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IoT

Five FM trends that will save you time in 2024
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In this article, experts from TAP, a leading property management software company, share five current key trends that can speed up your work and improve outcomes in 2024 and beyond…

  1. Improving efficiency through automation in Facilities Management

For Facilities Managers, leveraging technology to enhance efficiency remains pivotal—an evolution that doesn’t mean relinquishing control to robots but rather embracing software capable of automating repetitive, labour-intensive, or error-prone tasks.

For example, TAP’s property management platform is a robust system designed to seamlessly alleviate the burden of manual tasks. Our permit tool streamlines the entire permit process, starting from request initiation, progressing RAMs collection, contractor check-ins, and securely storing the associated paper trail.

  1. Unlocking the power of data in the property sector

In today’s world, data is ubiquitous, and is integral to most industries. In recent years, the property sector has begun to embrace the transformative potential of data and analytics.

The TAP platform not only collects data but also provides comprehensive analytics through an intuitive dashboard. This powerful tool reports and analyses a wide range of property operations, from identifying peak periods to monitoring permit requests on a monthly basis, and even tracking energy consumption.

  1. Empowering facilities managers with proactive maintenance solutions

Preventive and predictive maintenance strategies are aimed at bolstering building performance while mitigating unforeseen repair expenditures. Regular upkeep ensures operational efficiency and safeguards against sudden, unexpected repair costs.

TAP’s helpdesk module and its innovative analytics dashboard is designed to facilitate optimal maintenance planning. This advanced software enables FMs to strategically schedule maintenance during opportune times, reducing disruptions for tenants and capitalising on quieter periods.

  1. The rise of IoT technology

The FM industry is poised to embrace IoT technology to a greater extent in the upcoming years. The Internet of Things refers to connected devices that engage with the physical environment through sensors, facilitating seamless data transfer. Integrating your property management software with these devices wherever feasible can significantly enhance the automation of data collection processes.

  1. Sustainable benefits for commercial property management

The focus on sustainability in commercial property isn’t a passing trend; it’s an imperative that continues to increase in significance. It is also poised to become increasingly pivotal from a building compliance standpoint, with the expansion of ESG reporting and likelihood of more stringent legislation. Energy efficiency is a key focus area both ethically and economically.

TAP’s sustainability module serves as a comprehensive tool, providing an encompassing overview of a building’s energy usage, allowing for the identification of areas that can be improved.

Visit: www.tap-in.co.uk/

How IoT enables smart Facility Management
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By akenza

The landscape of IoT connectivity technologies has undergone remarkable advancements. This progression has in turn paved the way for the emergence of IoT-enabled Smart Facility Management, reshaping the efficiency of facility maintenance processes.

The synergy of IoT and FM has been progressively gaining traction, which can be attributed to both the recent advancements in connectivity technology and lower sensor hardware costs, reducing the barriers to entry. This upwards trend has been expedited by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has propelled the necessity for innovative solutions in FM.

We see everyday objects now equipped with sensors. These sensors collect an array of data points such as temperature fluctuations, occupancy patterns, and equipment performance. This data offers comprehensive insights for better decision-making. With remote work becoming the norm, along with a heightened emphasis on limited occupancy and hygiene concerns, the demand for data-driven remote FM surged.

The scope of IoT extends beyond data collection and analysis. Modern buildings have transformed to accommodate a range of use cases, each optimized through IoT integration. This encompasses innovations like the following:

As IoT technology continues its rapid evolution, the future will bring a new era of efficiency, sustainability, and adaptability within FM. With the help of an IoT platform like akenza, all sensors can be connected to one place, making the collection and analysis of data simple and seamless.

WHITE PAPER: How IoT adoption significantly transforms facility management
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The significance of proper facility management cannot be understated, as people spend 87% of their time in buildings!

However managing buildings is no easy task due to the constant demands and uncertainties that arise. The good news is that with the advancements in technology, modern buildings can integrate more connected devices and older buildings can be retrofitted at a reduced cost.

IoT solutions have emerged as a game-changer, transforming the way facility managers handle resources, access data, streamline processes, and automate service requests. Some examples of smart building cases enabled by IoT include energy efficiency through smart thermostats, lighting control, and HVAC optimization and improved space utilization through occupancy sensors and meeting room booking.

IoT platforms such as akenza serve as the backbone for smart building applications. They give the possibility to easily integrate any device, with any connectivity integration, and to trigger actions based on real-time data, giving complete control over IoT solutions.

If you want to delve deeper into the challenges faced by facility managers and how IoT effectively addresses these issues, you can access our free white paper that provides some valuable insights.

Download your copy of the white paper here.

How IoT connectivity is reaching new heights
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IoT solutions utilising SIM-based cellular technology for connectivity are not new – but the speed with which IoT is expanding, embracing ever more exciting and dynamic use cases is both compelling and creating market confusion in equal measure.

From a market which is reaching maturity – the standardised, tried and tested, M2M SIM IoT deployments – to one (e.g. 5G SIM-based IoT) which is largely in its infancy, separating between those solutions that can be bought with confidence and those where continued innovation warrants discussion and consultation, may not be straightforward. And, for these latter cases, choosing the right cellular (SIM) technology and network type will require an understanding of the technical requirements for each use case and the data profile of the asset to be connected. 

With the definition of IoT expanding almost daily and suppliers increasingly jumping on the IoT bandwagon, this is a complex landscape, requiring knowledge, understanding, and expert partnerships. Nick Sacke, Head of IoT Solutions, Comms365 explains how to navigate the maze of options to optimise and future proof your cellular IoT investments…

From M2M to 5G, a Range of Mature – and less Mature – Capabilities

Mass scale IoT Machine to Machine (M2M) deployments have been around for years, since the days of the inception of 2G cellular technology. Now bundled under (the increasingly broad) ‘IoT’ umbrella, the traditional M2M plastic SIM card we all recognise is giving way to soldered circuits inside the actual device, with data plans and automated network selection handled via software and sophisticated portals to manage the data estate. This is a mature market, with deployments that extend from payment for car washers and car valuation booths; washing machines for student accommodation, vending machines and refrigeration display units; to CCTV, access control, smart lighting, and waste bins fill levels. These M2M SIM-based services have become standardised, they are tried and tested, reliable and practical, enabling organisations to introduce the technology into their businesses with confidence.

Moving through the deployment spectrum, now using 4G and 5G where available, deployments have become much more scalable with the deployment of IoT sensors attached to machines and the bidirectional transmission of data to / from applications, allowing companies to achieve far more granular, tracking visibility and remote management of assets such as wind turbines, heavy equipment, power generation and metering infrastructure, anywhere there is signal. Rapidly expanding SIM network connectivity options now include Low Power WAN (LPWAN) variants such as Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) and LTE-M (Cat M), which have been specifically developed and incorporated into 5G standalone networks to support millions of battery-powered IoT devices in hard to reach places and are enabling enterprises to radically expand the scale of projects from Phase 1 pilots to mass deployments.

Now known as ‘Massive IoT’, millions of devices and assets can be connected and, with extraordinary innovation in sensor devices, the range of use cases expands daily. Soil sensors are being used by farmers to manage scarce water resources in remote regions; sensors in concrete structures can be used both during construction to track curing and post-build to measure compressive strain and concrete health. From water metering to air pollution, waste management and parking control, the combination of networks, devices and big data analytics is creating the foundation for everything from smart cities to sustainable agriculture. The SIM technology selected for all these use cases was based on a range of critical technical requirements including range, scalability, security and low power consumption.

Time Sensitive

Another fast developing and innovative use case field for SIM-based IoT Networks is ‘Critical IoT’, where applications such as real-time vital signs monitoring at home as an extension of healthcare require ultra-reliable data delivery and low delay in getting measurements to back-office systems (‘latency’). This application area is hugely vibrant in its development, with many technology firms delivering innovations in wearable technologies which record both vital signs (heart rate, Oxygen saturation) and location to keep track of individuals wherever they are, and allow care professionals to intervene quickly in an agile, targeted way.

This sector of the market will scale rapidly with the expansion of high capacity, fast, 5G networks, but given the need for reliable data transmissions typically across mobile locations, one network alone may be unlikely to deliver the quality of coverage required. Organisations will need a SIM-based technology option that can ‘roam’, i.e. work with more than one public network operator to hand off traffic seamlessly.

Conversely, for super-low latency, high-volume operations in fixed locations, such as industry automation IoT, private 5G is now a preferred option, offering the chance to prioritise specific data traffic flows – something that is not currently an option across public 5G networks. This is compelling for factories, warehouses, stadiums and large buildings which have poor or massively contended mobile signal indoors and cannot deliver mobile data services reliably.

Clearly, at the end of the spectrum, SIM-based cellular IoT is far more complex than the ‘plug and play’ experience we’ve come to rely on with our Smartphones, requiring design, planning and deployment by experts.

Maximising Potential

With substantial growth in IoT connectivity globally, customers are now demanding simplified contracts and service models from their providers to take care of their requirements – from low power connections for sensors, to high bandwidth applications to connect their real estate assets to provide primary and failover internet access. This is a complex challenge, especially internationally, due to different commercial agreements and service models amongst competing carriers, as well as limitations on certain types of network access on a per country basis (almost all countries have a 4G service, but 5G is a work in progress, and low power network coverage needs to be checked for availability).

Network operators need to be flexible, but have not always proven to be so, allowing the growth and development of a new generation of network aggregators and smaller service providers that are geared to cater to customer needs. Aggregators are now playing a significant role in SIM-based mobile market development and growth, particularly if managed network operators (MNO’s) are inflexible, by negotiating directly with multiple network operators to create a tailored, multi-network solution to support each use case.

There are several questions that should be asked to qualify your provider’s capability to supply IoT, including: How long is the contract? What are the data costs and do they reflect current and future data profiles? Can one network operator provide the full coverage required for all mobile assets, both now and in the future? Can the customer benefit from access to new Low Power SIM technologies including NB-IoT, LTE-M (Cat M) or other IoT connectivity types, including non-cellular, as a blended service? Does the provider offer automation tools to configure, monitor and manage the SIM-based connectivity service, including changes? Does the SIM have automated, built-in failover to a second or third network option if the primary network fails? Is the Core Network of your provider proven to be secure against external threats?

Using a confluence of different networks can be incredibly powerful as a complete solution to connect all parts of a customer’s estate, but it may require a service provider who is capable of orchestrating the multiple SIM-based technologies to acquire the right networks in the asset location and provide seamless provisioning, management and changes via automation to provide a good and reliable customer experience.

Conclusion

5G will transform the landscape for SIM-based IoT. It will provide a step change in capacity, allowing 100,000s of connections per square kilometre, compared to just hundreds today. It will offer more speed, more reliability and, in time, enable the market to provide real Service Level Agreements. But with so many providers jumping on the SIM-based IoT bandwagon it is necessary to ask the right questions to make the right decision for your use case.

This is a fast-evolving market. There is tremendous growth and vitality and energy in the SIM-based IoT area which is hugely exciting. However, in the quest for innovation, let us not forget the mature M2M SIM IoT deployments that offer huge opportunities for business transformation with confidence.

Fundamentally, across the broad IoT spectrum, it is vital to understand the use cases, applications, technologies and the commercials before making final decisions about suppliers and providers.

How the uptake of IoT at County Councils is driving efficiencies
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Local authorities continue to face mounting pressures from the government on wide-ranging initiatives, from targets on climate change, to improving social care and overhauling waste management – all with budgets squeezed tighter than ever. The past 12 months have seen tremendous interest by local governments in IoT technology solution deployments as a mechanism they can use to help meet their aggressive budget and social goals, achieving scale by addressing multiple use cases at once.

Nick Sacke, head of IoT solutions at Comms365, discusses some of the priority challenges local authorities are facing, and how IoT deployments can be rapidly rolled out and scaled to not just overcome such challenges, but exceed them… 

Healthcare and Assisted Living

There remains a singular challenge within healthcare and assisted living, which is to be able to deliver at scale affordable health and social care for an increasingly ageing and vulnerable population. Technology can be a great enabler of this by helping to automate the mapping of activities into a profile around an individual. By taking regular snapshots of what their day-to-day life is like, when they normally make a cup of tea or get out of bed, this information can be collected and mapped onto a profile, which can then be analysed and shared every day with the care organisation and local authority. This insight helps professionals to detect any potential trends and changes in behaviour that may indicate potential problems in near real-time as and when they arise, in turn, enabling streamlining and scale to operations by intervening earlier and with a targeted focus.

Targeted intervention allows expansion of existing resources, and a rapid return on investment in care-assistive technology. By flagging any issues earlier and preventing the escalation of problems while the individual is at home, the need for them to go to the hospital for check-ups or treatment is mitigated in turn, reducing pressure on the public purse. For example, if sensors detect a person hasn’t got out of bed for a while after they usually would, a carer can be sent to visit them. Without that timely intervention, the individual’s health could have deteriorated, resulting in hospital admission, or even worse. This has now been proven in field trials which have, at the time of writing, saved at least one life.

As well as monitoring the physical wellbeing of the individual, environmental information can also be tracked, including temperature and humidity. If there’s a change in such parameters, it can affect the vulnerable in profound ways. The temperature and humidity in the room needs to be appropriate for each individual need. At a basic level, this gives the patient comfort in knowing their environment is suitable for healing, but also mitigates against further potential issues, such as bacteria, infection and high CO2 levels which may enable a breeding ground for Covid-19 and other infections.

Collecting and analysing behavioural and clinical data can empower caregivers with more meaningful information, enabling them to intervene at the right time and deliver targeted individual care. Future developments in technology are expanding to biometric monitoring by putting sensors on the body to monitor vital signs – from heart rate, to temperature and even the pH of the skin, for those who are unwell to those who have exited the hospital – taking healthcare directly into the home. This provides a mechanism to help the NHS with extending their care beyond the hospital, with another significant return on investment.

Waste Management

It’s well publicised that as a nation, we are still producing far too much waste. The old processes for collecting waste from homes and public places are not efficient enough, leaving councils and third-party contractors with a huge challenge. So how can technology help?

Sensor technology can not only indicate how full a bin is, but it can help in the building of a data profile, in turn, creating an optimally efficient route to collect waste from the right bins, at the right time. These sensors can also detect temperature, to see if somebody has thrown something burning in the container, as well as the bin tipping over or being misplaced. Data profiling will provide not only a more efficient collections schedule, but also identify hotspot areas with potential problems including fly tipping.

Technology is also becoming more efficient at determining different types of waste, especially within underground storage, that can be particularly useful for recycling efforts. By deploying IoT solutions, sensors can check how much glass is in a particular container, by comparing the sonic ‘signature’ via intelligent algorithms for different types of waste materials.

IoT can also help third party contractors plan in advance by knowing how much waste they will be collecting, which has the potential to revolutionise payment models for contractors that are paid by weight. This technology will not only determine when is the best time to collect the bins, but also how much they are collecting by real-time monitoring of waste in the bin lorry itself, which can help the business to forecast revenue.

Parking

With 50,000 fewer shops on UK high streets than a decade ago, and a decline which is continuing, local authorities are looking to alternative initiatives to encourage people back to the high street. If shoppers are looking to travel to physical stores once more, the parking experience should be painless – or else they’ll just return to online shopping.

It’s estimated that motorists spend two months of their lifetime searching for a parking space – what if this could be cut down with the use of technology? What if your phone was to tell you in real-time where a parking space was? And better yet, what if you could reserve this space, or set up a subscription model to park monthly? It’s all about data collection and a better, more informed use of this data. By incorporating electric charging and disabled bays, as well as the use of innovative technology, re-engineered and revitalised parking solutions will drive revenue and provide more efficient and customer-pleasing services.

Lighting, pollution and air quality

Within the UK market, we’re seeing a big push towards creating even smarter lighting installations. The deployment of low energy bulbs has already been completed by many councils, but being able to switch on and off certain sections of the lighting estate depending on the activity can go much further in reducing energy consumption.

To do this, streetlights need to have interfaced ‘smart’ controllers that receive and transmit wireless signals to the lighting unit. The push towards smart lighting will use low power IoT networks to connect the lights, which will be undertaken on a huge scale, as even the smallest councils will enable over 10,000 streetlights. With such a focus on reducing energy consumption to meet national targets, this will soon become a priority.

As we strive towards a greener future, and with heavy regulations coming into play around air quality, there is a need for local authorities to be more proactive and involved in the health of their citizens. By tracking environmental elements such as pollution levels, CO2 concentrations in offices and classrooms and chemical pollutants, environmental monitoring will become a big part of both our indoor and outdoor future.

Conclusion

With consistent technological developments, IoT technology is advancing to meet ever more stringent challenges and requirements. We’re not only seeing an uptake in interest and the use of these solutions, but the actual technology itself is becoming increasingly adaptable, cost-effective, simple to deploy and maintain.

Hyper-efficient, agile, deployment and maintenance models are the prime focus. When an upgrade or fix is required, councils don’t want to remove it all – only a part. This means that as well as becoming more efficient, operational models and processes need to become adaptable, more automated, user-friendly and streamlined. The value of technology is now being understood, but there are now moves to make the design and deployment technology even more user-friendly, creating a better customer experience and collecting valuable data for insight. The guiding principle for deploying technology as an enabler of these more streamlined processes is simplicity and invisibility to the user, to ensure any potential barriers to adoption are removed.

Remain ‘cash-flow positive’ with Harvard Technology’s solutions…
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Harvard Technology is a pioneer in connected smart lighting solutions, developing a suite of web-based, Internet of Things enabled wireless control and management solutions for interior and exterior lighting. Installed around the world, Harvard’s solutions are delivering substantial monetary and energy savings for many blue chip clients, including Oxford Brookes University, EON and Skanska. Harvard can now deliver solutions backed by a finance package allowing clients to realise these benefits whilst remaining cash-flow positive.

E:  Sales@harvardtechnology.com

W:  www.harvardtechnology.com