With the advent of the digital age, the landscape of work has been faced with a tremendous transformation that comes with a completely new dimension of demands. Businesses need to adopt an agile and adaptive approach to succeed in this new digital realm. This is where Smart Buildings technology comes in. Smart Building tech provides stimulating and inspiring environments that maximise both individual and group output, leading to greater innovation and productivity.
Let’s take a look at how smart buildings can provide a broad range of benefits in a wide variety of markets and applications:
Primary/ Secondary & Higher Education
The enhanced mobility enabled by smart building technologies increases student engagement, facilitates educational personalization and enhances creativity while also lowering costs, improving security and overall increasing student success. Such capabilities as network-based video surveillance cameras, online help, tutoring and testing, wearables for athletics and attendance tracking, environmental control and monitoring, and even ensuring that a given student gets on the correct bus can all be part of a smart-school strategy.
Healthcare
No market is more mission-critical than healthcare, with the primary overall goals of improving outcomes, enhancing cost efficiencies and dealing with specialized environmental requirements. Smart buildings here can locate critical equipment, automatically direct and track patients as they move from department to department, integrate clinician communications with location services, monitor for environmental issues, optimize for cost-effective operations, and provide valuable data to aid in facility planning going forward.
Retail
Retail today isn’t just about having the right products available; rather, perhaps even more important are the optimal customer service and satisfaction that differentiate one retailer from another. Providing enhanced physical security, loss prevention, stock management, environmental cost management, and even in-store directions and self-checkout are all enabled via smartbuilding technologies.
Manufacturing, Transportation and Distribution
Optimal material flow depends upon location tracking, an inherent capability of the Wi-Fi network at the edge of the smart-building network. Managing and minimizing the costs related to harsh or complex environments will also be important here.
Travel & Hospitality
Facilities designed for large, transient groups will benefit enormously from the smart building strategy. Hotels can improve guest service, the efficiency of meeting and conference facilities, and manage environmental costs more effectively. Location-based services (including directions and wayfinding) are also vital in airports and other transportation hubs, and many aspects of the security so essential to modern travel are also enhanced.
Sports & Entertainment
Wi-Fi is rapidly becoming essential in sporting venues, including stadiums. Large venues benefit from the obvious, as where the nearest food vendor or restroom might be, but also to enhance the game experience with custom content such as replays, statistics, and even augmented reality. Smartbuilding strategies also fit quite nicely in smaller settings, including auditoriums, and theaters.
Enterprise
There is really no enterprise or commercial organization that cannot profit from the benefits that accrue from the smart-building approach, as we’ve discussed in this document. Extensibility and enabling seamless growth over time are key.
Public Sector
Most of the benefits above also apply to the government, and enable the concept of smart cities. Smart cities can apply a wide variety of network-based techniques to parking management, traffic control, lighting, utilities, environmental monitoring, surveillance, and, yes, even smart municipal buildings, again with improved cost-effectiveness and overall quality of life. And, finally, many of the above application areas will in addition require support for outdoor operations and services in some cases. These can include patios, parking areas, campuses, so equipment capable of performing in harsh weather conditions may be required.
If you are interested in taking a deeper look at the key benefits of Smart Buildings, download our latest Ebook.
For more information about any of our offerings, please get in touch with Jolene Strydom on jolenes@firsttechnology.co.za or call us directly on 021 525 7000.