How Smart Buildings Are Transforming The Future of Workspaces: Ep 20

Jennifer Heath 0:14
Hello everyone and welcome. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Hybrid Hangout. I’m Jennifer Heath, Director of Product Marketing here at FM:Systems

Brian Haines 0:23
And I am Brian Haines, Chief Strategy Officer at FM:Systems.

Jennifer Heath 0:28
And today, first of all, we want to wish you a happy new year. We are pre-recording this, but by the time you are watching this or listening to this, it will be a new year. So very happy new year to you. And at the end of 2024, the last several months, Brian and I had the opportunity to participate in a number of different trade shows and industry events and speak on different webinars and panels. And we realized that our common theme every single time was smart buildings. And so we really wanted to take some of this different content, because we learned some interesting things. We had the opportunity to speak with lots of different people. We wanted to just sort of bring it all together as one kind of nice, consolidated piece with all these different angles and insights. Because there’s so many different aspects to smart building technology, it feels like we are at this really amazing moment where all of these great ideas now have available technology, things that at one time felt, you know, sort of futuristic and out of reach. In the last five years or so, I think really following the pandemic, there was such an advancement in the technology, and now we’re at this really amazing moment where we can think about smart buildings in a completely new way. So Brian, I’m going to let you kind of give an overview of what smart buildings are, and then we’re going to really dive into specific technologies and benefits and all the good stuff. So I’ll let you take it away.

Brian Haines 2:00
Thanks Jen. Yeah, the way we’ve defined smart buildings throughout this year has really been around a new class of building that is connected, sustainable, healthy and efficient. And it almost sounds when we give that definition like smart buildings are buildings that are only for new buildings, and what I’ve been doing is kind of evolving the way I think about smart buildings. We’ve got clients, especially in the UK and overseas, that have, for instance, university buildings that are probably pushing 1000 years old, and they’re using technology to make those buildings smarter everyday. Do they fit the classification of a smart building, maybe, maybe not. But the truth is, the opportunity to make our buildings smarter exists more now than it ever has. And that’s, you know, once again, making them more sustainable, making them more efficient, making them healthier and making them more connected, I think, is really the common components of the smart building. As we go in into this new year, I think I’m pretty excited about it, because, you know, it felt like a year ago, we were educating people on this topic. And, you know, maybe people hadn’t heard it. I heard about it a lot, but now, you know, going to conferences, talking to a lot of the audience, polling, doing a lot of things like that, we are really starting to get kind of a snowball of a conversation going where people are talking about it and wanting to know more, and how can they can kind of go on that, you know, that path towards a smart building strategy?

Jennifer Heath 3:36
Yeah, I think a couple of things that have really solidified for people, is the reality of and the potential for AI, and specifically machine learning. That it’s a very specific part of AI where your buildings and your systems have that ability to create those algorithms. I think that has gone from sounding like science fiction to being really realistic. People are so much more familiar now. They see AI across all their different applications. You know, your bank has an AI bot that will help you structure a budget, and it’s just everywhere now, and people can see the potential for how they can leverage that within their building operations, their maintenance strategies. And I think one of the things that’s really important, and this has been a consistent theme for you and I, is how much data is now influencing facility management in a way that- they didn’t have access to this kind of data 15 years ago, 20 years ago. Now that you have all these technology solutions, you have access to all that data that they generate.

Brian Haines 4:45
Yeah, that’s an opportunity and the challenge, right? Jen, because we as humans are not really tuned to consuming massive amounts of information. We’re not really good at doing deep analysis on massive data sets. There’s a few human beings on the planet that are good at that, but not many. Certainly not me. So what’s happening is that, as we see the evolution of smart building technologies, there are more and more pieces of equipment, pieces of hardware, you know, IoT devices, Internet of Things, devices, you know, little sensors and stuff coming in that are easily deployed within facilities and across facilities portfolios. That combined with the data that’s coming from building control systems that’s getting smarter and smarter and more accessible, combined with all of the existing enterprise data systems that we already have, like integrated workplace management solutions, CMMS solutions, room and desk booking solutions, human resources, accounting. All of that would not connect it in a way that’s easy to get insights out of can be overwhelming and sometimes inaccurate. You know, you may be using data that’s not current, or you may be using data that’s not connected properly. I think really the key is when we start applying things like AI and machine learning to this massive amounts of data, really, I think the key point that I always try to make is that AI is only as good as the data that it’s given access to, at least at this point. We may see strange things in the future that we’re not predicting or AI will discover, but the truth is, the way it is applied to optimizing facilities in real estate, it’s really about taking a significant amount of heavily curated data. This is the this is the wonderful data that people have been putting into their IWMS systems for years. You know about maintenance and space and projects, all of that data is sitting there. It’s almost like it’s been- the whole reason we’ve been doing that is that eventually we would have technology to actually extract amazing insights from that data. And we’re there right now. I’ve been talking about AI and machine learning, and I got to tell you, Jen, like AI is the new Hybrid Hangout, or the new hybrid workplace. Like hybrid work. You go to a conference two years ago, everybody was hybrid workplace, hybrid workplace. Now it’s like AI in the hybrid workplace, it’s like, you know, it’s completely clogged up, like every other presentation, and every one of those presentations is looking at it from all kinds of different angles, to optimizing, to ethics, to, you know, employee wellness. There’s just so many things. So my point being is that, you know, really AI and all this connected data when we when we apply it to optimizing our biggest problems within facilities. It really, really needs good data. And I can’t stress that enough. One of the things I’ve been encouraging my audiences to do, especially if they’re AI newbies, because it can sound like rocket science. It kind of sounds like something that, you know, normal humans and facility managers can’t get their arms around. But the truth is, it’s incredibly easy. I’m encouraging them to, like, go get a free chat GPT account, or any of the AI tools that give you the free account and just try doing something with it. It’s just kind of, it’s fascinating. You could, you could have it read your emails and make suggestions on how you can improve the tone, or give it some data and ask it to do some interesting calculations. It just, it just does it.

Jennifer Heath 8:40
Can it read my emails and tell me which ones I need to respond to? Because that will really be helpful.

Brian Haines 8:46
Well, I got to tell you the new- I forget, what’s the new Microsoft AI tool that’s now coming with Microsoft Office. It does that. Like it’s starting to like prioritize and read and learn what your priorities are. And I’ve seen it. It’s kind of fantastic. And it’s almost like acting like a personal assistant to you, to help you prioritize your day. And you know what you’ve not responded to, etc. So yeah, it’s pretty incredible. And I think we’re really at the beginning of seeing what it can do. That’s interesting

Jennifer Heath 9:24
Yeah, and I think it is such a good call out that it does feel maybe sort of intimidating, like facility management traditionally has not also been IT right? Facility maintenance, facility management, historically, was a much more hands on kind of a role, and there’s this huge shift right now, and I think it’s really exciting. I hope young people are aware of how much this industry and this career path has shifted towards technology and data and analytics. It’s really a completely different field than it was a generation ago. And I think that’s such an interesting opportunity for people who want to, for example, have an impact on the environment. That was one of the huge themes that I talked about last year, was the fact that corporate office space accounts for almost 40% of global emissions. And if that’s something that you’re passionate about, this really is a way that you can have an impact by coming in and being able to operate these buildings so much more efficiently. It’s really just an exciting opportunity. So let’s kind of level set on a few definitions and key technologies for a smart building. So kind of the primary things I think of are first, cloud based software, because you have to have that capability for integrations. So cloud based software, IoT devices to gather data points throughout your space, AI, machine learning. What else would you say? What are the other key technologies?

Brian Haines 10:58
Yeah, you definitely have to have security on top of all of that Jen. And it’s not just software security, but it’s hardware security as well, really hardening our building control systems and the systems that may be, you know, exposed to, you know, outside forces, which are not positive. So security is definitely one of the big components of that. I think workplace experience is another component that I think about quite a bit. And workplace experience is really, really broad. It could involve anything from, you know, like, say, health and wellness to safety. Safety is something that I think is obviously really up right now in terms of workplace safety, the ability. And it’s not just workplace safety from, you know, let’s say natural events, but it’s workplace safety from self inflicted events within an organization. So it’s really an interesting other component. I’ve seen some technologies recently. Johnson Controls has some technologies that use AI based imaging to identify workplace safety issues. It’s really powerful and incredible stuff. And it’s almost like, you know, you’ve heard me say this before, but, you know, I think this is an enabling technology that’s going to allow us to start thinking about our buildings more as partners than as problems.

Jennifer Heath 12:18
So let’s talk a little bit about sensors. And obviously we have talked about sensors for many years, primarily from the standpoint of occupancy at FM:Systems. We’ve always had passive infrared sensors. We partner with different area sensors and flow counter, people flow sensors. What are some other ways that you’re seeing sensors be deployed that is impacting other parts of the building, beyond just understanding occupancy, what else can we really visualize and see using IoT sensors?

Brian Haines 12:53
That’s a great question. So I have been working on, and I just delivered this presentation for the first time, a couple of times this week, around the evolution of space and occupancy planning, driven by AI. And what I’m trying to do is get space and occupancy planners, which you know I have a background in, to start thinking more broadly, and start asking questions that they may have never even thought about. And I think that’s going to be absolutely necessary, as you know, sort of the industry around space and occupancy planning gets more mature. My opinion is that utilization has been figured out. We’ve figured it out. You know, we’ve got a great tool, our insights product that allows really deep analysis of space. There’s other products on the market that are doing it quite well, using lots of data inputs from sensors like, you know, point sensors, overhead sensors, flow counters, room and desk booking solutions, Wi-Fi triangulation, light systems, all of it. It’s really quite amazing. Where I see the value of that going, and now that we’ve got utilization down really, really well, is that once you apply utilization as a multiplying factor against all other facilities and real estate operations, you start to get a whole new level of the way we think about our building. So you look at the value of space based upon how well it’s utilized. You look at the value of how much energy you’re using based upon, you know- Is my building on 75% of the time when no one’s there, could I just turn it off? So we’re starting to see that connection, Jen really connecting sort of utilization data, both past, future and real time, you know, to the building control system, so that we can start having much smarter buildings in terms of things like energy usage and reducing emissions output, lowering our carbon footprint of all the existing facilities we have on the planet. Obviously, like he said, 40% of the carbon footprint of the planet is buildings. Maybe even more than that. We can, we can just solve that. That’s a massive part of the problem, right? And we can solve that through simply turning things off when we leave the room. This is what we’ve all- we’ve heard this since we were in kindergarten. But it’s more than that, right? It’s like, bring the building down, bring the air conditioning down. Change the way we think about energy and resource utilization coming into the building. Turn the elevators off for the floors that no one’s using. Don’t clean the spaces that no one’s been at. I mean, there’s all of these things that are now getting connected to utilization, which is absolutely powerful. So indoor air quality is one, right? We’ve got all of the indoor air quality components that we measure, temperature, humidity, total volatile compounds, which are like particulates in the air, CO2, light levels, noise levels, all of that information can be applied to utilization. And I’m fascinated by it, because we’ve been doing a little bit of research that shows that those factors actually affect utilization. And I’ll talk about that in another podcast, because I’m kind of digging into it right now, and I’m kind of blown away by the fact that, like, temperature increases utilization. It’s just, you know, if you look at the data, that’s what it’s telling.

Jennifer Heath 16:32
Yeah, it’s funny. I was gonna say another data set that I have really become interested in lately is weather. Just now when you said that about you know, set the air conditioning appropriately when there’s nobody in the building. Also let the building adjust to changes in weather, because you can feed that weather data into the building and be prepared that there’s going to be a big temperature spike tomorrow, or there’s going to be a drop or a front’s moving in, it’s going to be really humid. You know, all these different things buildings can see and understand and now respond to. That’s so powerful.

Brian Haines 17:08
Now you’re getting me all fired up. I’ve been looking at all this stuff, and it’s really exciting. Our data science and AI team did a hackathon project a little while ago, and they provided that data output to me last week because I was using some of the data in my presentation, and some of it makes, like complete sense. But when they took a massive data set of weather data over like a two year period, and then overlaid utilization on top of that for like same period, it’s crazy how it correlates. It may make perfect sense, but when it rains or snows, less people come in, right? So if the building knows that it’s going to rain or snow, it can probably make a very solid assumption that utilization is going to be lower, and it can make adjustments. Maybe it reconfigures, restacks the building and turns a couple of underutilized floors off, planning on, you know, taking that into account weather data. I mean, it’s incredible, and it should be, in my opinion, part of the way we plan our space. All of this data is available to us and to make them better, so why not use it?

Jennifer Heath 18:21
Yeah, absolutely. Another interesting component related to weather is the importance and the relevance of smart building technology in responding to and managing extreme weather events. And one of the things that stood out to me, I’ve read several articles following some of those very severe hurricanes last fall, the building management teams were able to continue receiving information from the buildings, even though they couldn’t physically get on site. But the real advantage was all the data was in one place. They could immediately access the data they needed and take steps they needed to take to address challenges or proactively plan for challenges. The challenge was not getting the data, they had it. It was right there. So I think that’s another really just important benefit is the availability, the readiness of that data.

Brian Haines 19:18
Yeah, when events like that happen, one of the interesting things is that, I think a week or two ago, open blue Enterprise Manager 5.0, got released. It’s a Johnson Controls product, which is really powerful. We’re connecting to building control systems. It’s the first release that they’ve done that has AI algorithms built into it that actually allow the building control system to attempt to fix itself when there are things like pressure problems in the system and things like that, things that would have required human intervention. You know, just even before that release, right? You would have to dispatch somebody to go rebalance your HVAC system. And so it’s starting to make these decisions on its own based upon data inputs. And it tries to do that. And this is all in its, you know, it’s really in its early stages, and it’s developing, but taking your idea into account significant weather events. What if the building could automatically start preparing before you even know something’s going to happen? Because it’s monitoring the weather. It can actually monitor the atmospheric conditions.

Jennifer Heath 20:27
Right, the literal air pressure. It can feel that change.

Brian Haines 20:31
Yeah, check for things like windows that are open and automatically close them. I mean, it’s just, that’s powerful. It’s quite cool.

Jennifer Heath 20:40
And it really takes us to that concept of the autonomous building, which I think it’s kind of amazing. Neither of us have said that yet, right? Because that’s really like the North Star, you know, is that the building is able to respond and adjust and adapt independently of us.

Brian Haines 20:56
Yeah, and that’s going to require, obviously, massive learning. Because one of the things that I’ve learned by using AI tools like Chat GPT and others, is that you still have to be the adult in the room, because sometimes you get results that are unexpected or not quite, you know, maybe you didn’t phrase it right, or you asked the question wrong, or it just didn’t understand, or it made an assumption. Because it’s like a child right now, it’s learning. That’s what machine learning is, right? Like these algorithms are getting smarter based upon humans asking questions and getting results. But it’s not, it’s not perfect. So, you know, a lot of people, when I do these presentations, you know, there’s always somebody that raises a hand and says, how many jobs do you think that this was going to eliminate? And, you know, I’m still bullish about the fact that it’s not many, especially in our profession, not for the foreseeable future, simply because I think, I think the way we up level our profession, the way we get stronger, is to adapt these new tools to help us get better at what we do. I think the people who are sitting there, you know, with little yellow stickies and trying to do a stacking diagram on the wall of their office, that’s probably something you should stop doing and start looking at how data is going to give you better answers faster and I think that that’s where we’ll go. The other thing is, is that, you know, basically, I think ethically, and just from a smart standpoint, having humans checking this stuff and being there is really important. I was at the Phoenix Airport. Just tell a story really quick, Phoenix airport this week, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen I think they’re called Waymos, like the the self driving taxicabs, and they’re everywhere at the Phoenix Airport,. Like they’re competing head to head with Uber and Lyft, and they’re just and people are just jumping in. I’m like, not quite ready for that. But at the conference one did say they were fascinated by it, and they got in and, you know, they got safely to the conference and back. But this woman says she sat in the front seat because she wanted to be able to grab the steering wheel. So she was kind of like the adult in the room, and the guy sitting in the back seat said he was actually surprised how aggressive the driving was, like, he thought, like a golf cart going around, like really slowly, but it was just like making decisions and going and so they got there safely. And it’s proving out to be a pretty powerful technology that’s revolutionizing that. But once again, adult in the room.

Jennifer Heath 23:36
Got to be able to grab the wheel.

Brian Haines 23:39
Steering wheel- it’s still there, it’s not like they just popped it off and say, you have no choice.

Jennifer Heath 23:45
That’s great. All right, so let’s wrap up here and talk about kind of some best practices, like, what do you think are the most important elements? Let’s say top three things facility managers need to think about as they look for opportunities to make their buildings smarter. What do you think are the three most important to do’s.

Brian Haines 24:10
Yeah, I think the easiest, Jen and probably the low hanging fruit is energy optimization. It’s sitting there right in front of us. If we could get smarter about what’s being used and compare it to being what’s being utilized, you know, utilized from how people and assets are interacting with the building based upon how much energy we’re using. And simply get better at turning things off is huge. The other one is massive energy savings. We’ve got algorithms that show it’s tons of money, and also the ability to be able to be compliance requirements much more easily in those geographies that have requirements, like ESG, New York and California have requirements for energy use and setting goals. That’s one. The other one is, why are we cleaning things that we’re not using? I mean, just, you know, that just seems like a real simple one to me, and what it really comes down to is just more efficient operations. But you know, like I said, and you had mentioned as well. We’ve been looking at and participating in a lot of online events, but also going to trade shows. Whenever I see organizations, you know, whether it not be private organizations, healthcare, tech companies, whatever, universities presenting their use cases. They’re optimizing their space right now. They’re extending the life of their assets right now. This is not a period where everyone’s building like crazy and everyone’s saying, oh my gosh, we need a million square feet. You know? They’re taking what they have, and they’re making it operate better, and they’re making it operate longer. And the third one, I think, that, you know, Jen, I think really, the one that we’re not giving enough attention to is really around workplace experience and the fact that people are, you know, if you want to get to the bottom line, you’re more productive if you’re in a healthy, safer environment, where the air is good and you feel good about being there. I mean, that’s a huge one, right? So, yeah, so that would be it.

Jennifer Heath 26:16
The fourth one that I would add is data security and privacy and cyber security. I think that’s not specifically what we do really at FM:Systems, but it’s just a huge component of all technology that you have to have that security aspect covered. And in that regard, my recommendation would be get to know your IT team and really work to build that bridge between facilities and IT because that divide is almost gone. Facility management is incredibly technical now, and you need to have that IT backing to make sure that you are as secure as possible.

Brian Haines 26:59
Yeah, if you want to get an unwanted visit from your IT or security system internally, take a device and stick it on your network without telling somebody you’re going to put it there and securing it. It’s not a good idea.

Jennifer Heath 27:11
For sure. All right. So to close out, what would you say is the number one benefit of smart building technology?

Brian Haines 27:20
I think it’s, you know, if you go back to the smart building definition, right, and just kind of level set on that, it’s about creating buildings that are healthier, more sustainable, more efficient, you know, and that efficiency, all of those things really provide that, you know, a better workplace or occupant experience, whether or not you’re a patient, a student, an employee, a contractor or somebody who’s just visiting the building, all of those things are huge motivators and cost reduction is huge. It’s important to look at the bottom line. Reducing energy is not just about sustainability, but it’s about helping your company, maybe be more competitive in the marketplace, produce better full lift, all of those things combined I think

Jennifer Heath 28:06
One of the things that I find fascinating about smart buildings is that for every benefit for any individual piece of technology, there’s two or three other downstream benefits. Like, it isn’t one of those things where you’re having to give something up to get something over here, you can reduce your emissions and your cost and improve the air quality for your occupants. I mean, it’s like, it’s such a domino effect of positive outcomes for both businesses and employees.

Brian Haines 28:35
Agreed. It’s fantastic.

Jennifer Heath 28:37
All right, Brian, this has been a great conversation. I think you and I have had the opportunity to hear so many people and talk to so many people. It’s great to bring all this great content together in one place.

Brian Haines 28:48
Yeah, it’s always fun Jen and I appreciate the conversation. Just really terrific to go into all the stuff that we both feel really quite passionate about.

Jennifer Heath 28:56
Absolutely. All right thank you so much everyone for listening, and we’ll see you next time.

Brian Haines 29:02
Bye.