Say hello to our new frontend software developer Marina

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At the start of this month, we welcomed the newest member of our team Marina Kleinaki, an experienced web developer with a very impressive resume.

Marina is a highly motivated front-end developer who has many years of working with Javascript, HTML and CSS. More recently she has utilised more modern frameworks such as Blazor and React. Marina’s passion is to create beautiful and intuitive web interfaces with a focus on reliability for users.

She will be joining our team to work on a wide range of software challenges that include designing and building new web portals and further developing our IoT platform, the cThings Cloud.

In her spare time, Marina likes watching movies, reading books and baking. She also spends time taking care of her rescue cat; Colin Furrth.

We wish Marina the best of luck in her new role.

Introducing the connected plant room

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Solution: Smart buildings & utilities
Industry:  Residential and commercial
Return on investment:  Less than 6 months

Our brief

We were requested by a facilities management company to help them remotely monitor boilers and Air Handling Units across the portfolio of buildings they manage. They currently maintain over 300 buildings across Europe.

They were struggling to meet their customer SLA’s due to the obstacles involved in responding to issues reactively. Additionally, they were undertaking a fixed maintenance schedule based on time rather than based on hours run.

The customer enquired as to if we could help develop a solution to make their plant rooms smart. The requirements of the proposed solution would be the ability to remotely monitor multiple boilers, made up of various manufacturers and utilising different fuel types, as well as air Handling Units. The solution would need to provide real-time status of the equipment, the long-term performance and to determine when servicing was required.

We were requested to display this information on a dashboard within their operation centre whilst also being available to their onsite engineers, using mobile platforms.

 

Our solution

Utilising our collective expertise and experience, we designed a bespoke modular solution that consisted of both devices and software to enable our customers to remotely monitor their plant rooms.

A key design consideration was to form a flexible solution which allowed for the necessity of monitoring a plant room composed of different types of plant equipment, regardless of the manufacturer.

Using our extensive range of sensors, we were able to monitor the status of the plant, as well as energy efficiency and other key performance indicators. This data was then automatically conveyed to our IoT platform, the cThings Cloud.

Once the data was in the cloud it could be analysed to detect faults and alert the maintenance team to potential issues such as boilers going into fault, pumps failing or faulty control systems. Additionally using our machine learning algorithms, servicing could be scheduled based on usage which saved cost and minimised service interruptions.

This data was then visualised using our bespoke dashboards to provide a real-time overview of our client’s portfolio. An additional benefit was that time-consuming monthly KPI and service reports could be generated automatically by the platform, freeing up time for personnel to concentrate on other duties.

The results

The IoT deployment across more than 300 sites has led to the customer successfully meeting all their customer KPI’s over the past 12 months and resulting in them obtaining new maintenance contracts. The analytics from the platform has allowed them to identify when and where maintenance is required and has enabled them to lower costs whilst reducing the number of emergency visits due to unforeseen equipment failures.

The ability of real-time monitoring has enabled them to increase the efficiency of their customer’s plant, allowing them to reduce energy usage and therefore costs even in the face of rising utility prices.

 

The benefits

Preventative maintenance

Remote monitoring of plant has reduced the amount of emergency site visits by more than 20%.

Improved service quality

Using our fault notifications our customer is instantly notified of issues and can rectify them proactively.

Low cost

The solution has had a return on investment in under a year.

Improved reporting

Using the cThings Cloud, complex and time-consuming monthly reports have been eliminated. The customer can now automatically generate reports, providing up-to-date status and performance information at any point.