by Brianna Crandall — July 6, 2016 — Global facilities services provider ISS has signed a commercial agreement with technology giant IBM to use the power of IBM’s Watson IoT (Internet of Things) platform to transform the management of over 25,000 buildings around the world.
Headquarted in Copenhagen, ISS is said to be one of the world’s largest private employers, with over half a million staff managing everything from concierge to cleaning, catering to technical maintenance for thousands of high-profile clients including Rolls-Royce, Nordea, Novartis, and Royal Air Force in the U.K.
Through the new agreement, ISS will tap IBM’s Watson IoT platform, consulting and advanced facilities management technologies to transform the services it provides to building owners and users around the world with the goal of making buildings more personalized, intuitive and user-friendly.
Working with IBM, ISS will integrate and analyze data from millions of devices and sensors embedded into buildings including doors, windows, chairs, meeting rooms, dispensers and air-conditioning systems. Data will be uploaded onto IBM’s Watson IoT cloud platform, and cognitive computing technologies will learn from this data, helping ISS optimize its services as well as furthering its understanding of how people use buildings, thereby creating new opportunities for innovation.
For example, sensors in doors and entrance areas can tell a facilities manager how many people are in a building at any one time, and sensors on plate dispensers can inform kitchen staff of how many people are still likely to need to eat — helping staff to prepare the right amount of food and avoid wastage. Sensors in meeting rooms, chairs and tables not only help building managers better manage room occupancy and cancel unwanted room bookings, but also inform service staff when a room needs more refreshments or requires cleaning.
Jeff Gravenhorst, CEO of ISS, commented:
In today’s highly competitive market, managing and servicing buildings should no longer just be about cost. With a dashboard overview of key building metrics displayed on mobile devices, facility managers will benefit from an integrated, real-time view of the services and supplies within their buildings enabling them to adopt a more proactive, flexible and responsive approach to building management and customized service delivery.
Putting real-time data into the hands of service staff will help to foster more attentive and service-minded employees, supporting our customers in achieving their priorities. Putting a ‘human touch’ in buildings helps to increase employee productivity, decrease absenteeism and makes a better impression on visitors.
Harriet Green, general manager, IBM Watson IoT, added:
With this agreement we are taking the power of technology and the power of service and putting those together to enable ISS to make buildings better for their users. The key thing is to find out how people will work in the future, and by analyzing data from sensors we are helping ISS to uncover new insight that will help to ensure buildings are the kinds of places where people want to be, not just need to be.
As a first step, ISS has already rigged up its Copenhagen headquarters, which serves as an innovation lab for the service group, with hundreds of sensors connected to IBM’s Watson IoT platform and TRIRIGA Facilities Manager software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform to help improve room bookings and catering services for the 250 employees based in the building. The next phase will be the implementation of the cognitive IoT technology at selected customer sites.
To illustrate the agreement and how it will improve buildings, the two companies released: an ISS video interview with Group CCO Andrew Price, an ISS documentary video about the transformation of ISS’s Copenhagen HQ, and an IBM infographic regarding the solution.
