, and making fewer unnecessary trips.

Energy costs fell by roughly 20 percent once the system could track consumption patterns and identify waste. The portfolio saved more than $400,000 annually on utilities. Better efficiency also qualified the properties for $3.1 million in different States Real-Time Energy Management incentive credits, which reward buildings that demonstrate sustained energy optimization.

He built governance structures to keep these gains from evaporating. He established formal change request procedures so random modifications wouldn’t destabilize the platform. Managed service protocols ensured round-the-clock monitoring. The work order system started generating tickets automatically when sensors detected equipment running outside normal parameters. Property managers finally had a single screen showing the status of their entire portfolio instead of juggling tabs and logins.

“When we started, gathering data for a regulatory audit meant weeks of spreadsheet work,” Ashok Kumar Kalyanam notes. “Now it’s a button click.”

The changes affected hundreds of residents and property staff. Maintenance requests got handled faster. Utility bills stayed predictable. Compliance reporting stopped being a quarterly nightmare. Buildings that once felt like black boxes became transparent, manageable operations.

Why this approach works when others fail

The smart building market keeps growing. Markets and Markets projects it will reach $328 billion globally by 2029, but plenty of these projects flop. Companies install new sensors or software, then wonder why nothing improves. The technology works fine in isolation. The problem is integration. He succeeded because he treated that integration challenge as the central problem, not an afterthought.

His hybrid architecture became a template. The organization stored it in its knowledge base as a reference framework for other properties. That matters because most successful building automation projects stay trapped as one-off successes. They work great for the pilot location, but can’t scale because they were never designed to. Ashok built his system to handle multiple properties from day one. Adding new buildings, connecting different device types, or expanding analytics capabilities doesn’t require redesigning the foundation.

Property owners now face serious pressure around energy efficiency and carbon reporting. Cities pass stricter building performance standards. Investors ask for ESG documentation. Tenants expect reliable, efficient operations. Buildings that can’t demonstrate these capabilities lose value. His solution addressed all of it by making energy data visible, automating compliance documentation, and using predictive analytics to optimize resource consumption.

The scale of change matters here. Commercial and residential buildings together generate about 35 percent of U.S. carbon emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Fixing that means fixing millions of buildings, most of which still operate the old way. His work proves that comprehensive modernization is possible without tearing everything out and starting over. The hybrid approach respects existing infrastructure while adding the intelligence and connectivity that modern operations require.

What happens when buildings become data systems

The framework he established turns buildings into active data sources instead of passive structures. Predictive maintenance algorithms can spot equipment problems before they cause failures. Occupancy patterns inform space planning. Energy consumption gets tracked at granular levels, not just “this building used X kilowatt-hours,” but “these specific systems are wasting power during these hours.” Machine learning models train on accumulated operational data, getting better at optimization over time.

This transformation also challenges some common assumptions about large infrastructure projects. He managed the entire initiative with a small core team. He took direct responsibility for architecture, integration, and delivery instead of delegating everything to specialized groups. That efficiency suggests focused expertise matters more than headcount, a useful lesson for an industry that often assumes modernization requires armies of consultants and unlimited budgets.

Thousands of buildings still run on disconnected systems. They waste energy, frustrate tenants, and create compliance headaches. But approaches like Ashok’s demonstrate that systematic modernization delivers returns worth the investment while setting higher operational standards. Given how much energy buildings consume and how much they contribute to carbon emissions, these improvements ripple beyond individual properties. They affect how cities function and how regions meet climate goals. The work continues, one building at a time, one integration at a time, toward infrastructure that responds intelligently instead of just sitting there burning energy and hoping nothing breaks.

The post How One Program Manager Turned 1,000 Aging Buildings Into a Smart Operations Network appeared first on The American Reporter.