… with Microshare Smart Solutions
Anyone who spends any time in a building inherently wants cleanliness. Even before the global COVID-19 pandemic struck, office buildings, hospitals, construction sites and other spaces were waking up to the importance of leveraging data technology in the service of efficiency, cleanliness and infection control. Now, this capability has gone from a nice-to-have to a vital necessity, and Microshare has the right solutions.
Microshare’s Predictive Cleaning solution, for instance, reallocates, reduces and bolsters finite cleaning resources according to occupancy, utilisation and customer feedback. Demand-driven cleaning – efficiently cleaning spaces when they need to be cleaned rather than on a prearranged rotation, is the key to staying ahead of potential problems, whether they involve leaking sinks, overflowing trash bins, clogged toilets or a lack of paper or soap.
In this brave new world, demand-driven, predictive cleaning is key to managing liability, calming justly nervous tenants and staff and keeping occupants healthy. Crowd sourcing for cleaning with our Feedback Stations is a key component of a cleaner strategy. According to one Microshare client, all restrooms, meeting rooms and kitchens should have feedback solutions, and all of them should provide our new Touchfree option to ensure that anonymised reporting of any problem can be done with a QR code.
Impact and improvement
In the US, a large client has deployed our Room and Desk Occupancy Monitoring solutions across rooms and washrooms of a large facility. The results were dramatic, with tenant satisfaction measurably improved, and facilities managers and cleaning contractors receiving key data that led to more efficient use of resources and improved outcomes.
“After we deployed the Microshare technology, working habits changed and became more fluid,” said the client’s lead on the project. “ Tenants and building owners need to know more than ever how their space is being occupied and especially in our current circumstances, how well it is being cleaned and maintained.”
With the COVID-19 outbreak roiling the Commercial Real Estate sector, there is also a new impetus on understanding exactly what the ROI is on every square foot of leased space. The very same occupancy monitoring solutions which the client above deployed also provides actionable insights to portfolio managers and corporate real estate executives on how heavily space is being used for strategic planning purposes, or gives staff the tactical ability to quickly find available resources like desks, meeting rooms, labs or hospital beds.
Since governments began mandating social distancing, clients have asked repeatedly about ways to measure traffic flows, room densities and the proximity of people. Occupancy surveys have been ordered up ahead of the anticipated exist from lockdowns in the EU, US and elsewhere, as building owners and facilities managers anticipate the need to meet new regulatory and societal expectations.
One solution we recently deployed with a large pharmaceutical firm allows managers to track employees exposure to each other over a period of weeks. Should an employee develop symptoms of COVID-19, data can reveal who was in close proximity and should be tested.
Awareness reaches critical mass
Advances in technology, a competitive marketplace in commercial real estate, and the growing influence of the global ESG (Environment | Social | Governance) movement had already driven demand higher for IoT-based data sensors in build environments. Microshare’s Environment Monitoring measures humidity and temperature; Indoor Air Quality Monitoring checks for unhealth Co2 or particulates. This is a vital need at construction sites as well as in a closed office environment and an undisputed duty of care for building owners, employers and facilities managers today.
Construction sites and industrial facilities also deploy our Decibel Monitoring, Brightness Monitoring and Asset Zoning solutions in ever greater numbers. The Asset Zoning solution tracks people and equipment and also produces an alert when expensive mobile assets leave the ring-fenced premises.
Spurred by new EU legislation restricting the placement of poisons in rodent traps, pest control companies have embraced a new Microshare solution that generates data when a trap has experienced activity – data now legally required in many EU jurisdictions before a pesticide is deployed. This has created an ability to remotely monitor the tens of thousands of traps these firms must set, which means fewer site visits, less disruption to client properties and, not incidentally, lower carbon emissions as there are fewer vehicles on the road.
Housing associations provide another example. Facilities managers and building engineers also see the ROI in remote working – cost savings, fewer site visits, lower carbon emissions. Microshare’s Leak Detection, Predictive Maintenance and Smart Legionella (Legionnaire’s Disease) Prevention solutions are entering mass adoption.
It’s a satisfying feeling when the world suddenly awakens to something you have been saying for years. The tragedy of COVID-19 may have been inevitable, and no amount of IoT-enabled cleaning and tracking capabilities could have prevented the outbreak. Some things are beyond our control.
But for those which are not, Microshare provides the kinds of solutions that can transform an inert building into a living, breathing asset turning out actionable, vitally important data on a 24/7 basis. Before the next crisis, we all hope steps will be taken to make commercial buildings safer, smarter and more resilient.
April 22, 2020 Alex Ainley / CAIL info@cail.com