With the changing time and the workforce slowly getting back to work, office workplaces are undergoing major transformation. With the proliferation of digitisation and connectivity, there is a significant change in work-life expectation and demographics. Remote working, personalization of space and greater influence of individual experience and ROI are the new norm. Lack of overview, increasing operational costs, few resources, tighter budgets, aging infrastructure and higher energy costs demand a different way of thinking about workplaces – their operation and maintenance. With digitised building operation customers can leverage the strengths of IoT, Cloud and Big Data. Combined with existing facility data, this gives a better overview to prioritize budget and resources, optimally. Sanjay Sudhakaran, Vice President, Digital Energy, Schneider Electric India in a candid chat discusses with Jayashree Kini Mendes, Editor, Manufacturing Today India, smart workplaces and the latest offering from Schneider Electric to help buildings adopt to the new norm of contact-less operations and predictive maintenance.
What is the new offering from Schneider Electric to make workplaces smarter?
Schneider Electric’s latest offering to make the workplaces smarter is the EcoStruxure Building Advisor – which is a unique combination of analysis, support, targeted consulting, and maintenance. It is BMS agnostic, non-intrusive and provides a detailed view of infrastructural equipment performances and diagnostics. This is an exclusive Digital platform offered by Schneider Electric which is unique in nature, IoT enabled, Open and Interoperable. It delivers impact in four areas.
– Space Optimization
– Employee well-being
– Employee experience, and
– Operational efficiency
Schneider Electric also offers the EcoStruxure Workplace Advisor which is a suite of flexible digital services offered to create smart offices and help employees connect to their smart offices in efficient, convenient ways using mobile apps. It helps employees manage their meeting rooms, block space, regulate temperature etc, and in turn enhances productivity and reduces facility service costs.
What are the key benefits of the EcoStruxure Building Advisor?
This platform helps extend and maximize asset life.
We can look at asset life improvement from two distinct directions:
• Usage: By analyzing how equipment is operating and comparing that with the ideal operation, the system can identify operational improvements that ensure that equipment is only utilized as much as it needs to be. By reducing overuse, the effective life of equipment can be increased.
• Maintenance: By driving plant maintenance from an analytical perspective, there is a fundamental change from timed intervention to change in behavior intervention. This leads to early identification of issues and early resolution to an increased number of events. By catching symptoms early, we can reduce the amount of unnecessarily wear and tear.
How cost effective is this platform?
This platform helps reduce operational cost. Using an analytical tool can enable a better understanding of the operation of plant equipment. By comparing real world operation to an “ideal world” digital twin, the system can provide recommendations that improve operational efficiency and decrease cost.
Is this solution sustainable?
Sustainability is at the core of Schneider Electric’s DNA. Everything we do involves responsible environmental practices. This solution too promotes implementation of responsible environmental practices by significantly enhancing energy efficiency in day-to-day operations.
It maximizes cost efficiency and reduces energy consumption:
Building Advisor is a flexible solution that is aimed at ensuring the best utilization of available and/or limited resources. By utilizing advanced analytics, the system can automate preventative activities and help prioritize actions that will drive value within the building.
Optimizes and improves quality:
Building Advisor drives improvement in efficiency & effectiveness by ensuring that the right actions are taken at the right time. Giving visibility of where specific issues are and how the building can deploy the right resources with the right equipment, at the right time. This helps reduce repeated intervention and unnecessary delays in corrective action.
Reduces consumption of Energy, Water & Waste:
Building Advisor helps priorities actions that will support the reduction in unnecessary utility spends. By identifying operations, faults or over-use, the system enables data-based decision making to ensure intentional spending.
How does this solution manage resources?
The Building Advisor analyses behavior of equipment over time and gives a clear view of how the plant should operate. A change in behavior can indicate equipment failure. By knowing what the issues are before physical intervention, the system enables better planning of interventions including parts, provision, shutdown and skills planning.
Through this platform, how is Schneider Electric planning on engaging with its customers?
Schneider Electric will offer KPI Focused Engagement with its customers, through this platform. The operation of the Building Advisor MSaaS (Managed Software-as-a-Service) offering is focused on the delivery of value in three key areas: Utility Cost Reduction, Maintenance Improvement and Improvement in Occupant Experience. Within the tool and reports, there is a clear prioritization and cost impact for all identified diagnostic results. Providing a prioritization and cost impact to each of these categories, the maintenance team can ensure that efforts are focused in the right places, that is focused on activities that add the most value.
