Mladen Vukanac, General Manager at Sauter Building Control Serbia

As a company that’s been present in the area for over 50 years, this March – at the ISH fair in Frankfurt – it presented its latest technical solution: Modulo 6.

Here Mladen Vukanac, General Manager at Sauter Building Control Serbia, talks about the Modulo 6 solution, digital facility planning and green building in Serbia.

“Sauter is opening new horizons and setting new standards in the field of automation through the concepts of digitalisation, iCloud and the “Internet of Things”, as applied in the Modulo 6 equipment and solutions. Building automation has thus entered the digital age, as was to be expected.

“Traditional systems are being replaced with the “Internet of Things” (IoT) and iCloud, and SAUTER Modulo 6 seamlessly connects to the cloud and IoT as safely as it does to existing systems. Using the MQTT protocol, data can now be automatically stored in the iCloud if needed, or integrated into a local system from the iCloud. Cloud services are available for monitoring operations and engineering.

The Cloud offers new and fantastic possibilities for the optimisation of building performance. Data analysis of information, like usage levels of devices, actuators and valves, can provide us with the life expectancy of a device. We can diagnose devices in a Sauter system at any moment and act preventatively before a malfunction causes a standstill in the operation of the whole system or one of its parts. Modulo 6 allows us to communicate with our building using voice commands and through the Cloud, as well as locally, using the Bluetooth integrated into Sauter equipment.”

In the past few years, Sauter has been dealing intensively with energy-efficient solutions and green building. How prepared is the Serbian market for this kind of construction and how can it be further improved?

It seems to me that Serbia has recognised the green building, but promoting such a concept needs to be present at all times. Our country needs to take into consideration investors’ interests and try to provide incentives for that type of building. Green building certainly contributes not only to energy savings, a healthier environment and improving the quality of people’s lives, but is also the driving engine of economic development. If we know that green building stimulates local producers and the local workforce, then any initiative in that sense can be beneficial to us all. When it comes to green building, our position compared to Europe isn’t bad, but there’s certainly a lot of room for progress.

Sauter also has its own tools for the digital planning of facilities and building management software. To what extent does the implementation of modern technologies contribute to the development of your operations and in what way?

The implementation of digital technologies certainly opens a lot of new space for our future development, but also raises many questions about where this development will go and what the future will bring. Our interest as a world brand in the field of building automation is to be creators of development in the automation of IoT buildings, which we are doing this year by implementing our new Modulo 6 solutions, which are based on IoT and Cloud technologies implemented in the Building Automation concept.

As a leading provider of solutions for building automation technology in Green Buildings, Swiss company SAUTER provides an enjoyable atmosphere and a sense of well-being in sustainable environments. SAUTER is a specialist in developing, producing and marketing products and systems for energy-efficient total solutions, while it offers a comprehensive range of services to ensure the energy-optimised operation of buildings

Where is Serbia in your field of operations (building automation) compared to other countries of the region in which you operate, and where is it compared to the European market and beyond?

High standards need to be accompanied by quality. Sauter is the kind of company that, if it has to give up something, quality will be the last thing it gives up.

Our market recognises quality, otherwise, Sauter would not have survived this long. I can say that the level of technologies and solutions we use in projects in our country stands shoulder-to-shoulder with projects in much more developed EU member states. All our clients think in the long-term, therefore Sauter is a logical choice for them.

Which Swiss values do you implement in your operations?

Four concepts are always related to our operations: constancy, innovations, reliable quality and knowledge.

How would you rate Sauter’s operations in the previous period – globally and on the markets of Serbia and the Balkans? What have been the main challenges?

The company records constant growth globally, which allows us to invest in research and development, which is very important in the business that we’re in.

There are plenty of challenges, both long-term challenges and those that appear daily. It’s really hard to say which ones have been the most difficult, but it’s fully clear that, without challenges, our job would be boring, and the job needs to be fun at least, partly in order for us to be able to do it successfully in the long term.

What are the company’s expectations and plans for the period ahead?

In the upcoming period, we expect the wave of investments initiated in the construction sector to continue, and we are looking forward to that. We are preparing existing capacities and trying to grow alongside the market.