IoT in Smart Workplaces - Interview with James Bellingham from Siemens
This blog is all about IoT in smart workplaces. We interviewed James Bellingham who is responsible for the digital building portfolio in the UK, covering IoT and smart workplace solutions at Siemens. We discuss current technologies being used, common mistakes, what is hindering smart building adoption and how the future of the industry will evolve.
You can listen to the podcast episode here.
So, do you want to tell us a bit about yourself and your role?
Effectively, I work on all sorts of IoT solutions for Siemens, relating to smart offices, smart hospitals and the growing smart building sector.
That sounds really interesting. That is what we're going to be discussing today; quite a broad topic around IoT and smart workplaces, what the future holds, what technology is available, and the current digital building situation within the UK.
But, before we get into that, obviously, IoT stands for the Internet of Things. I think most people will be aware of what IoT is, but just in case they're not, would you be able to give us your definition of it?
Sure, yeah. So I see IoT as connecting things, not necessarily all things that have previously been connected, like our phones and our laptops, but a broader array of things like a fridge, a sensor in your office space, a lift, it's a way of giving an internet connection and a way to collect data from devices on a mass scale.
IoT has transformed many spaces, including workplaces. I suppose 10-20 years ago, many of us wouldn't have thought that the potential IoT creates would be possible. But being able to make pretty much any device smart and connect those devices and systems together so that they can communicate and react is driving efficiencies, sustainability, safety and security. How have you seen smart workplaces evolve over the years?
There's been a huge amount of change, even in the last few years, we used to see office buildings be this sort of passive asset for a company, it's a building, it's got some desks, it's got some rooms, and people go and sit there and work, and they've got their desk, phone and their computer. I think we're seeing workplaces become more mobile and relying on technology to achieve that.
I think that the role of the workplace has changed. Even before the pandemic, we saw a real shift towards more flexible working, which has varied between different sectors and companies. But I think office places have needed to adapt to the activities that people are doing, which are also changing, there's much more focus on collaboration, less of the hands-on, manual things. We are knowledge workers now; we're using our minds and technology, the nature of work has changed, and, therefore, offices need to adapt, especially post-pandemic. We're moving to even more flexibility, and that digital adoption has been accelerated by this forced experiment of working from different locations, such as home. I think it's a really exciting time to see how offices will adapt to enable the way we want to work in the future.
Yeah, definitely. I think as you said, it's been really interesting seeing how people have adapted to working from home. That's all been possible because of the technology we have; if this had happened 20 years ago, it would have been a totally different situation. So what are the advantages of IoT in the workplace? What are the main benefits, in your opinion?
There are a lot of benefits. I will focus on two different camps; you've got the benefits for people using an office, which is based around the experience that they have going into that place. Can they do everything that they want to do throughout the day in the office? And does the office support them? So, technology and IoT helps that, it shows which meeting rooms are available, which desks are actually available, and it's all about new forms of collaborative space and making sure the light levels are right, improving people's wellbeing through better air quality and improved comfort.
So, there are lots of ways in which it helps the users. It also helps people who manage these facilities and buildings to have a data-driven real estate approach. It helps to predict maintenance and improve efficiencies. Understanding how these buildings are used, the demand from people, and adapting accordingly is very valuable. Insights can also be gained about building location; are the buildings in the right places to suit employees? Are the rooms suitable? Can those be adapted?
Yeah, definitely. And from a building occupants point of view, the building should work seamlessly so that they don't really have to think about the technology that's installed; it should just enhance their work and experience without them thinking about what's going on. So, what kind of IoT devices are there in the workplace? What are the most common ones that you come across? Are there any new emerging ones that have emerged recently?
A lot of the IoT discussion has been predominantly around sensors, and sensors have loads of benefits in the workplace, from understanding detailed occupancy level to air quality and beyond. This can then expand to cover things like daylight and light levels to ensure that you get in the right kind of space to work in; this links to human-centric lighting and circadian lighting. So it's important to make sure that you improve people's productivity and wellbeing through light quality in a space. And then it's expanded to other things like smart lifts, being able to call a lift from your mobile app, or other things like lockers where you can have lots of people working in a space flexibly, and they're easily able to find and book a locker, so they don't have to worry about keys and things.
There are also devices at home that are starting to make their way into our workplaces. So, perhaps soon we're going to have Alexa in our office as well. I know a lot of people might not want that; but you can see that happening, changing technology is affecting all parts of our life, and especially our offices.
That's a scenario that we sometimes use; we want to be seen as an enabler of smart buildings. So you can imagine walking into a meeting room and having a voice command where you say, "presentation mode", and then the blinds come down, the lights dim, the TV turns on, and it's just an automated experience that just works, which I think is the main thing.
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. It's all about what are we actually trying to use the technology for? And that's what we always try to come back to, what is that user journey? What are we trying to create in terms of experience? And then, from there, work out what technology can be used to help create that?
So, have you come across any common mistakes? What do you think either clients or installers commonly do wrong? What's hindering smart building adoption?
I think we all can get very excited about technology. Sometimes a mistake can be starting with technology first without considering the people that are going to be working in the space. Building owners need to consider how the building will be used, how people are going to interact with it, and what activities they're going to do in the office. So, it’s probably best and not to jump on a single technology that solves one small problem and ignores everything else.
Then it's also about taking into account what you've already got. So, retrofitting technology is very different to putting things into a new building. You've got to think about what's right for your existing buildings and employees; all of your officers should have that same feel and create the same experience, rather than just focusing on one building at a time. It's about taking that chance to zoom out a bit from what you're looking at.
Another aspect is privacy and cybersecurity. These two topics are often related but sometimes overlooked. A common mistake is sticking a technology solution in but not thinking about the impact on your office, data and networks. It's important to make sure the partner you're working with understands the risks and is mitigating those, making sure that people are comfortable with the technology that's going into the space, as they will be spending most of their day in it.
Yeah, exactly. And just touching on that, that was something I was going to mention as well; I know that many some people have security concerns; obviously, with everything being connected to the internet, the whole building will be more susceptible to cyber-attacks. You've got cameras and microphones in many devices that can record vast amounts of data without you even knowing. So how do you think that we address those concerns moving forward?
It's a huge topic, and there are lots of parts to it. However, I look at this as two elements, privacy and security. I think privacy is all about GDPR and only collecting the data that you need to do something. If you just want to understand how busy your office space is, you don't need to put cameras in to do that. You could do it with anonymous infrared sensors so that you're giving people that comfort, and you're not collecting images.
Then when you look at security and cybersecurity especially, it's all about making sure that you're working with reputable companies that have a cybersecurity process and policy in place. As well as considering where this technology is going and what's going to be happening in those spaces. E.g. are we using the right level of technology for the application? If you've got an ultra-secure area, you might not want to have cameras and devices in there.
But our smartphones are constantly on our person, and they have all kinds of sensors that are collecting data all the time. So, it's a much broader topic than just the technology we're putting in, but it definitely needs to be considered, and we need to limit the risk that comes along with these technologies.
There's been talk of smart buildings for decades. Building management systems have been around for many years, and they began to address some of the connectivity of services within buildings. But IoT devices and systems take it to the next level, creating a truly smart building, almost like a living asset. We're seeing things like heating systems using sensors and their connection to the Internet to respond to things like changing weather conditions. So how can machine learning and artificial intelligence improve this further by learning preferences and patterns? Have you got any real-life examples or case studies that you could share with us?
Yeah, so it's really interesting how it's progressed; actually, we've been working in this building automation and integrated systems space for a long time. We're seeing the evolution of that now. We have access to all of this additional data, some of which comes from IoT devices. This allows us to work with that data, use intelligence, software, and algorithms to pull insights out of that data to show things like sustainability. Also, using machine learning to identify potential future faults and maintenance issues before they become a problem impacts the users because they're not having to deal with downtime, outages or things not working.
Recently I've been working on a project that gave users the ability to change the environment they're in, e.g. adjust the temperature and the lighting from their laptop or their phone. What that gives us is even more data around what people's preferences are. We're using machine learning in our workplace app to take in all of that information and work out the consensus about what the temperature should be in the space and then using that to adapt over time to better control the space. So it's not something that people are aware of, but it's something that happens in the background, as you mentioned earlier, to just improve things without us realising.
I think, to a certain extent, it's a bit of an educational process because things have been done in the same way for so long. A lot of people don't realise what is possible. Some people installing the systems and designing buildings aren't aware of what the potential is; there are so many systems and devices, therefore so much data we can collect and so many insights you can pull from that. But you need to have your creative hat on to understand the creative potential. Then that might then drive efficiencies or sustainability further.
Exactly. Yeah. And I think it's important to either work with a technology partner or someone who can help you understand what all those different possibilities are and then narrow them down based on what you need for your specific workplace or business.
There's obviously a growing discussion around touchless and contactless offices as well. Is this something that IoT plays a part in?
It does; contactless has become a growing topic across all parts of our lives; we've got payments on our phones now. We're used to doing things without necessarily pressing buttons and touching and interacting with people face-to-face. I think we've all become more aware of that with going through a pandemic, where we're hyper-aware of hygiene and surfaces and what we're touching. Touchless tech can therefore be helpful, e.g. mobile access control. Just as you would make a mobile payment, you use your mobile access to get into the building; you can unlock rooms and doors without physically touching anything. Then maybe coming into the building, you walk towards the lift, and you can call the lift and use your phone to select the floor you're going to without touching any buttons. So, there are lots of ways in which we can reduce these touchpoints throughout the user journey. Even things like heating and lighting can be controlled via an app rather than through a wall-mounted button that everybody's touching.
Yes, linking into that, I suppose the ultimate goal for many buildings is to become autonomous. You mentioned this before as the building systems begin to learn occupant preferences and just make changes by themselves without having intervention from people. How is Siemens approaching this?
We're using data more and more to try and drive automation and drive efficiency throughout all the systems that are in a building. For instance, let's say you're using the energy data collected throughout the building to understand where you can make energy efficiency savings or run pieces of equipment differently to improve efficiency or lengthen their life. This also extends to other areas where we want to use data. So, for example, space efficiency, understanding do we have the right type of space? Can we adapt that over time? But the ability to have those suggestions being raised by technology without people having to spend hours trawling through data and trying to do manual surveys is essential. It's all about using technology as an enabler to drive that frictionless experience and drive that constant evolution and improvement of the spaces we work in and the buildings we run. We're seeing new digital services coming out all the time that use the data that's already there in clever ways.
Something that I think is often overlooked is having a decent dashboard that users can use, understand, and be able to view all of that data, making valuable actions based on it. I think sometimes you've got a dashboard that is so confusing that people just don't know how to use it, or you've got multiple systems, and you've got multiple dashboards; so when are users going to have time to actually go into all of them and try and understand all of the different data insights.
You're right; we don't all want to see the data; we just want to understand what it's telling us. You need that middle ground to interpret what the data means and present it in an easy to understand way. Clear actions, clear insights.
I read an article the other day about problems hindering smart building adoption. Reliability and lack of integration across systems and devices seem to be the top problems. So as an industry, we need to overcome issues with lack of interoperability and collectively make more effort to get the basics right. Do you agree with this? Do you think there's anything else that is hindering us? Do you think that interoperability is still a big issue?
Yeah, I think I would agree; as technology has evolved, and the options have grown, it's very unlikely that you're going to have one system or one vendor system in a building. Part of this IoT movement is pulling different devices together into one ecosystem where data works together. I think it's important to have a platform in place that can work with different technologies and is technology agnostic. I think some of the systems that we've seen are very closed or, as I mentioned before, they might fulfil one purpose without thinking about how they fit into the wider ecosystem. Systems should also be able to work with older technologies as well as new ones. A customer might have installed a system five years ago that works; they don't want to then change it; they just want to link the new and old system together.
Collectively, as an industry, we've got to think about the whole lifecycle of a building and how we ensure forwards and backwards compatibility.
Yeah, I agree. I think that the technology companies who look at that bigger picture will be successful because they are enabling connectivity with everyone and aren’t pigeonholing themselves into one area.
Yeah, we've covered a lot today, and it's been great to have this conversation. Who knows where it's going to go. It's rapidly evolving, and I think it's a really exciting space to be in.