Owen King, senior consultant at workplace transformation business Unwork, describes how buildings are already harnessing the benefits of big data
The way companies use their office space has been transformed over the past few years.
In the past, firms tended to look at real estate as an intractable – though necessary – cost of doing business. Now there is greater appreciation of the contribution that work environments can make to business success. Occupiers are opting increasingly for buildings that offer excellent user experience, attract the top talent and are simple and efficient to run. And it is here that big data has a significant role to play.
The global stock of data is growing exponentially. According to the International Data Corporation, by 2020 some 44 zettabytes (that’s 4.4 x 1022 bytes) of data will have been created. Powering this growth are emerging technologies that are fundamentally changing how modern buildings are designed and operated.
The internet of things – the network of interconnected sensors and actuators that collect and transmit information over the internet – has seen everything from street lights to toothbrushes become connected to the internet. By 2020, according to estimates from IT research firm Gartner, there will be 26bn connected IoT devices – up from 900m in 2009.
All of these connected devices produce large sets of data that can be used to automate decision-making, increase efficiency and reduce operating costs. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, applications of IoT technologies will contribute $11tn (£9tn) to the global economy by 2025.
The installation of connected devices is one of the key applications of big data in buildings. Sensors that record data on the presence of people, light levels and humidity are already being installed in new developments.
The Edge, a 400,000 sq ft office building in Amsterdam, is by many accounts the world’s smartest building. Some 28,000 sensors detect the movement of people through the building.
In Dubai’s airport, the bathrooms have been fitted with sensors that report high volumes of traffic and the need for cleaning. This has enabled better scheduling of cleaning rotas, helping to save time, costs and energy. But more fundamental than improvements in facilities management are applications of building data that can be used to train specialist software to forecast and optimise the performance of different building systems. Neural networks are an emerging technology that use networks of interconnected processing units arranged to mimic the make-up of the human brain. Software running on a neural network can identify patterns and trends in large sets of historical data and anticipate future events.
Neural software is already being employed in buildings to enhance operations. For instance, London-based DeepMind, acquired by Google in 2014 for £400m, has shown how its artificial intelligence platform has reduced the amount of electricity needed to cool Google’s data centres by 40% through analysing trends in its consumption data.
Elsewhere, IBM has recently used its Watson cognitive AI system to analyse vast sets of data to improve building operations. The firm has a partnership with facilities services provider ISS to enable Watson to analyse data from millions of sensors installed in ISS-managed buildings. ISS will be able to use this data to optimise its services and understand how people are using its sites.
Big data applications are even being used to record the location of individual office users and how they are using space. PointGrab, an Israeli start-up, has developed a building sensor that uses video analytics to detect the location, count and movement of occupants within an office.
Insights from these devices could in time be used to measure the impact of space design on business performance. Techniques for correlating the movement and interactions that take place in an office with the development of new products and ideas are a fast-growing area of research.
Sociometric badges, wearable badges developed at MIT, can record where an employee goes, who they interact with, and the tone and nature of these interactions. At a pharmaceutical company where sociometric badges were employed, the data collected from these devices showed a positive correlation between cross-team interactions and higher sales volumes. The company then used this data to justify installing a large canteen and replacing existing coffee points with bigger units shared between more staff. Following the redesign, sales rose by $200m – more than justifying the business case for the upgrades to their office.
Technological advances are creating opportunities that were impossible to imagine a few years ago. Companies are increasingly aware of how data can be used to enhance the operations of their locations and offer new experiences to employees. Consequently, developers of commercial real estate need to be able to understand the how data is fundamentally changing the way modern buildings should be designed and operated.
Interact with King and Unwork on Twitter using @unwork
