Facility managers and business leaders are increasingly focused on adopting AI to improve workplace management, boost energy performance and implement predictive maintenance. As more system data is pulled in, the technology is also helping to align decision-makers and stakeholders through shared language, experts say.
Integrating data from the many systems and assets within a building into a central repository allows those overseeing them — from facility managers putting out fires on the ground to executives working to implement portfolio-scale improvements — to access the same information and use it however they need in the moment, according to OP Ravi, senior director of customer and product innovation at operational AI company Willow.
Willow provides a knowledge graph that can pull in data from building systems, maintenance operators and live data to help inform operators on the state of their building.
The Knowledge Graph tries to eliminate silos between building operations and management systems by creating an independent data layer that normalizes how the systems organize and describe their data, according to the company’s website. It uses hundreds of connectors between IT and OT systems and then, using its digital twin platform, it is able to structure, store and activate insights and data-driven decision-making.
“You have a [component] and then it has 100 types of connections or relationships. Each relationship has its own properties. Each relationship has its own live data, static properties and all those things. Then you can connect all the dots and ask those questions,” Ravi said.
Because facility managers, like firefighters in a forest, are often dealing with fires at their source, “they feel the real heat. I need to spray this thing here or close this here,” Ravi said. “One facility manager or maintenance crew engineer looking at his building or portfolio can only see so much.”
Chief information, technology or financial officers, meanwhile, are looking to operationalize and optimize buildings at scale and may not see the day-to-day problems on the ground. The knowledge graph helps to fill the gap that lives between all an organization’s stakeholders when it comes to building management, Ravi said.
“Whether you are a firefighter on the ground, or a CTO or CIO. Anybody can get the same view and just ask in natural language,” he said. “You don’t need to be a domain expert. You don’t need to know the technology’s nitty-gritty details. You can ask in natural language, ‘I want to compare building one versus building two. Show me the report,’ and our operational AI will give you a report on the dimensions you’re looking for.”
To help expand in the market and allow it to be used with the plethora of systems being used in buildings today, Willow will build many connectors free of charge, Ravi explained.
“Our approach is, if you have the industry-standard system, we will build the connector free of cost,” Ravi said. Right now, Willow has connections with over 10 building management system providers, including Johnson Controls and Schneider Electric, he said. “We have connectors to all of them, and the same thing now for CMMS, the ticketing or work order system. We are now doubling down on that because that’s also helping a lot of customers in predictive maintenance and all the work order analytics.”
While building management systems have traditionally focused on HVAC due to its energy use, today that is table stakes, he said. Now, Willow is working on providing connections to smart lighting systems, EV systems, occupancy sensors and many other systems present in facilities.
“We want to meet the customer wherever they are. We will build the connector free of cost if it is aligned with our roadmap or aligned with our strategy,” Ravi said. “And if it is bespoke or very custom. We will love to meet the customer and explain that maybe they might need to move to a latest technology, because that itself is going to save them a lot.”
