Implementing smart building technologies can provide an effective solution to the inefficiencies and productivity challenges that businesses encounter daily. These underlying issues may negatively impact the organization’s top and bottom lines as it expands in size and operational complexity.
How do smart building technologies support business operations?
Smart building technologies can enhance business operations by:
- Increasing building occupants’ safety and security.
- Automating systems and processes.
- Integrating systems to improve efficiency.
- Decreasing administrative burden by consolidating management processes in a centralized location.
- Increasing building operators’ awareness and visibility on systems and equipment.
- Reducing response time to failure events, thereby minimizing operational disruptions.
- Optimizing and standardizing business policies at scale.
1. Increasing building occupants’ safety and security
Smart systems, such as property surveillance, fire alarm, fire suppression and smoke evacuation systems, are clear examples of intelligent technologies used to enhance safety and security of the building occupants. Without these systems in place, building conditions would not be as reliable as they are today. That’s why most of these systems are now enforced by the building department or the authority having jurisdiction.
2. Automating systems and processes
Building access control through intelligent systems is an example of smart building technologies that enable businesses to maximize activity and manage operations while maintaining control and visibility of all traffic and property assets. Imagine a business with hundreds of employees trying to manage building and room access without these systems, it would be almost impossible.
Similarly, automated clocking or punching systems, which record employees’ time and are centrally managed by the payroll department and managers, are examples of automated processes with the help of smart technologies that would not be as efficient if done through other means.
3. Integrating systems to improve efficiency
Building systems are often integrated to complement each other and enhance management capabilities and productivity. For example, the integration of Microsoft AD (Active Directory service) with the building Wi-Fi access is commonplace today. This integration significantly reduces the number of “forgot Wi-Fi password” tickets, allowing the IT service department to concentrate on more critical issues.
Similarly, the fire alarm system is integrated with the access control and HVAC control systems. This integration enables the automatic closing of doors and shutdown of air conditioning and ventilation units during a fire alarm. None of these capabilities would be possible without the seamless interaction of smart technologies.
4. Decreasing administrative burden by consolidating management processes in a centralized location
Most smart technologies are equipped with comprehensive user interface software, enabling central monitoring, remote supervision, and management. This is notably evident in surveillance systems for building security management, HVAC control systems utilizing BMS (Building Management Systems), and cloud-based IT systems like Microsoft Azure and others.
The centralization of these systems, coupled with remote access and management processes, facilitates flexible and smooth business operations. It reduces the reliance on a fixed physical location and opens up opportunities for remote talent acquisition when needed.
5. Increasing building operators’ awareness and visibility on systems and equipment
As mentioned earlier, the majority of smart building technologies offer central monitoring, providing operators with excellent visibility and awareness of the system and equipment. This awareness is crucial for business operations, particularly for critical systems and equipment whose failure could lead to operational interruptions, affecting the organization’s revenue and bottom line.
Various factors can trigger equipment failures, but such failures typically do not occur overnight. Instead, there are often markers indicating a deterioration in performance. Addressing these markers preventively can help avoid a complete system interruption.
Smart fault detection technologies
In the past, assessing the performance of equipment required the involvement of technicians or experts, incurring significant costs and sometimes proving inefficient. However, with recent technological advancements, equipment can now generate performance data accessible to fault detection algorithms, allowing for the timely identification and resolution of potential failures.
Smart buildings boast the capability to seamlessly integrate with diverse equipment, systems, and building assets. They can extract data from these sources and apply intelligent algorithms to assess performance, promptly notifying operators of any detected anomalies.
Smart fault detection algorithms play a pivotal role in identifying 90% or more of potential issues in systems and equipment before they escalate into complete operational disruptions for businesses. This explains the growing popularity of smart building technologies and IoT solutions as effective tools for real-time equipment management, fault detection, and performance analysis.
Our team can assist you in developing smart fault detection algorithms for your systems, allowing you to monitor equipment performance and operational status effectively.
6. Reducing response time to failure events, thereby minimizing operational disruptions
As mentioned earlier, smart building technologies can effectively identify 90% or more of potential failure events that may disrupt business operations. Unfortunately, there remains a 10% of failures that are beyond preventive measures, arising from unpredictable events such as power surges causing fuses to blow, electronic components ceasing to function, or inadvertent disconnection of wires.
Despite the random nature of these events, smart technologies offer a timely response mechanism. Operators receive instant notifications when such unexpected events occur, enabling quicker responses and ultimately reducing their impact on business operations.
7. Optimizing and standardizing business policies at scale.
An excellent example of optimizing and developing policy standards at scale is in air quality control and space comfort, which involves the facilities’ heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system, commonly known as the HVAC system.
Achieving individualized space temperatures based on each occupant’s preference is impractical, given the diversity of preferences. Pleasing everyone with their unique setpoint is unattainable. Therefore, businesses opt to establish space temperature standards at a company level. This approach allows for optimization in terms of energy efficiency while ensuring air quality and overall comfort.
Space comfort and business operations
Some businesses, such as schools, offices, healthcare facilities, and manufacturers, are heavily reliant on proper space comfort for their operations. An interruption in the HVAC system can significantly impact their revenue and harm their brand and reputation if the disruptions persist for extended periods. In the past, facilities relied on individuals manually adjusting thermostat setpoints based on complaints and requests, an inefficient way to allocate resources and ensure proper space comfort for occupants.
Smart building technologies now offer the capability to manage and control temperatures throughout a building from a central location. This is achieved through various means, including occupancy sensors, schedules, special events calendars, and the control of humidity, CO2 levels, ensuring air quality in occupied areas.
How can smart building technologies improve the business bottom line?
Implementing smart building technologies can not only have a positive impact on the overall business operation but can also help improve and protect the bottom line of the organization by:
- Increasing building energy efficiency.
- Improving business insurance premiums.
- Avoiding unexpected budget-breaking events.
- Preventing possible business interruption events.
1. Increasing building energy efficiency
Energy efficiency can be defined as output per unit of power, essentially, the more output a system produces per unit of power consumed, the more efficient it is.
While buildings use significant power consumption, some of it is essential for the underlying business operations. Nevertheless, a substantial amount of energy is wasted due to the lack of optimization of certain systems that prevents them from efficiently operating on demand.
An illustrative example is the lighting system, wherein buildings utilize a lighting control system internally, lights turning on and off based on occupancy sensors, and externally, with lights controlled through sunset/sunrise algorithms. This implementation alone has the potential to yield substantial cost savings for a building while simultaneously improving occupants’ experiences.
Save energy on the HVAC system
The heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system in buildings represent another critical system responsible for significant power consumption. Unfortunately, the HVAC system often wastes 20% or more of the total building power due to inadequate commissioning and optimization for on-demand operation.
Properly implemented smart building automation technologies can be astonishingly effective, reducing total HVAC power consumption by 40 to 55%. This translates to a substantial 20 to 40% savings off the total building consumption in most facilities. The HVAC system offers the most significant opportunities for savings, considering it accounts for approximately 40% of total building energy consumption and 70% of base building energy consumption.
It’s important to note that HVAC control systems and the algorithms designed to optimize them for power control on-demand can be complex. Implementing, commissioning, and ensuring their intended functionality often require expertise in the field.
Let our team discover energy savings opportunities. We will assess your facility’s energy profile and audit your building management system (BMS).
2. Improve business insurance premiums
Smart building technologies offer businesses another advantage by reducing the overall risk associated with the property, potentially resulting in lower insurance premiums. Various solutions, including IoT devices and other intelligent technologies, facilitate monitoring and provide notifications for critical events. For example, systems capable of detecting and alerting operators about water leaks, enabling the automatic shutdown of the water supply to prevent property damage from floods.
Increasingly, insurance underwriters are recognizing these smart systems as integral components that enhance the risk profile of facilities, leading to more favorable insurance premiums.
3. Avoiding unexpected budget-breaking events
One of the most financially disruptive events that facilities encounter involves unexpected utility bills, encompassing power, water, gas, and more.
Facility managers often undergo the distressing experience of receiving a water bill three times larger than usual, only to discover a hidden leak or malfunctioning system that has been continuously wasting water for an extended period.
Smart building solutions offer an elegant solution to this issue. Smart supervisory devices can be installed to monitor real-time utility consumption, comparing it against normal averages and detecting anomalies through intelligent analytical algorithms. These smart solutions effectively prevent the occurrence of unexpected utility bills, as anomalies are identified early and addressed promptly, mitigating any negative impact on the business budget.
4. Preventing possible business interruption events
A business operation interruption is the most detrimental event an organization can experience, as it directly affects both revenue and the bottom line. Repeated interruptions not only have financial implications but also cast a negative shadow on the organization’s reputation and brand, which, in the long term, could be devastating.
Smart building systems assist businesses in mitigating the risk of business operation disruptions by implementing mechanisms for automatic redundancy engagement, early fault detection, and instant notifications to operators, enabling prompt responses to potential events. This ensures uninterrupted business operations, safeguarding the financial health of the organization.
In Summary
Businesses that integrate smart building technologies can address issues impacting operations, productivity, and the bottom line. These technologies aid in cost savings on power, mitigate the risk of unexpected utility bills, and prevent potential disruptions in business operations.
