Data provides view of property beyond physical structure
The pandemic has meant that the world has been at a bit of a stand still for the past two years and this has been reflected in the way buildings are being used points out Elisa Rönkä, global head of SaaS (software as a service) sales, digital buildings, Siemens Smart Infrastructure.
“Everyone has focused on the return to the office and then, painfully, realised that it didn’t happen as was expected and we have another delay,” Rönkä said.
She said that while organisations are now looking into investing in digital or smart real estate it is clear that connectivity and remote operation, would have been of tremendous value over the past two years.
‘Digitalisation’ has become a buzz word but Rönkä warns that it is not just a question of acquiring masses of data. She explained that the different data sources, field devices and structural data of a building can be combined with real-time sensor data or system data. But, “how do you derive applications that actually benefit the operations that are being done inside that building?” she asked.
“Technology is important, but the technology itself is not the main thing, it’s the value that you derive out of it and for that you need some kind of intelligent applications, analytics, actionable insights, that can produce business impact or well-being impact or whatever the impact is that you want to achieve within the building.”
She added that buildings should not be considered as just physical structures. They are “interfaces between people and the environment.”
“We really need to rethink real estate completely and not only look at the physical structure and not only think about the optimisation of the physical building but we really need to see it in the context of the city, in the context of the business and in the context of the individual.
“That’s when actually we can start talking about smart buildings and smart infrastructure.”
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