Ongoing Monitoring is Now Essential

Today, office buildings are expensive assets that must be managed and maintained correctly to function efficiently. It is absurd that organisations spend so much money on their building portfolio but don’t continually measure the efficiency of this expensive asset.

As a comparison, airlines need to keep their planes flying as much as possible to make money. When an airline is grounded or getting maintenance, they lose money because they’re not generating revenue. For this reason, airlines are constantly monitored to avoid any unnecessary losses.

Meanwhile, monitoring the use of buildings is not a priority unless there is an emergency during working hours. With a set schedule for when it’s usually busiest, its usage and occupancy are assumed to the point where businesses might be losing money without realising it.

With this in mind, this article will discuss why it is essential to monitor buildings to ensure they run efficiently and continuously.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

A quick calculation shows that a building is generally used for 240 days, 66% (excluding weekends and holidays) a year. Assuming (conservatively) a building is used for 12 hours daily reduces the actual time used to 33%.

Said differently, only one-third of a building’s potential time is being utilised.

This information makes it easy to see why the building – and its associated expenditure – is not running efficiently. By calculating the space utilisation during this 33%, you get close to 15% usage of the building over the year.

This ends up being uneconomically sustainable and costs organisations vast amounts of money.

The Issues

Here are some of the issues organisations face with poorly managed buildings:

A Flawed Logic

Organisations see buildings as necessary instead of an environment to make the business more productive. This causes organisations to neglect monitoring and maintenance of the building, which leads to inefficiencies.

In reality, buildings should be treated as the second most costly asset and managed accordingly, with ongoing monitoring and maintenance to ensure they run efficiently.

Monitoring Technology Should Not Be Seen As An Additional Cost

Technology that can help measure the efficiency and effectiveness of the building is still seen as an additional cost instead of a strategic part of the business. This creates a fallacy that technology should only be used for new spaces or construction projects.

Instead, organisations should look at technology as an opportunity to reduce costs, increase efficiency and create a more productive work environment.

The Solution

The solution is to adopt an “active” approach when managing buildings. This means organisations should continually measure the building’s utilisation and performance to identify areas of optimization and improvement.

Sensor monitoring can be done through various devices that understand how the space is used. Readings include occupancy sensing, temperature monitoring, electrical usage, etc. (more later). The data gathered from these sensors can then be used to make informed decisions about how the space is used and areas for improvement.

Occupancy measurement can also help establish how much space is needed and can be used to inform decisions about whether the organisation needs to expand or downsize its current premises. This measure can offer a real-time view of how the building is being used and if there are any additional costs associated with unused space.

Services To Consider

Whether you want to optimise an existing workspace or configure a new space, the right company offers the technology and expertise to deliver a successful project. Businesses can get data-driven insights through these services to help them achieve their objectives.

Here are some of the primary services to consider:

Occupancy Measurement monitors how the space is used and identifies areas of optimization. For example, if your building is used for 12 hours a day, occupancy data can help you determine the actual time it is being used and identify any potential wastage. You can also receive alerts if occupancy levels exceed capacity.
Space utilisation helps identify if you have too much or too little space and make informed decisions. This can be done by collecting data on how many people use the space (desk, meeting rooms and collaboration) and measuring how much time they spend in it. One can use innovative portal maps and dashboards to visualise the utilisation data and help you make fact-based decisions.
Integration Services integrate sensors with your existing systems and applications to better understand how your building is being used. You can combine other data from various systems to achieve more significant insights.
Portfolio Health Check, track and monitor the performance of a portfolio of buildings over time. This will give you an overview of how your buildings perform across all locations and allow you to identify areas that need improvement. The portfolio health check allows you to target spending where it’s needed.

What Do You Have To Gain With Such Monitoring?

Here are some benefits companies have gained from using the services mentioned above.

Real-Time Data

Accurate time data is essential for improving the performance and efficiency of any building. We provide companies and businesses with analytics capable of monitoring space usage in real-time. This enables you to make decisions based on accurate data rather than assumptions or guesswork.

BI Tools

We also offer BI tools to help you gain valuable insights about how your buildings are used. This enables you to use the BI licence agreements you already have.

Integration First Approach

We believe strongly in an integration-first approach to building monitoring. This helps to keep your data up-to-date and allows you to combine other data sources to increase the value of the data.

Data to Support Carbon Emissions reduction and Net Zero Targets

Every organisation will need to take on the responsibility of reducing their carbon emissions and to hit their Net Zero goals. Our sensor system is a key data source to identify opportunities to help you with your ESG goals. If you don’t know what you are using you and how you use it, you can’t target reductions.

Conclusion

The way people think about buildings can’t remain stuck in the past. With the right technology, we can make decisions leading to more efficient use of space while simultaneously resulting in cost savings and carbon emission reductions for organisations.

As a company, we can help gather accurate data and advise on optimising your space. Our team of experts will work with you to ensure you get the most out of your premises and achieve your desired objectives.