Coronavirus has forced many building owners to reassess how their buildings work. How many people can safely work there. How to maintain a pleasant working environment. This article looks at software that can help.
What is Entelligently?
Entelligently is a workplace environment management system.
It connects people to a building, making it more comfortable for the residents or workers. In doing so it helps to control energy costs and improve the wellbeing of the building users.
What problem does Entelligently solve?
Buildings never quite behave as the original owner or architect intended. This is known as the building performance gap. Sometimes remodelling the building interior has a negative effect on overall building performance.
Often changes made to a building end up making the occupants less comfortable. I’m sure we have all seen offices with post-it notes covering the light sensors, or paper covering the blowers.
There has been an increase in regulation for sustainable buildings. Entelligently can help you to meet the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard and Breeam.
The other issue is that buildings are usually designed, fitted out and managed by men. This often means that the workplace environment is set up primarily for the comfort of men. Women can feel too cold in the average office environment and floor-based blowers often do not work well with skirts for obvious reasons.
Entelligently helps you to solve all these issues.
What does Entelligently do?
Entelligently gathers data from 3 sources.
- Internal data from the Building Management System or individual sensors
- External data from The Weather Channel and other data providers
- Data from building occupants via their smartphones.
Entelligently dashboard
The starting point is the easy 3-click capture of your comfort. The system records any issues (too hot) and what you did about it (opened a window). This regular record of comfort is what builds the Entelligence. The system can then start predicting the most comfortable range for you personally.
Once the range for each occupant is captured, Entelligently then uses the local weather forecast to predict the likelihood of the comfort level being breached.
A particular room or zone can be assigned its own identity and the most comfortable setting for that space can be identified based on feedback from those using it.
This enables Entelligently to get to know how the building behaves and create tolerance thresholds for the occupants. Over time, the more you use it, the more intelligent it becomes. Soon it is able to take action. It can issue recommendations to a BMS to automate an action, a facilities manager, or to the occupants themselves.
How does it work?
Flexible and easy to deploy, Entelligently is available as SaaS or can be embedded within your existing software via API.
The system is BMS agnostic. It provides an external decision support service for a facilities manager or for the BMS itself. Data collection is secure and uses MQTT & NodeRed to bring all the connections together into a Cloudant NoSQL database. The prediction engine uses IBM Watson Analytics.
You can embed the capability within your existing intranet portal. There is also an app module you can deploy if preferred.
The status dashboard can be displayed on monitors throughout your site. It makes a fascinating talking point in your reception to display your employee care and energy-saving credentials. You can also use ‘big button’ feedback systems based in your offices or reception.
What are the proven benefits?
Trials have demonstrated benefits in both energy management and in staff wellbeing.
Research from PCSG shows saving of up to 20% on energy costs. These savings are probably dwarfed however by the costs saved through better wellbeing. A recent British Council for Offices report declared the value of lost productivity due to poor buildings to be on average between £1900 and £2200 per individual.
The future roadmap
Capability is currently focused on office buildings. Future updates will see functionality that will enable use in wider markets including shopping centres, hotels and universities.
With integration into partner solutions, you cam manage the changes required in building management due to Covid-19. Many buildings are being redesigned to have less occupancy. Entelligently allows these solutions to regain control of the thermal load within these remodelled spaces.
How to get Entelligently
Entelligently can be integrated within your existing facilities management suite via API. It can also be deployed as a stand-alone solution if necessary.
It costs £10 per occupied desk per month for each floor within a building in which it is deployed. Alternatively, you can buy a license to permanently deploy Entelligently across your organisation.
Ask your facilities management or BMS provider if they can add Entelligently functionality. If not then call us on 02392 160640 to arrange a trial for your own building.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks