Utility equipment systems are the foundation of any building. Building utilities like mains energy, Gensets, HVAC systems and water pumps play a crucial role in ensuring the smooth functioning of power, ventilation and water supply. If there are inherent issues in these base equipment, it can hamper the overall efficiency and productivity of the building functions. Innovative solutions for the management and maintenance of these setups should be integrated into the existing facilities in which IoT can play a crucial role.
Despite precautions, utilities often face issues like sudden equipment breakdown, power overload, resource theft, obstruction in supply lines, poor maintenance schedule, lack of security and safety protocols in place tc. This leads to unnecessary expenses, errors in data logging and incomplete equipment setups, all of which can snowball into enormous losses for commercial spaces. Though there are often backup systems available, prevention is always better than cure. IoT can assist in tackling issues at this root level.
First and foremost, it is essential to know the overall working condition of your utility equipment. The granular visibility provided by IoT can achieve this. Such total visibility can lead to solutions like:
- Tracking energy, fuel and water consumption across multiple segments (premise-wise, location-wise, office-wise, etc.
- Checking the condition of every piece of utility equipment from the facility level to the individual machine level.
- Comparative data collection and analysis for actionable insights.
Customized alerts play an essential role in fulfilling these solutions. These alerts can be tailored in a variety of situations like:
- Alerts to indicate the functioning status of the equipment for scheduling maintenance if needed.
- Alerts to convey ongoing maintenance or recent servicing of any asset.
- Triggering an alarm in case of loss of resources (energy, fuel and water), whether intentional or not.
Such customized alert systems help solve a host of issues for the utilities sheerly through timely notifications sent on real-time. They can help schedule priority maintenance of utility assets, savings unnecessary expenses in case of sudden breakdowns or equipment downtime. For example, customized alerts and scheduled alarms notify you if there is an asset malfunction. Predictive maintenance can also manage a list of first responders in case of equipment failure.
This can lead to avoidance of resource wastage and high costs for maintaining energy, fuel and water, which is unsustainable in the long run. For example, sensors and trackers can monitor and gauge power consumption across utility equipment, places at strategic points across several areas, such as area, main, and load-wise. This can assist in managing utility equipment resources that act as power sources for these appliances and avoid wastage and extra expenses of procuring them.
Customized and complete control over utility equipment can also boost the security and safety of the facility. Timely maintenance of the equipment can prevent safety hazards like fires, water leakages that can cause short circuits, delay in emergency response in case of human accidents etc., giving way to safe facilites and buildings.
Conclusion
Efficient utility systems are the backbone of any commercial space. Utility equipment set-ups must transform for building and building systems to benefit from innovative paraphernalia like motion detectors and automatic air conditioning systems.
IoT, with its ecosystem of devices and cloud capabilities, has gained importance due to its effectiveness in comprehensive and timely data collection across locations & equipment. Pairing different IoT utility sensors like pipe pressure, electricity load, water quality, etc., with advanced analytics and computing systems, allows us to identify resource and energy waste as well as inefficiencies and breakdowns with high precision and help to eliminate them before they become a liability. IoT transfers the collected data for cloud computation for visualization and nudge to required action by designated facility manager. This ensures proper ventilation, temperature sensing, predicted vs actual resource consumption, consumption per outlet and equipment, timely maintenance, etc., through complete visibility across multiple boards.
Several companies and businesses provide IoT services for utility assets with available and tailor-made options according to your need. Tor Shield is an end-to-end solution that affords all the above benefits. Whether acquiring comprehensive data about equipment use or gaining granular visibility for your overall facilities, our tailor-made solution can help transform your office spaces into intelligent and sustainable ones by integrating with the existing utility structure. You can ensure seamless connectivity between the utility equipment that supports your intelligent commercial spaces.
