We’ve all heard of the advertising slogan, “Pork, the Other White Meat“. Well, in the Internet of Things, we have the other “I" in IoT.
When we see, hear and mention IoT, we immediately think the “I” refers to the Internet and rightly so, it does. However, there is another “I” that gets lost in all the jargon. This “I” sits quietly behind the scenes in a true IoT environment and is equally as important and deserves its place in the spotlight.
Buildings and facilities can achieve superior performance by extracting insights from data. When it comes to data, it is one thing to have access to data, it’s another to make it actionable.
Accessing data from existing building automation systems is critical to any smart building project. The advent of standardized protocols have taken us from the initial challenge of connectivity to our equipment systems to the new frontier of data management and the end to end processes involved in effectively utilizing our data. Challenges remain in the areas of data collection, processing and integration of data from diverse systems and devices. Add to this, the techniques and methodologies for managing, presenting, analyzing and deriving value from this data.
Building automation architecture is continuing to flatten as more devices directly connect to networks and edge devices are becoming more intelligent. These devices are performing data aggregation, data integration, and routing directly to other devices and value added applications. Today’s devices are equipped with faster processors, more memory, a selection of connectivity and capacity options to support a variety of applications with the ability to go beyond simple connectivity to include configuration, management, data storage and device-level application enablement.
I recently participated in a leadership discussion for corporate real estate executives and building owners and operators. As part of my talk, I discussed 7 Impact Drivers that are driving today’s commercial real estate, buildings and facilities. Here are excerpts from this discussion.
Digital transformation is continuing to change and reshape our business world. Just as the industrial revolution revolutionized entire sectors of the economy, so is digital transformation. It is changing the landscape in which buildings operate today and will continue to do so.
With all the customer and partner discussions I’ve had over the past many months along with our company’s product development path, one thing has become clear, IoT is here and it’s a journey.
IoT is having a real impact by changing how products and solutions are created, refined, serviced and delivered. It is changing the way we operate our businesses and the way of doing business. IoT is changing how customers see the businesses they do business with. And from a digital transformation perspective, IoT is pulling together people, systems, and things at a rate we have never experienced before.
