Smart buildings deconstructed at the Facilities Show 2019

Lars Henneke, Global Commercial VP of Digital Energy Services at Schneider Electric will hold a seminar on ‘Tangible approaches towards smart buildings’ at 12:50pm on Tuesday alongside Erik Jasper, Director of Strategy and Innovation at Planon.

On Thursday at 11:55am, Jimmy Sohal, Sales Director for the Facilities Management channel, presentation is titled ‘smart workplaces - people, technology and the built environment’ and will look how facility managers can future-proof their investments.

Based on their combined experience and expertise, the two will discuss:

• The meaning of ‘smart’ - the integration of digital technologies with buildings is often called the ‘smart buildings’ trend. However, there remains much disagreement over the exact definition of ‘smart’ or ‘intelligent’ infrastructure. To fully understand the benefits of smart technology, facility managers must know what it’s capable of and what they want to achieve
• How to leverage the benefits of ‘smart’ - buildings generate a huge amount of data, all of which needs to be refined and made sense of before it can be used. This is a difficult first step for facility managers, but it’s made easy with the right analytics tools
• How to adopt ‘smart’ technology - Digitisation has its benefits, but it can’t be achieved without a fully functioning digital ecosystem behind it. To be successful, smart buildings need to be connected to smart businesses

“Over 60% of the buildings that will be standing in 2050 have already been built. With the growth of smart buildings, it is no surprise that facility managers today are under increasing pressure to be more IT-savvy. This shift poses several interesting challenges, but primarily on how to deal with mountains of big data,” said Lars Henneke, Global Commercial VP of Digital Energy Services at Schneider Electric.

“At the Facilities Show, we want to explain the benefits of breaking down silos and connecting all of a building’s most important functions. IoT technology and control software and applications can improve occupant experience, reduce costs and increase output. The event is a great opportunity for us to communicate Schneider Electric’s vision of what a smart building should be” he concluded.