The Benefits Of Smart Facilities Management

Most people aren’t aware of the countless processes, tasks, and efforts that must go into creating safe, efficient, and enjoyable places to live, work, and leisure. In our modern age, technology is constantly evolving, and our priorities are evolving with it. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an even more heightened focus on efficiency, sustainability, wellbeing, and connectivity.

In a society dominated by connection, many services are driven by customer experience and expected to be near instantly accessible. As the demand for seamless experiences continues to grow, so does the need for technology that enhances productivity, safety, and customer satisfaction.

When it comes to facility management, there is an increasing demand for preventative maintenance, remote monitoring, and efficient and usable spaces. Smart buildings are one technological solution that is positively impacting both owners and occupants alike.

What Are Smart Buildings?

A smart building is a facility that can be utilized in order to improve operations. Smart buildings are often enhanced with IoT and AI capabilities. A smart building is connected and controlled through technology developed to control building services and automate processes including but not limited to security, lighting, air conditioning, and mapping. This is achieved through both wireless and wired technology as well as a network of sensors and data points that collect information into a database, taking the guess work out of facility maintenance and control.

What is Smart Facilities Management?

Smart facilities management (FM) is the integration of processes, systems, and technologies used to improve the management of a facility. Smart FM can look quite simple or extremely complex, depending on the focus. Smart facility management involves creating an IoT network, collecting data, and using it to identify data trends. Those trends are then able to drive positive change and improvements.

Why Smart Facility Management?

Smart FM is a technological solution that gives facilities managers the necessary tools and insights to adjust the environment based on the needs of employees, customers, occupants, or company expectations. Smart FM can positively affect both people and processes, create change, support data-driven decisions, and improve outcomes. Smart facilities management is about using technology as a means to an end, and becoming better for it.

As the economy shifts from traditional industry silos to integrated digital ecosystems, it also shifts the interest of building owners to cater to varied customer experiences. When businesses prioritize customer experience, they open the door for endless opportunities to create value and build on it.

Any Building Can Become a Smart Building With the Right Technology

Collecting data is arguably the most important piece of transforming a facility into a smart facility. From indoor mapping to monitoring all building operations, data collection is key to developing solutions. Using AI capabilities and referencing this historical and real-time data can lead to improved experiences for occupants and employees, enhanced preventative maintenance, and reduced costs.

Smart Facilities and the Workplace

Smart facilities and integrated workplaces are the future. Artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) allow buildings to go above and beyond in optimizing facility management, and even provide infrastructure for digital workspaces.

What Typically Makes Up a Smart Building?

• Sensors: Sensors are used for point-of data collection and measure quantifiable actions. For example, a person may walk past a sensor and in turn trigger it to turn on a light. Or, the air conditioning could be triggered to turn on from the sensor that is a smart thermostat. These actions then become data points that are then studied by the employed technology and facility managers. More sensors mean more insight on how the workplace runs and what can be improved.
• Beacons: Beacons are organizational tools that tie together all of the data collecting sensors and relay the data they’re transmitting.
• Applications: Applications turn the information gathered by sensors and beacons into meaningful data. Applications compute data to make it readable and provide extensive and automatic insights.
• Automation: Automation applies to processes and data alike by determining the process of responding to collected data. Automation works by reading the data from an active sensor, like a thermostat or motion sensor, and performing the automated response based on its programming. This may look like labeling an area as occupied on an application when its sensor is triggered. These IoT connections make automation both beneficial and necessary.
• Infrastructure Free Applications for Smart Facilities: Although most smart buildings have physical infrastructure like sensors and beacons, the insights and action plans are digitally rooted in applications and automations. However, some aspects of smart facility management can even be infrastructure free.

GoodMaps is an infrastructure free indoor mapping application. GoodMaps Studio provides a customer portal where venue owners can access and edit their digital maps in multiple views: 2D floorplan, 3D model, and LiDAR point cloud. Within the portal, owners have the ability to maintain/edit point of interest (POI) data. Common POI data includes room names, exits, stairwell, elevators, escalators, restrooms, water fountains, first aid kits, fire escapes, maintenance/electrical closets, and more.

The GoodMaps Advantage

• More Simple: GoodMaps requires no infrastructure or Bluetooth beacons in a building. Others install dozens of beacons, which are costly and require maintenance. By utilizing LiDAR and image recognition, we provide fast and accurate maps of indoor spaces at a fraction of the effort and costs.
• More Usable: GoodMaps brings digital maps to life, delivering value immediately for your venues and those who use them. GoodMaps creates apps, free of charge to the user like a person who is blind or first responder, that allow the user to actually use the map.
• More Accurate: GoodMaps positioning technology comes within a few feet, while other companies’ accuracy varies between a dozen and 30+ feet. For people who are blind or a first responder, this improvement in accuracy makes digital maps actually usable.
• More Secure: GoodMaps Studio allows venues to control who can access what information about your space. What parts of the map can be accessed by the public? Employees? First responders? You decide. This control is essential for the safety of all those who use your space.
• A Competitive Edge: When it comes to facility management, customer experience and efficiency go hand in hand. Technology that enhances accessibility and connectivity results in an improved interactive experience for customers, while helping the workplace perform better as a whole at the same time and ensures a more seamless experience for all.

To learn more about the GoodMaps advantage, visit us at goodmaps.com.