Introduction
Quantum Automaton (QA) started its business as a Building Management System Integrator since 1979. The Company has been in the building management (BMS)/Low current systems environment for 40 years. Over the years, QA has evolved and expanded their scopes from mere system integration work to the development of controllers of various kinds and with open protocols like Lonwork, Modbus and BacNet (both hardware and firmware), gateways to interface to various proprietary communication protocols, customised application software like Work Flow, FBS, Energy Management Software and many more.

The controllers of QA have been successfully implemented in major buildings for more than 10 years. Their developed hardware and software are compliant with industry standards which allows them to penetrate the market internationally and not just in Singapore. The Company has various series of controllers that meets the following certifications; UL, CE for quality and BTL, LonMark and Modbus for open Standards Certifications. QA is the pioneer in introducing open systems to the building industry in Singapore. They brought in LonMark open protocol to Singapore in 2002 which revolutionised the building management industry. To date, the building industry adopt open standard protocols as by default building management systems’ requirement.

QA’s mission is in the domain of automation and system integration, they strive to be the obvious choice by providing preferred solutions, which is unparallel in its value and quality of products and services. To date, QA has hundreds of installed base with more than a hundred maintenance contracts serviced by the Company.

Their business model is to be self-sufficient (non 3rd party dependent in the supply chain) by manufacturing their own key critical components (such as Programmable Direct Digital Controllers, SCADA, key Application programs and Gateways) of the total Integrated Building Management System (IBMS) solution. This eliminates the constraints and limitations that may pose by 3rd party critical components of the solution. With the elimination of the constraints, there will be no boundary and QA can decide its own destiny in its offer; not only from the sales of the systems but also the after sales service, system maintenance and upgrades to cater for the ever-changing demands of new technology within the life span of the system. Progressing from BMS to IBMS, QA will further enhance the facility management and energy efficiency.

The Company’s expansion plan is both in capitalising on their wealth of engineering and development know-how strength into the application of broader industries (e.g. laboratories controls, Access Controls and etc.) and also geographically replicating and know-how globally.

Corporate Culture and Company Activities
To date, QA is extensively involved in Green Building requirements. They programme their controllers to manage the chillers’ plant, air conditioning, lightings and other M&E systems to achieve Green mark requirement. They were contracted and had successfully installed the BMS for BCA Academy Zero Energy Building and latest BCA revolving laboratory that is used to test-bed technologies to bring more “positive energy” buildings to life – The Sky Lab. This laboratory was officially launched by the Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr. Lee Hsien Loong on July 21, 2016.

Many Green Mark; platinum, gold plus and gold buildings were installed with Quantum BMS system. Example of such is CapitaGreen; nominated as the finalist in World Building Council Asia Pacific leadership Awards in Green Building 2016. CapitaGreen is also a Winner in the SGBC-BCA Sustainability Leadership Awards 2016. Other projects are Metropolis, Yale-NUS, Ocean Financial Centre, Fusionopolis Tower C, SMU, OUE Bayfront and etc. With the global drive of carbon reduction (Paris climate conference agreement in 2015; a long-term goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C) and the eversprouting green initiatives, QA believes that companies that have extensive work involvement in this area will have unlimited growth opportunities.

Achievements and Impact

• QA has local R&D facilities in Singapore to develop their programmer controllers, application and interface software. They build their own Web based Energy Management Software to cater for the BCA Green Mark report. Besides, it gives them the agility in servicing customers’ needs and providing customisations to their satisfaction. QA beats their MNC competitors because they are able to commit to customers on special or software customisation requirements as and when the need arises. For MNCs, they will have long process of having their overseas factory or R&D centre agreement to do the customisation work. Work that is carried out by overseas factory will have more difficulties in catching on frequent changes of the design demand in the sites.
• As totally local setup competing with MNC like Siemens, Honeywell and etc., QA is more cost competitive.
• Having built the full site of know-how which involved various engineering discipline (mechanical, electrical, electronics, software, network engineering and etc.) and the work involved system integration, plant application knowledge including back end integration like manufacturing of controllers and software, it is not easy to be replicated by new entrants (local engineering company), hence new entrant coming into their business arena is almost non-existence.