Democratising data

Here’s a practical framework to help property operators get started with

Operations And Improve Efficiencies Across Portfolios

REAL-TIME visibility into building operations is crucial for property owners and operators as it allows them to make informed decisions and drive operational efficiency. However, achieving this level of visibility is anything but straightforward. There are three primary factors that contribute to poor operational visibility: the fragmented nature of the property operations landscape, the dispersed and inaccessible building data and the limitations imposed by siloed building management software. Addressing these challenges is vital for owners and operators to gain complete control of and visibility over their portfolio’s performance.

Let’s look at these problems in the context of what’s changed in the last couple of years. The role of operations and maintenance (O&M) teams has changed. They are now tasked with keeping spaces comfortable, sustainable, efficient, safe, healthy and well maintained, and the list keeps growing as buildings are expected to deliver more.

The expectations of tenants have changed: they want workspaces that are industry certified for energy efficiencies and connectivity and are flexible enough to support hybrid work models. This puts increasing pressure on building owners and operators to rethink operations.

The good news is much of the data you need to uncover useful operational insights is already available within your existing infrastructure. Making buildings smarter is mostly a matter of finding ways to connect these existing systems and unlock their full potential in real time.

Data-driven operations

Property owners are recognising the business value in viewing building data as a whole, finding patterns in it and deriving meaningful insights or KPIs in real time. And the most efficient way to accomplish this is through data-driven operations

In most buildings today, this data is dispersed in silos. Some exist in the building automation system (BAS), some in the FDD tool and others in the computer-aided facility management (CaFM) software. When this data is centrally available, it can be leveraged in so many useful ways: what if all the data across your heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems could be gathered to be viewed and analysed in real time? What if, with minimal pre-configurations, you could deploy condition-based triggers, alarm notifications or reports? Now imagine your CaFM has access to this data. You could compare real-time HVAC information against its warranty/ work-order information and optimise maintenance schedules. Imagine tailoring your BAS sequences and schedules based on this data.

By unlocking just the HVAC information, you are able to optimise for energy, equipment health and occupant comfort. Now imagine if you could do this across a portfolio of buildings – a world where all data is centralised, portfolio-level insights are available at your fingertips and all systems work seamlessly with each other is suddenly possible. But where do you start?

The most practical way to power data-driven operations is to have a platform-powered architecture that can bring together real-time information across disparate sources in one place. This platform should:

• Be built on a cloud architecture;

• Use the edge technology and connect with IP-based, open-standard protocols to seamlessly access data from the BAS or any network;

• Have built-in analytical capabilities to turn the consolidated data into insights in real time; and

• Most importantly, meet your unique business needs today and scale to power your future operations.

This platform can become the centralised hub to manage and share information that drives all sorts of operations and maintenance workflows, from monitoring HVAC performance to making informed equipment purchase decisions to controlling building automation and systems via the cloud.

While the possibilities look futuristic to us today, the technologies are actually tried and tested, and have been revolutionising other industries for decades. The Salesforce platform is one of the best examples. Built on a multitenant cloud architecture, Salesforce led the on-demand movement across enterprise use cases. It helped business teams focus less on software and more on the business. Having a centralised operations platform can empower your teams to focus less on managing data and software and more on creating wholesome and real-time experiences for your customers. And here’s how.

Insights on demand

Once all building data is centralised, it is possible to get a complete view of your entire operational scope – be it a single building or a portfolio of buildings. This holistic view allows you to understand, and eventually influence, the why behind what’s happening in your properties.

There is real-time data on the function of various systems and equipment, what went wrong and when.

Using the power of real-time analytics on top of these consolidated data sets can unlock powerful insights for multiple stakeholders. It can provide drilled-down insights into the root cause of every event, fault or condition trigger so your operating teams don’t have to spend the majority of their time putting out fires.

Having centralised data also makes it much easier to create reports and monitor KPIs. Imagine viewing energy star benchmarks, peak energy usage and total utility spend for all your properties, side by side and in real time, without having to scramble across multiple systems or spreadsheets.

Today, most core O&M functions use software that lacks real-time context and/or is disconnected from building information. A glaring example is your CaFM. Teams use it for service requests, asset and maintenance management and more. But making the CaFM datadriven is complex, including painful system integration, data extraction from dispersed silos and redundant storage.

Having CaFM capabilities on a centralised platform instead of as a siloed solution allows for optimisations such as automated work orders from alarms, proactive service resolution and optimised maintenance schedules. In most portfolios, switching to a new CaFM software isn’t an easy decision away in a silo – the BAS, the lighting, the access control system, maybe a proprietary ‘Internet of Things’ solution that only an engineer can access. to make – the best case is to integrate the data-driven operations platform with your existing CaFM and unlock contextual insights and use cases.

Historically, real estate firms were required to buy, build and maintain their IT infrastructures. While the world has shifted to cloud computing and is leveraging the power of artificial intelligence to unlock efficiencies, a major part of the industry still relies on on-premise legacy software to control building operations. Even in the case of potentially cloud-based tools, they are either deployed in isolation or with a single or limited focus.

Simplify data exchange

Without a common data model, just about any automation or efficiency-based initiative becomes a huge project with too much overhead. With a centralised platform, you can simplify data exchange across your enterprise applications and centrally manage third-party integrations. It can act as a middleware to expand future use cases at ease and share a unified context across your library of applications – without any additional integration efforts or cost.

Let’s take occupancy data as an example. We discover use cases that need occupancy data all the time. In most buildings today, this data is locked

But it’s the centralised platform approach that can pave the way for an autonomous future. It can facilitate two-way communication with the BMS – read system parameters and send commands to control system function. It can enable unified cloudbased BAS controls and become the perfect plug-and-play environment to develop and deploy use cases on the go that require changes to the building systems – without the need for painful system integration. Imagine being able to develop, browse and deploy applications for your buildings as easily as installing apps on your phone.

The future is democratising operations across your portfolio. It’s gaining the freedom to operate and optimise without limitations. It’s giving owners and operators complete control of and full visibility into their operations – and neither of these is far from reach as long as you are getting in the data-driven loop.