3 Key Benefits of Utilising a Smart Workflow

3 Key Benefits of Utilising a Smart Workflow

Although many businesses understand the value of smart building technology, they might find their productivity and efficiency has not increased to their desired levels after they adopt it. Reviewing the processes of building stakeholders with the goal of enhancing their daily workflows, reducing bottlenecks and maximising infrastructure is the key to achieving optimised building and end-user operations. 

Previously we covered the growing pressure for building owners to enhance their digital stakeholder experience, providing insight into the need for employing a smart workflow to leverage an infrastructure’s value. In this article, we will analyse the main benefits in more detail.  Below are some key examples of the advantages of employing a smart workflow.

1. Enhanced Occupant Experience

By implementing workflows connecting occupants with the building systems, the occupants become embedded with the property, becoming more efficient in the workplace and loyal to their tenancy.

An example of increased end-user interoperability is a patient who wants to make a booking at their hospital. Using a smart workflow, the patient can make a booking online, which will trigger a visit request via an integration platform at the building, it can then send the patient an email asking ‘do you need parking?’ if the answer is yes, the system can reserve a park and provide secure access via the patient’s licence plate.

The workflow has mapped the entire user journey to create a seamless experience. This process can be tailored to any industry.  Other examples that improve the tenant experience:

Improved Amenities – Workflows give better interoperability for occupants to point out faulty amenities to be fixed faster. 

Smart lighting systems  When tenants swipe their cards to enter the building, that can trigger the lift to take them to their floor, eliminating the need to manually enter the floor number. If that tenant is the first person in the building, the card swipe at the entrance can also trigger the lighting and air-conditioning on their floor, reducing power when the floor isn’t occupied and reducing the labour of manually setting up the lights.

2. Reduced Operational and Maintenance Costs

Workflows provide toolkits for facility managers to monitor a building’s energy consumption. An effective workflow delivers visualisation for various building functionalities and reporting capabilities for operators to identify and implement fine-tuning strategies. This advanced visualisation is mapped out via an integration platform with constant back-and-forth data transferred between building assets for real-time results.

Providing tenants with the ability to access the building’s network and notify operators of faulty equipment also means any issues with the building’s assets can be fixed before they become too expensive.

3. Reduced Labour Resources

Say an organisation has hired a new employee, traditionally, one of the employee representatives would have to send an email to management with the new employee’s details, then the manager would have to pass the details onto security, and security would have to manually enter the details and notify the manager until it comes full circle back to the employee. 

With an effective workflow in place, the new employee can use the integration platform from the building to enter their details and automatically sync them into the building’s security systems and database. If the new employee is starting at a global company, they can do a bulk upload onto all the building systems around the world. 

This reduces the need for multiple handling of information and saves time for security and management to focus on other tasks. The same workflow can work in reverse when staff leave a business. This way there are no forgotten or active access cards remaining for staff no longer working in a property.

Contact us to transform your building into a smart building

Operational Intelligence are leaders in technology strategy and innovative design, trusted around the world and backed by over 30 years of experience. We have enabled three Smart Cities, seven 6-Star NABERS rated precincts, sixty-seven 5-Star NABERS rated precincts and over 3,700 smart solutions worldwide. 

Contact our team for more information on how you can optimise your building utilising the most advanced smart building technology and solutions.

Benefits of Smart Buildings

Disclaimer: The content within is the opinion of the author and engineering team of Operational Intelligence.

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Leverage your Smart Building with Digital Workflows

Leverage your Smart Building with Digital Workflows

In the modern-day property industry, smart building technology has fast become a means for building owners and developers to gain an advantage in attracting and retaining quality tenants. 

This comes with the growing desire to accumulate more data for an accommodating and frictionless operating experience. Now smart technology is the number one priority for building owners to enhance their portfolios and remain competitive in a rapidly evolving world.

CAMUNDA survey in 2020 found that 67% of organisations in the US and Europe alone are implementing business automation processes across different systems and technologies for end-to-end visibility. This rapid digital acceleration is generating pressure for organisations to deliver a more engaging digital experience to tenants. 

Now more than ever, tenants are becoming more interconnected with the digital world and with that, they expect greater convenience and engagement. For building owners, to enhance their portfolios and ensure a return on investment, the most effective way to remain competitive is to leverage their building utilising smart technology and employing effective workflows to increase stakeholder engagement. Let’s analyse what these two solutions mean.

What is Smart Building Technology?

Smart building technology unifies and automates the various operations of a building like HVAC, lighting, electricity and security to create a more energy-efficient and comfortable environment for its occupants. For more information on the features and benefits of utilising smart building solutions, click here.

For building owners looking to adopt this technology, the number one question they would need to analyse is, ‘how is the smart building technology going to meet the needs of my building’s stakeholders?’

While integrating smart technology into a building’s architecture will certainly boost the value of the building, using the technology without first assessing how it will meet the unique requirements of both the infrastructure and the stakeholders will result in masses of underutilised and wasted data.

Utilising smart technology data to improve the operations of tenants, facility managers, and visitors by providing increased interoperability is where the true value of smart technology lies. The most effective way to increase stakeholder connectivity is by visualising the end-user experience and employing an effective smart workflow.

What is a Workflow?

A workflow provides a pathway and solution for specific user groups like visitors, tenants, facility operators, etc. The concept behind digital workflows is to utilise the already connected technology to trigger a sequence of events from the moment the user begins to interact with the building.

For example, when a visitor arrives at the building, how do they gain access? How do they get to their desired floor? Does the visitor wait for 15-minutes at the concierge and sign in manually? Should the host ride down the elevator to retrieve the guest? A workflow creates multiple possibilities, like providing temporary access to the visitor’s smartphone via a calendar invite, visitor management system or room booking system.

Workflows provide a streamlined channel of communication for building management and occupants, improving efficiency by automating tasks that would otherwise require manual labour to complete. A Deloitte survey found that businesses can reduce their general processing costs by 30% with an effective workflow automation process.

By adding an intelligent workflow to the smart building infrastructure, businesses can transform their building into a technological ecosystem that drives its own productivity and provides unmatched end-user interoperability and comfort.

Conclusion

The post-pandemic challenge of bringing tenants back into the building can be solved by matching tenants’ growing desire for greater connectivity. Tenants want a space that can meet their demands, reduce any constrictions and provide greater comfort. With a focus on valuable workflows for all building stakeholders, building owners can create unmatched convenience and ease that optimises satisfaction to maximise tenant retention and increase the value of their buildings. Keep reading to view the key benefits of employing a smart workflow.

Contact us to transform your building into a smart building

Operational Intelligence are leaders in technology strategy and innovative design, trusted around the world and backed by over 30 years of experience. We have enabled three Smart Cities, seven 6-Star NABERS rated precincts, sixty-seven 5-Star NABERS rated precincts and over 3,700 smart solutions worldwide. 

Contact our team for more information on how you can optimise your building utilising the most advanced smart building technology and solutions.

Benefits of Smart Buildings

Disclaimer: The content within is the opinion of the author and engineering team of Operational Intelligence.

Get in Touch with Operational Intelligence

CONTACT US TO START YOUR JOURNEY WITH OPERATIONAL INTELLIGENCE