Category: Digital Transformation

In the past couple of years, asset performance management specifically in the built environment has seen unprecedented traction. Every leading facility management leader is talking about it everywhere and not just that, even started by making strategic initiatives and moves. In this blog, throwing a spotlight on this different perspective of APM leading to multiple definitions of “Holistic” Asset performance strategy.   

Trying to cover as many definitions or angles to call APM strategy a holistic one or it’s simply everything that comes under the much-hyped word “holistic”

It all started with the mission to improve equipment or asset reliability. Unexpected downtime and sudden breakdown of the asset have cost dearly to FM teams not to mention the discomfort it has caused to tenants and end customers. Hence the movement started to improve the predictability of the asset operations. With IoT and smart communication technologies, it becomes easier to monitor every critical piece of equipment in the facility such as HVAC, elevators & lifts.          

Then came the era of cloud computing and analytics making data processing even faster and cost-efficiency. Software as a service model changes the way facility management applications were sold and consumed in commercial real estate space. Mobile technologies came up as the icing on the cake. However, in this whole journey, there were a lot of technology trends, misconceptions, and biases that came in and affected the decision-making abilities of the facility manager, portfolio head, and property owners resulting in ad-hoc decisions of investigation in building technologies.  

According to Andy Daecher, Deloitte’s report “asset performance management (APM) can do more than improve maintenance. By connecting systems across an enterprise, it can deliver insights to optimize operations, safety, and drive financial results”

This really broadens up our understanding of Asset performance management and relates it with other functions of FM (useful while coming up with ROI calculations) Deloitte’s report also noticed that ‘many firms still see APM as simply an advanced maintenance management system, leading to many siloed APM programs, both in insights derived and benefits delivered’ 

Aveva, a leading technology company shares a similar view on APM ‘True digital transformation requires upgrading APM from an asset-oriented approach to a system that holistically connects Engineering, Operations, and Performance. That’s APM 4.0’

It also emphasis on the process, people and system while building an APM strategy which can be elaborated in the following steps. 

• Establish APM framework including Process, People, Systems, Data and Culture
• Review current state and set industry benchmarks to create goals
• Create a customized plan that prioritizes business goals
• Align plan to digital transformation business case (ROI) 
• Align asset strategy by balancing cost, risk, and performance
• Add task insights to an asset data model and continue to refine your plan

Based on the discussions we have had with technology providers and CTOs form top FM firms we can say that an ideal APM strategy combines Information technology (IT) and operations technology (OT) to provide maintenance teams access to the data lake to create maintenance strategies, ways to move from planned preventive maintenance to a predictive one. While teams can advance in forecasting maintenance timing they can also look into life cycle assessment. 

SAP’s intelligent asset performance management strategy does exactly the same. It believes in managing asset performance across asset life cycles to consistently monitor, review, and improve. SAP uses a six-step continuous process for asset strategy: Define, Identify, Analyze, Recommend, Implement and Verify. Which is an extensive mechanism to track every step from fault detection to corrective action.  

In one of our Discussions with Derren Mccredaie, head of estates, Sodexo healthcare, mentioned that ‘asset reliability is the key here, as well as higher functionality of the asset and low vulnerability of the systems. when these three aspects meet with resiliency then you get a great holistic asset performance management strategy.’ 

Of course, energy management and life cycle monitoring is something that has to be there to identify and reduce the losses.

Once your team finalizes what they want to drive from a Holistic APM strategy, the next question comes up as to how to select the right vendor for the same? Well in one of our earlier articles we have described how to plan for APM trials that cover setting a hypothesis, selecting an ideal site, and choosing the right vendor/s for the trial.  

We hope this article has given you a clear understanding of a holistic Asset performance maintenance strategy that you can use to improve operational efficiency at your facility. 

We have always been reinforcing a fact that an ad-hoc technology investment particularly on O&M wouldn’t solve the strategic problems. In fact, it will only create the next one. A long-term strategy that aligns O&M’s tech stack with the company’s broader digital transformation goals will have to set in place.

Recently, EY came up with a survey report in collaboration with CRETech, the survey is about the leading decision-makers in Commercial real estate space including technology providers to facility management firms.

Interestingly, the survey report focus on two critical aspects – Disconnect between the technology provider and a real estate owner and between an owner and a tenant, mind that this is how any CRE technology has to navigate to reach the end-users or facility occupants. Naturally, it has to go through multiple tests in between its ideation to final employment.   

Automation to leveraging data

Tech Implementation can be divided into small parts of the transformational journey, which can touch upon cultural, behavioral and capacity building aspects of the firm. Forward-thinking facility management firms have realized that they need to automate certain processes to eliminate manual errors and provide a seamless experience to tenants, hence there come smart visitor management, workspace management applications.

According to the survey, 69% of respondents are ging high priority to Technology as a strategic agenda for the future, while 61% of them have already adopted one or more technology tools (although the adopted tools are in an early stage of their development)

These facility management firms also need to leverage their internal and external data (asset to work orders, financial to sustainability-related) to make better investment and operating decisions. Explore new revenue streams to diversify their business. This is particularly true when other tech giants are already making moves in the smart building management industry.

Reasons for the low adoption rate?

Things have been working out well for property owners as well as facility management firms as there were no external or survival pressure to reduce operations cost or maintain sustainability standers as they are experiencing now. 

The report also pointed out various reasons why the tech adoption is limited to management and system automation tools and marching slowly. Cost and ROI are still the main drivers for any system implementation. 

Second, comes the required skillsets to work with such tools, both technical and change management. 53% of the survey respondents recognize that they do not have the required tech talent. 

Applications need to find out ways to make Operations and maintenance staff feel secure and comfortable around them. 

Three approaches to long term tech strategy

The report also builds upon the survey responses to come up with strategies to increase the rate of successful tech implementation. I know you might recall one of our popular blog series on planning and implementing asset performance analytics trials which share similar strategic suggestions.  

1. Develop a technology strategy:

“We had lots of false starts before we finally got onto the right path of implementing technology the right way in our business,” said an Australian REIT.

A facility management firm’s technology strategy must align its tech architecture with the digital transformation strategy. The ideal strategy should also focus on Improving integration, interoperability and interdependency among various business processes. And most importantly should provide flexibility for the faster rollout of new technology. It shouldn’t take a long time to decide on risk/benefits equations while testing new applications to optimize asset performance management.

2. Build Tech Implementation strategy:

According to the survey, 58% of respondents say new systems do not integrate easily with their existing tech architecture. Pointing out the need to change their IT or business process to implement new technology.

It’s a known fact that the smart building management industry lacks fully integrated horizontal and vertically developed solutions that perform asset management to workflow automation to workspace management tasks on a single platform. It’s both a good and a bad thing as it provided endless customization choices to the end users it also increases integration complexities.  

Well planned implementation strategy can help FM teams test out new tools periodically and set up high evaluation standards.

3. Develop a sourcing plan:

Building a required solution or buying from a tech vendor can be a difficult decision, for trial purposes this shouldn’t be a big concern but for scaling it to multiple sites then the decision should be based on certain factors. It could be a strategic or functional move to source it from 3rd part so accordingly cost and ROI should be evaluated.   We have elaborated this decision-making process in one of our earlier blogs Build vs buy – where to start? 

The report also highlighted the change that now technology providers and real estate owners working together to create products that have the potential to be commercialized. There are multiple startup incubators run by FM firms such as CBRE India’s Proptech challenge, Aldar properties (UAE) scale-up program, or JLL’s IDEAs initiative. These programs evaluate and co-develop GTM ready software products/IP solutions.

Besides these three strategies change and transformation management is also difficult areas many FM firms need to work upon. Attracting and Upskilling the existing talent pool should be a priority as firms are facing a scarcity of quality talent from mid to top-level management. 

So which of these strategies are most relevant to your team? Let us know your experience with adopting aa new tech applications. 

Two weeks ago, we witnessed one of the most amazing and thought-provoking gatherings of the CRE fraternity. Yes, I am talking about the RE:Connect event where we got the opportunity to conduct 9 Sessions ranging from sustainability, asset performance management to an ideal technology stack for the future of FM. 

It’s so refreshing to know when you come out of one of the most difficult (read opportune) years for the real estate sector and meet with people who share the same passion for technology and solutions. 

Thanks to James Dearsley and the team at Unissu for organizing such an event which was not only different in terms of overall conference experience but also the content we were able to discuss.

At Xempla we were fortunate enough to host our session in 3 different categories: Property and Facility Management in a Digital Age, Digital Twins, and Sustainability & Energy Efficiency. Thanks to our guest speakers from Serco, Engie, Sodexo, and Embassy group for sharing their thoughts and valuable insights with our listeners.  

When you have all that content to share it becomes difficult to digest all at once. So I just wanted to highlight some of the overarching thoughts and ideas we picked up from our guest speakers.

Get Clear on what you want to achieve from the transformation

Bart Holsters, GM Engie started the discussion by questioning people’s intent to go for technological innovations such as big data, AI, MI in that case. 

He also stressed the part that people should be very clear on what they want to achieve, whether it’s energy reduction, better asset management, or tenant management accordingly they should set the roadmap and select the right technology or applications that help them to thrive and achieve.

Digital company or people’s company

When most of the conventional companies are projecting themselves as tech or software companies to stay relevant Paul Bogan, CDO Serco suggested believing in your firm’s core values and identity

Contrary to popular beliefs, Paul highlighted the fact that they are people’s company and never want to move away from the cores. He also mentioned that they are great at partnerships and driving values for their clients by bringing the right people or the technology for the right job. 

While he agrees that Digital transformation is here, which means leveraging technology to draw value across the supply chain will become the key differentiator, he also believes that they are known for their core business capabilities which can be maintained without diverting resources on something that they can simply outsource or partner with great tech companies.

Find the missing link in data analytics

Chirag Boonlia, CTO, Embassy group shared his view on what’s missing in the current state of building analytics:

“The first and foremost part of the solution is that you must invest in data acquisition. You should have quality data at the required frequency. Then put the context around it and convert it into information, convert that information into a knowledge base, and feed it to your design and building activities and then use that as wisdom for making the roadmap. This entire journey is not followed clearly”  

Similarly, for the technology vendor or partner ecosystem, they should be able to put their skin in the game. If they are confident about the saving then make it on paper. That accountability and responsibility are missing. 

Searching for an ideal Technology stack

According to Paul, finalizing the ideal tech stack is not an easy job as the optimization of the stack depends on too many things.

But from an idealistic point of view, the architecture of the Tech stack should be comprised of the following aspects.

• It should be an enterprise solution that can understand, manage and configure asset information
• End to end mobile capabilities to minimize errors in capturing asset conditions.
• Life cycle modeling has to be there
• Inbuilt or plugin option for thor party asset performance management applications, sensors and IoT applications.
• Should be available in both clouds and on-premise applications. 

Holistic asset performance management:

There are multiple definitions and view on APM strategy but according to Derren Mccredain, head of estates, Sodexo healthcare, there are three critical aspects of APM that should be there in the applications. 

Asset reliability is the key here, as well as higher functionality of the asset and low vulnerability of the systems. when these three aspects meet with resiliency then you get a great holistic asset performance management strategy.

He continued by saying that, In general, I don’t think we have embraced the technology as disrupters or innovators would do. In my experience, we still rely on the manual process rather than going digital. In most cases, the service delivery model is inefficient that emphasizes manual work delivery. 

It’s important to demonstrate the values/use cases of APM and pursue those who are higher on the ladder. 

Wish I could cover more on the insights our speakers shared with us, but you need not worry about it, for the full coverage of the discussions you can check out our dedicated blog section for the facility management fraternity, FM Times

A digital twin, is a virtual representation of a physical asset that is functionally similar to its physical counterpart. It integrates all of the organization’s digital information on a specific asset or piece of equipment with real-time operating and data streaming from the asset while in use.

Technology companies and service providers are promising wonders with the digital twins for every inflating market expectations. This sudden growth in interest for digital twins made us think, are the facilities ready enough for the shift? Specifically when facility managers are facing tight budgets, limited resources and other unforeseen challenges?

In this session, Umesh Talked about how digital twins can help Facility management teams make decisions in a way that is faster, better, and cost-effective. 

What’s driving the Uptake?

Facilities are much smarter now as they are filled with operational and performance data, we can point out there are three key elements that are driving the need for a virtual replica of the physical assets

• Connectivity: with the uprise of IoT sensors and devices we have abundant data available on assets and processes, not just that but also the cost of sensors has decreased over the last couple of years contributing to the fact that they are easily available and affordable now.
• Business model: The adoption of cloud-based saas applications has incrementally improved the accessibility of any new feature or function to the existing client making tools more relevant as they go.
• Facility management connects – Digital twins probably be the one megatrend that can help FM teams bring in sustainability, asset management & Operational strategy initiation under one radar. 

While it’s all true that twins have the capability to show a clear operational path to FM teams, it’s also important how they are taking it? As per our observations, people have taken it in a complex way.

Start with Simple Operational Twins

First, decide what you want to achieve with the twins, Umesh suggests FM team can always start with the simple operational things which can give you data and predictive insights on energy efficiency, maintenance, etc and later as it evolves you can have a 3D visual entire outlay as well for additional use cases.

He continues by saying that “When we at Xemple started our journey of creating an operational team we have in mind to create it in a way that is super convenient for the O&M team and not just for the corporate teams.”

Possibilities Twins can open 

Before gaining confidence on the twins or investing entirely on the evolved one you can test it on simulations :

• BAU Simulation: create BAU scenarios on real assets and run them all on an operation twins something that is normally ran on designed or static data. Here you have an opportunity to run it on a scale on live asset data or even facility-level data

Thinking about a Complex site that has multiple assets can be an ideal site to start with simulation without disturbing the existing process, helping you design or modify your energy efficacy strategy and also help in maintenance optimization. 

Making twins work for O&M teams:

Umesh explained when they started working on operational twins, to lay down the problem statement thy focused on three critical aspects:

Are the O&M team know what’s happening on the asset level

• How the operational team can help them know that unknown, things that often missed by conventional FDDs

Can it explain the unexpected behavior

• Can the operational twins identify the underlying cause behind the unexpected asset behavior?

Where to print the next steps

• Can the operational twins suggest to O&M twins what to do next? Or alert on the trend that’s been happening which can be fatal in the future.

If the twin is able to answer these questions, then you are on the right track and you can develop further on making it 3D for better visualization or the different use cases.

Anyways ideal twins should be able to do that without any manual interventions.   

Umesh later explained how he looks at building an ideal digital twin starting with simple-looking but complex Air handling units (AHUs)

He also shared the detailed case study where they considered 100+ AHUs across three different geographical locations and facility types just have a mixture of the different asset management processes and monitored them over the period of 3-6 months to come up with phenomenal results. You can access the detailed video on the operational twins’ case study here.

In case you want to know more about how your FM teams can be benefited from this operational twin you can schedule a call with him.   

Whenever we talk about the Facility management software, the first and foremost thing that comes to mind is the CAFM system, in a transition from in-house asset management to asset consolidation and then outsourcing for the Integrated asset and facility management, CAFMs systems have also evolved or rather created whole new categories such as CMMS and IWMS. 

In the past couple of years, we have seen boundaries of CAFM and CMMS are getting wider and in some places getting overlapped as property owners or FM teams are using it for work order management as well as monitoring critical assets. And as a requirement for the integration grew up we facilities started relying on the IWMS platform which basically brings in all the different aspects of facility management on a single platform and provides 3rd party plug-in applications to utilize the centralized data sources to provide a unified property view. 

Umesh Bhutoria in his session on ‘Moving beyond CAFM and CMMS’ highlighted the transition facility management firms are going through and suggested ways to prepare to maintain their edge over competitors.

What’s next IWMS+ or IWMS 2.0

Since Gartner published the first magic quadrant on IWMS in 2004, we have seen humongous changes in terms of communication devices, data processing capacities, analytics, and a completely different set of tenant’s expectations.  

So to highlight the change:

• The need for granular level occupants data has increased
• Addition of multiple IoT platforms/applications
• The structure of Operations and maintenance contracts have evolved from resource to performance-driven. 

Umesh ponders on this question whether we still need to search for IWMS+ or IWMS 2.0? One that is an extension of the original version or the completely net set of tesh stack.

FM can’t leave technology to service providers

Now if I look at the current state of data management in facilities there are multiple stakeholders involved to manage it. From property owners to 3rd party application vendors everyone owns the piece of pie and that’s going to be there for a long time. One simply can not command the entire data architecture and that’s good for all.

There are big and small technology companies that are trying to get into the picture by offering exclusivity or cost-efficient solutions and trying to build the tech ecosystem around their solutions. They can be a serious threat to facility management firms if they still operate in BAU conditions.

Need to rethink on Technology stack 

With all the complexity of various stakeholders involving in the data and software landscape at different capacities, FM’s have three options to move forward:

• Cant survive if betting on a lower price
• Integrate Energy management, sustainability into the product portfolio 
• Strategic involvement with business heads to get new business opportunities into M&V, Project manager, etc    

Umesh Highlighted that the differentiator becomes how you use the technology with your team and the processes.

Now with the changing structure of contracts are getting signed, addon focuses on sustainability and energy efficiency targets as well as the availability of the cost-effective technology to acquire, process, and interpret complex data sources facility management firms to need to prepare their tech stack which can be flexible enough to serve various types of buildings and at the same time scalable enough to help teams build on it in the future.

Way forward? 

To conclude the session Umesh suggested there are three ways a strategic team can plan for the change without disturbing the original business processes.  

Making the stack a part of the service delivery model

• Instead of waiting for the client to come up with the request, FMs should include it as a part of SDM with a calculated risk. Take 2-3 sites and make trials possibles

Challanges BAU process

• Until you get the confidence on the stack or SDM run a parallel challenger process with BAU, run it for 10-12 months then evaluate both based on effort, impact, and economics and then move ahead with the right one.

Long Term ROI:

• Short term RoI does not need to hold back any of your Challenger BAU processes. Let it run for the longer-term ROI 

Now you might have several questions in your mind, How to plan for the Challenger BAU process, where to start for the trials, and what aspects should be looked into? 

Well for all those questions you can refer to our ebook on planning and executing Asset performance management trials. Or you can schedule a call with Umesh Bhutoria (Founder, CEO Xempla) to learn more about it.   

Perhaps one of the most noticeable changes in the recent times, especially in the CRE industry is the way to look at building resiliency and leveraging technology in the most cost-effective way. The facility management teams are now far more prepared to tackle the changes and consolidate their business offers to their clients in a way that can help them reduce operational cost while maintaining the comfort factor high. 

Obviously, this is also one of the best opportunities when in search for the most suitable application and tools that can deliver the intended job starts. Some of the FMs are adding new products/services offering into their portfolio by developing them in-house while others are sourcing from their global counterparts.

We thought this could be an ideal ground to strike up a conversation around it and try to understand what’s really brewing in the minds of CXOs. How to look at the applications and tools while building a tech stack? Build, buy, or both?

Sharing  the key takeaways from the RE:Connect session where Umesh Bhutoria Founder, CEO Xempla discussed with Paul Bogan, CDO Serco, ME.  discussed about the tech stack and being ahead of time

Digital company or People’s company

We are living at times when every company regardless of the industry or geographies are working at it’s best to leverage the technology and portraying itself as a tech company. This phenomenon has further accelerated where more and more SaaS startups are tending to appear on the unicorn list. 

But, contrary to popular beliefs, Paul highlighted the fact that they are people’s company and never want to move away from the cores. He also mentioned that they are great at partnerships and driving values for their clients by bringing the right people or the technology for the right job. While he agrees that Digital transformation is here, which means leveraging technology to draw value across the supply chain will become the key differentiator. He also believes that they are known for their core business capabilities which can be maintained without diverting resources on something that they can simply outsource or partner with great tech companies.

COVID as a catalyst both for the FMs and their clients to take on digital

Prior to covid, the facility management firms were driving the digitalization and it was largely a one-sided push as an industry initiative. But Covid has stimulated the much-needed start for the clients who are now looking for digital applications and tools to reduce their operational cost, maintain assets, and keep their facilities safe and hygienic. 

So now the end customers are driving the demand for the digital transformation which is not just limited to the front desk or workplace management applications but also the data-driven asset management tools.

Ideal tech stack: Mobile capabilities, lifecycle modeling, and scope for asset performance management 

According to Paul, finalizing the ideal tech stack is not an easy job as the optimization of the stack depends on too many things. For example, where is the site is located? Is it a brownfield or greenfield site? What’s the existing data infrastructure? Is it too complex or non-complex? Whether the solution is already provided during the contract or FM team needs to develop upon it? All of these limitations or constraints one needs to consider before starting on a tech stack. 

But from an idealistic point of view, the architecture of Tech stack should be comprised of the following aspects.

• It should be an enterprise solution that can understand, manage and configure asset information.
• End to end mobile capabilities to minimize errors in capturing asset conditions.
• Life cycle modeling has to be there.
• Inbuilt or plugin option for third party asset performance management applications, sensors and IoT applications.
• Should be available in both clouds and on-premise applications. 

An ideal tech stack can undermine the cost factor to differentiate itself

When asked whether Paul sees an ideal tech stack as a differentiator or just a commodity, he instantly replied, “it definitely works as a differentiator in most of the cases if not now then soon it will be”. He continued “if you look at asset management, it’s not just about the asset but the economical value that can be drawn from it” so the clients don’t just want facility management services, they want to understand how they can use their data to drive extended economical benefits, and they want better certainty where the CAPEX and OPEX should be in next 3-5 years.     

This is all possible only if you are able to provide them the right stack to leverage their data assets. It is much easier to work with partners or clients if you do not have the master and slave relationship that often exists when the cost becomes the differentiator.   

As far as Serco’s Middle-East business is concerned they are focusing on partnerships and strategic alliances with tech leaders such as Microsoft and Amazon for cloud capabilities and data management. Moreover, in the long run, they might rethink their strategy based on market position and internal capabilities. On concluding the discussion, Paul suggested that there are multiple options available for all sizes and types of Facility Management firms. It’s up to them to identify what their coping capabilities are, how much they can build on themselves, and what’s the right time to bring it from the 3rd party companies.   

Do you think your organization can relate to the above discussion with Paul? What’s your ideal strategy for the Facility Management Applications? What are your thoughts about getting started with asset performance management solutions?

Schedule here a discussion with Umesh Bhutoria (Founder, CEO Xempla) to learn more about the tech transformations related to Asset Performance Management in the CRE.

Out of the many technologies invented or pioneered by NASA and later popularised for industrial and manufacturing sectors, Digital twins is one such, that holds tremendous potential for the commercial real estate sector. 

Although digital twins as a concept is well understood among industrial sectors, it is comparatively new to the commercial real estate (CRE) industry. Post pandemic we are witnessing a lot of initiatives towards the technology due to its remote management capability and connected features. CRETech companies such as Thoughtwire and Willow have even claimed that this will be the game changer and clear path forward for the smart facilities. Technology companies and service providers are promising wonders with the digital twins for every inflating market expectations. This sudden growth in interest for digital twins made us think, are the facilities ready enough for the shift? Specifically when facility managers are facing tight budgets, limited resources and other unforeseen challenges? 
To define a digital twin, it’s a virtual representation of a physical asset that is functionally similar to its physical counterpart. A digital twin integrates all of the organization’s digital information on a specific asset or piece of equipment with real-time operating and data streaming from the asset while in use.

Digital twin technology offers facility managers and operators a unified view of their data assets improving asset management efficiencies while saving time and money. Not to mention it also strengthens their path to achieve Net-Zero targets

Fundamentally, Digital twins impact on three different levels 

• Data system unification level
• Asset/device level
• Space and workflow level

Data System Unification

The digital twin utilizes the information collected from different sources such as design or floor plan data from the Building information system (BIM), real-time asset data from the Building management system (BMS), and other IoT and automation systems. 

Standalone asset operations

Operational data of individual assets with the context of occupancy and asset history can help to create a virtual replica of the asset that can predict different scenarios where manual or automatic interventions are required to better manage the network.  

Space and workflow level

Space management based on occupancy and asset capacities can be simplified with the 3D model of the facility that estimates cooling requirements and suggests different sitting layouts for optimum utilization of the space. 

Quick assessment test 

But before opting for the digital twins there are questions that need to be answered and a foundation that needs to be built, which is missing in most cases.  

• What data is necessary to get started? Availability, volume, storage, and transfer-friendly 
• Does this in line with the other system/platform Integration?
• What do we have to achieve with this and when do we expect to see the results? Define your use cases and impact metrics first.

Let’s assess some of the building blocks that are needed to lay the foundation for the digital twins  

1. Data:

As the name suggests, a digital twin is built on the availability of digital data for fault detection diagnostics to deliver precise predictive foresight. Unavailability of correct data at required intervals may hamper the accuracy of the insights.

2. Connectivity: 

Having data in silos would not serve the purpose, a complete access to facility-wide asset, workflow management data on a single platform is necessary. The team should ensure the enabling applications and tools are in place for end-to-end data collection and sharing.

3. Analytics and 3D modeling :

How to run real-time simulations or draw insights from them? What portion of the facility asset needs to have virtual footprints? 3D modeling allows simulations to be run against the physical asset.

4. Use cases: 

In the end, every new investment starts with the dependable use case in mind, when it comes to digital twins we find that it’s a culmination of various technologies working in synchronization,  Process optimization, facility uptime, Predictive maintenance, tenant satisfaction.

Here we should note that, except for the 3D modeling of asset simulations, all the building blocks provide an important primer for the asset performance analytics applications. (we can call it a middle ground between BMS and Digital twins)  

However, two aspects that differentiate digital twins from any other asset management methodologies are 

A) Visualization – The ability to virtually monitor and assess physical assets 

B) Simulated modeling – Test virtual models under various conditions and make the appropriate changes in physical assets on a real-time basis. 

Now we have the idea of what is required to build the digital twins so let’s examine the step-by-step approach of the maturity spectrum to build one.

Steps to build digital twins

Step 1: 2D, 3D model of the physical asset – Object-based data including surface and shapes.

Step 2: Tagging asset information such as material specifications, inspection reports, and asset management information

Step 3: Connecting real time dynamic data – with the help of IoT and sensors, linking real time parameters of the physical asset with the digital one

Step 4: Two-way interaction – developing the feedback loop of physical and digital assets where any changes in either one of them can be reflected in the other’s behavior. 

Step 5: Autonomous operation and maintenance – over a period of time, digital twins evolve from a human-controlled to a system driven O&M with the help of AI.

Organizational Objectives:

Although the steps are not linearly placed to suggest the complexity involved in the development or the value creation, each step does address a particular use case and if we have a clear objective in mind before starting we can stop at any step with definitive outcomes.  

If visualization of the critical processes/assets and simulated modelings answering ‘what If’ questions are on your organizational agenda then the digital twins is your answer. If not, you can comfortably settle with the asset performance analytics applications and move upward as and when the requirement of virtual twins is there.

To conclude our assessment we can definitely say that there are a lot of things that need to be in place to lay the foundation for the digital twins. In fact, it’s not necessary for every facility to have a digital replica of its assets. But an organizations needs smart building technology solutions. If the organizational objects are being met with the asset performance analytics applications then they are in good hands.

Want to know more about Asset Performance Strategy for CRE? Attend the virtual session Re: CONNECT organized by UNISSU (sponsored by Xempla) on Jan 07th, 2021 REGISTER HERE

Starting an analytics POV is a great thing, congratulations to you and your team for getting started! Now that you have set up your hypothesis and formed a right team to own the POV trial, let’s focus on how to ensure that it turns out to be successful and leads the way for future implementations. 

Many great applications do not see the day of the light post trials, why? Because teams often do not put enough focus on implementation and execution of the POV trial. We can look at the implementation as the probation period for any application/technology on the shop floor. As it is the first time you are introducing it to the O&M team, you should observe how they react to it? What insights do they like the most? How does this POV help you to get the fundamentals clear?

Based on our experience we are trying to enlist a few aspects that you should be looking for during the execution period.

Acknowledge gaps in processes

Although POV trials are focused on a specific use case(s) in mind they do provide hints on other areas as well. Sometimes a lot of introspective insights point towards a maintenance (or any other) activity that could have been done better or the delay in taking the actions or even an inaccurate data capture. POV trials should be able to call for basic hygiene checks.   

Manage the initial change:

Anything that changes the existing hierarchy of the information or action flow will have to be observed carefully. The introduction of a new application to your O&M team will make some cultural challenges as well. As your team starts using the application/platform, it will start getting various insights and recommendations on the operational behaviour of the asset, maintenance schedule, and energy usage, etc. Some of them are purely transactional in nature while others will focus on transformation aspects such as simplifying the data flow architecture or maintenance practices etc. How your team reacts to them and makes changes in the planning or operations schedules is going to be a crucial part of this POV exercise. (Perhaps this podcast on change management would help you prepare better)

Cross validate the Insights

Don’t just blindly trust the insights that the new application is providing you. Go back to your team and apply

the possible reverse engineering techniques or cross calculate the legitimacy of the insights. This may take

time but mind that this is a one time exercise to ensure accuracy & reliability of the insights and should be

performed thoroughly.

Be agile, get others involved as needed:

As we realize some of the insights would call for the involvement of different teams for collaboration. For example, if a maintenance team has an insight on AHU’s performance and wants to further invest in data acquisition to be able to capture the data on a granular level then they should involve the IT team well in advance so that they can test the communication protocol, feasibility etc. and make the appropriate changes in the data flow architecture. 

Similar to this there will be numerous occasions where an implementation team (the one which is responsible to take care of the POV trial) will have to communicate with IT and maintenance teams. The success of the trial greatly depended on the inter-team communication. 

The trial should be able to align the individual objectives of the different departments with the organizational goal and if it can do that then there couldn’t be a better win than that. 

If you like this article and found it insightful enough to share it with your peers then don’t hesitate a bit! Are you planning to introduce an asset performance management application to your O&M team? Not sure how to start an asset performance analytics trial? no worries refer to the previous article.
Want to know more about Asset Performance Strategy for CRE? Attend the virtual session Re: CONNECT organized by UNISSU (sponsored by Xempla) on Jan 07th, 2021 REGISTER HERE