Define, Design, and Deliver a More Effective Smart Building Strategy
Part Two of Four-Part Series
Smart buildings promise building owners and their facilities managers a number of advantages when it comes to building operations. Yet too often these systems fail to live up to that promise, and instead prove burdensome to monitor and maintain. However, when smart technology falls short of expectations, the problem is rarely in the technology. More often, it’s a problem of too much technology and too little strategy guiding its application.
A successful smart building strategy must begin before the building design phase, by defining the user experiences the technology will be expected to create. When building systems are designed and integrated around desired user experiences, the resulting technology is easier to manage and provides easier access to the data that makes a building smart.
In this article, we’ll explain how experience shapes an effective smart building strategy – and how to think bigger about the experiences your technology can bring to life.
How user experience shapes smart buildings
Our buildings are full of technology solutions with which we interact. Consider, for example, what happens when a nurse arrives at a hospital for work. After scanning a badge at the door, the nurse proceeds to an employee lounge. As the lights turn on in the otherwise empty room, the nurse clocks in, ready to begin the day. This entire process might take no more than a minute. Yet in that minute, the nurse has badged into an access control system and a time clock, walked beneath a surveillance camera, and triggered automated lights to come on in the break room. Within one minute, a single individual has triggered action from four separate building systems. This does not account for systems, such as heating and cooling or air purifiers, that may run independently of the nurse’s presence. Together, these systems shape the individual’s interaction with and navigation of the building.
Once building operators recognize the multitude of ways that building technology shape a user experience, it is possible to become more intentional in creating specific user experiences. This understanding flows into a design stage in which technology systems can be integrated to create a streamlined, easy-to-manage platform that performs in line with expectations for smart buildings.
Clearly defining every user experience is essential for driving a smart building strategy forward. When the smart building strategy is first defined, no technology is installed for the sake of technology. Instead, technology is applied solely to enable specific user experiences.
Identifying your building users
Any given building might be subject to action by dozens of different user types, and each of these individuals will have a unique user journey, potentially with its own unique enabling technologies. Therefore, the first step in designing a smart building strategy is identifying all of the individuals who will interact with the building.
The first obvious user is the building owner. Any specified technology must align with the owner’s values and goals. For example, an owner-operator may be more committed to solutions that reduce operating costs, achieve sustainability goals, and align with corporate or institutional objectives. A developer, on the other hand, may prioritize technology that hones their competitive edge in attracting tenants within their market. Understanding the purpose of the building from this perspective can be a significant driver of technology strategy.
From there, building users will vary depending on the facility type. For example, a hotel’s users may include guests and visitors, as well as front desk attendants and retail employees, housekeeping staff and restaurant employees, facility managers and building engineers, and the multitude of vendors supporting these offerings. No matter the building type, there will inevitably be some overlap in user experience. Everyone will use lighting and HVAC systems and elevators. However, some actions will be unique to specific users.
Once all potential experiences are defined, a smart building consultant can begin to determine how these users will interact with the building. From there it becomes possible to determine how the building should react to its users.
Where user experience and building systems intersect
User experiences might fall under any of the six key areas where technology systems impact building performance. The definition of building system criteria offered by UL Solutions’ SPIRE Smart Building Assessment™ provides a starting point for understanding how technology can shape user experience.
According to SPIRE, the following criteria define the scope of smart building performance:
- Power and energy: These operational systems track energy use and provide analysis, but also account for a building’s interaction with demand response, grid interoperability, and distributed energy resources.
- Health and wellbeing: These systems manage indoor air quality, thermal comfort, visual human comfort, light and noise control, potable water quality, and odors.
- Life safety and property security: These systems enhance building users’ situational awareness while supporting emergency communications and building emergency plans.
- Connectivity: These systems ensure users can access the world beyond the building. Connected systems must account for security, coverage, and expansion and demonstrate resilience.
- Cybersecurity: With more technology comes greater cyber risks. Cybersecurity systems protect infrastructure, but must also include practices that identify threats and enable protection, detection, response, and rapid recovery.
- Sustainability: Potentially a combination of the technologies meeting the objectives listed above, these systems can be measured using criteria provided by leading global sustainability programs.
Technology serving any one of these areas has the potential to help facility managers lower operating costs, increase the value of assets, shape an environment that enhances occupant health, safety, comfort and productivity – and more. In many cases, multiple benefits can be achieved using fewer systems than installed in conventional buildings.
A defined user experience achieves operational goals
By organizing technology around user experience, technology designers will be able to more readily establish the level of integration and data aggregation needed to achieve specific operational goals. This is largely because a holistic approach to technology, one that prioritizes integration across systems, and reduces the potential for siloed data and redundant systems and sensors.
In conventional buildings, lighting, mechanical, plumbing, and other systems gather data that is sent to separate control systems. Even in instances where building automation systems bring certain system information into a single “pane of glass,” seemingly unrelated systems may still be managed and data analyzed separately. As a result, it becomes difficult to get a complete picture of how user actions impact overall building operations. However, smart buildings can give facility managers deeper insight into what’s happening in their buildings by bringing all of the pieces together.
With this more holistic technology approach, facility managers can more easily lower the costs of operations and maintenance. Among other things, smart buildings can deliver information on how much energy is being consumed at given times and compare it to occupancy patterns, HVAC and sunshade use, and a range of other data. This data can be used to automate energy-saving performance. It can also prove invaluable in dramatically lowering operating expenses. With estimates attributing as much as 80% of the total life cycle costs of a building to operations and maintenance, compared to 20% for upfront construction costs, it’s clear smart building investments can quickly pay for themselves.
Well-integrated technology can also alert facilities managers to potential failures or issues before they occur. This enables a shift to predictive maintenance that allows facilities managers to plan for costly equipment replacements on their schedule and reduce system downtime.
A more holistic technology approach also helps facility managers shift buildings from cost center to value-adding asset by delivering a more valuable experience for building occupants. For example, personalized rooms can welcome hotel guests, hospital patients, or desk-sharing officer workers by name and return to preset temperature and lighting preferences. Systems can provide transparency into how a building is progressing on sustainability goals or meeting health and wellness objectives. These actions can turn a building into an asset that attracts users and builds valuable brand loyalty – but only if systems are in place to meet these users’ defined expectations.
Well-defined experiences create financial opportunities
The return on a smart building investment has typically come through the technology’s ability to lower overall operational costs. More intangibly, smart buildings add to their ROI by attracting higher-end tenants or inspiring greater brand loyalty among visitors who desire the experience your building provides. However, building operators are also discovering that integrated systems can unlock opportunities to generate new revenue.
For example, making a switch to low voltage systems that power everything from lighting to Internet gives building owners the opportunity to own their network cabling and lease it back to third-party service providers. Owners can contract with third-party providers using a revenue-share model that allows the provider to deliver services that the owner can bill tenants for directly. Additional fees can be added for advanced features as additional services become available in the future.
Because today’s emerging smart building systems enable two-way communication that allows building operators to rapidly act on the data delivered, it’s easier than ever for owners to participate in local utilities’ demand response programs. These programs deliver a new stream of revenue when operators proactively reduce their energy consumption at utilities’ peak operating times. When facilities managers can easily make changes to HVAC setpoints and schedules across a regional footprint, they can compound gains through more rebates.
Conclusion
Smart building technology offers countless advantages in how buildings operate. In fact, it can be overwhelming to identify all of the potential use cases. A smart building expert can help building owners and facilities managers prioritize investments and determine which technology solutions will be most beneficial in developing a strong foundation for future additions.
This expert can also design the level of integration necessary to ensure your technology delivers the user experience you expect, as we’ll explore in our next article.