The built environment has been changing dramatically over the past five years. Technology shifts along with changing value propositions are making an impact on how we operate and manage our smart buildings. Our dialogue is no longer about the potential—rather it is about the reality of economics through driving operational value and business outcomes. The business of smart, connected commercial buildings and facilities has moved beyond the unknown and into the new era of real and relevant.
One of the biggest change agents we’ve seen over the last few years has been the emergence of more flexible, open workplaces from traditional office spaces. With this change has come the importance of the occupant experience—the workplace environment and its effect on overall occupant productivity and wellness.
We have come to understand there are new ways of looking at comfort, productivity, and the utilization of space. We are creating better spaces that promote employee well-being and healthy environments that are responsive and engaging to the people who work in them. In addition, we are coming to realize the health and well-being of occupants isn’t just the purview of human resources anymore. Owners, operators, facilities managers all play an important role in ensuring that employees who work in their buildings are healthy, happy and active.
As another year approaches, many will speculate what the built environment will be. While it is never easy to predict with certainty what is likely to happen, I believe as we prepare for 2019, we are in the golden age of advancement in building automation innovation.
The pace at which technology and innovation has impacted the commercial buildings industry over the past several years has been unprecedented. The proliferation of more powerful connected devices, IoT, the increase in the use of sensors, the ability to capture data from different sources, the increased use of advanced analytics, have created an exponential rise in the volume, velocity, and adoption of these systems. It has also produced a multitude of new choices.
“Change, you know, has a subtle quality. It comes upon you quietly. It creeps, and you continue to pleasantly operate based on old and comfortable assumptions and premises until suddenly, change explodes opportunity in front of you. And you are totally unequipped to deal with it because your ways of thinking, your concepts, your techniques, are all geared to an age that is no more!”- Author Unknown
At points in our lives, we encounter things or experiences that strongly impact – and even alter the way we act, the way we think our choices and preferences. Whether we see them coming or are taken by surprise, in hindsight we realize that these “change agents” led us to a way of thinking or doing something that might have otherwise passed us by. Without them, we’d be going about our lives as is.
When it comes to commercial buildings and industrial facilities, we are surrounded by change agents that are being driven by customer needs and requirements; business issues they are faced with and must solve and specific outcomes they are looking to deliver. In addition, the pace at which technology and innovation has impacted the industry over the past several years is fueling change agents.
