The facilities management (FM) industry is now the epicentre of two defining characteristics of our time: digitalisation and sustainability. While these aspects encompass every industry, they are foregrounded in FM operations, especially in innovation-driven, future-ready economies. In recent years, Emirates has doubled down on real estate-centric investments and initiatives as part of the larger economic diversification agenda. The efforts have borne fruit, with Dubai now featuring among the world’s top smart cities, ahead of sprawling urban centres like Paris and Seoul.
Following the pandemic outbreak, however, there has been a visible paradigm shift in FM operations, with stakeholders increasingly integrating existing building systems through IoT solutions. The shift transcends run-of-the-mill digitalisation and sustainability measures; it is more structural, decisive, and informed. While the pandemic-related effects – change in occupant expectations, shrunk margins, low productivity, supply-chain disruptions, and reduced labour – did play a role, the adoption of IoT and AI technologies for integrated FM is being driven by the stark reality of the real estate sector’s footprint: About 30% of total global final energy consumption and 27% of total emissions.
Integrated FM: Positioned at the intersection of technology and sustainability
Buildings are much more than towering concrete structures; they are complex networks of HVAC, lighting, plumbing, and electrical systems. As often as not, such systems operate in silos, particularly in old buildings. So, facility managers have no option but to individually maintain, optimise, or replace such systems. That necessitates more labour, resources, and time. If, say, an HVAC system is underperforming, there is no way of addressing it until the inefficiencies compound and it fails. Thus begins a cycle of reactive repairs, associated downtime, inconvenience for occupants, and negative experiences, not to mention excessive energy usage and related emissions. IoT integration turns such vicious cycles into virtuous ones.
IoT integration of multi-vendor systems enables FM operators to centralise building operations and maintenance. The unification of systems-wide data under one roof and subsequent analysis provide operators with granular insights pertaining to equipment performances, energy utilisation, inefficiencies, etc. Acting on such intelligence, FM operators can drill down to the root causes of excessive energy consumption, proactively address them, and ensure optimal efficiencies. In fact, IoT integration of HVAC and lighting systems alone can lead to measurable sustainable transformations because they account for nearly 70% of energy usage, on average, in multi-family buildings and mega CRE facilities.
Future-proofing buildings through command centre
A command-and-control centre is the hallmark of integrated FM. Its utility is not limited to optimising energy usage and efficiencies; the applications go beyond as far as real-time monitoring, programmability with new technologies, and, most importantly, compliance with regulatory requirements. The real-time visibility into portfolio-wide systems helps FM operators accurately provision for labour, workflows, inventory, and vendor appointments. Such capabilities translate to optimal upkeep of facilities, leading to occupant satisfaction. FM professionals can thereby ensure the facility’s desirability in highly competitive real estate markets such as Dubai.
An IoT infrastructure is, by design, highly programmable and interoperable. So, as and when new technologies emerge, operators can seamlessly integrate them into existing infrastructure without causing disruptions or silos. At a time when the FM industry is witnessing a plethora of technological advancements in automation, PropTech, AI/ML, etc., the ability to adopt them seamlessly and stay ahead of the curve is incredible, to say the least. Manual processes such as cleaning can be optimised through robots, and ML-based adaptive sensors can be deployed to automatically detect, diagnose, and rectify issues cropping up in building systems.
Several such virtuous cycles of proactive maintenance and optimal performances can have a significant bearing on a building’s operational costs, asset lifespan, energy savings, and occupant experiences. Operators can unlock quantifiable sustainability outcomes in buildings while simultaneously reducing costs – an enticing proposition in the current, low-budget operating environment and amid growing scrutiny of the real estate sector’s carbon and energy footprint from regulators. Therefore, it is unsurprising that integrated FM is finding takers among stakeholders in the real estate community. The broad consensus is that a command centre in buildings can be as instrumental as a central nervous system (CNS) in the human body. There is no better analogy to sum up the limitless possibilities of integrated FM.