Smart Building Pharma

We are delighted that you are interested in our white paper. We will send you the white paper by e-mail.

Thank you for your interest. Please check your inbox for the download link to the whitepaper.

20.03.2024

Digitalization and smart building play a central role in the management of an international pharmaceutical company. Buildings and people are seen as a unit that contributes significantly to the success of the primary business process.

The pharmaceutical company employs around 1,500 people in the border region of Germany, who are responsible for the marketing and distribution of prescription medicines throughout the German market. All approval-relevant studies for Germany are also coordinated there and studies are carried out for products already on the market.

Features used

The system is based on a virtualized Eliona server in the cloud environment. A hardware-based EdgeNode is used on site for communication with the local controllers. To enable communication with the sensors, the campus was equipped with three distributed LoRa gateways.

Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ)

The meeting rooms were equipped with LoRa room condition sensors to monitor the IEQ (Indoor Environment Quality) values in the meeting rooms. In conjunction with a room booking system, a) the room conditions can be prepared for the meeting based on attendance and b) no-shows can be detected and meeting rooms automatically released again. This makes it possible to analyze room utilization based on data and optimize it as required.

People counting

LoRa infrared people counting at the entrances and exits allows the utilization of the campus and the individual buildings to be monitored. The long-term data obtained can be used to optimize the coordination of cleaning operations and adjust the heating and cooling to the number of people on campus in order to optimize energy consumption.

Smart waste

Another feature is the use of centrally positioned, smart waste stations. According to studies, a large proportion of waste from office buildings is empty plastic bags - i.e. cleaning staff empty the garbage can at each workstation as standard, whether it is full or empty, and throw empty to half-empty bags in the bin. With centralized waste stations, the cleaning effort is reduced and coordinated in a targeted manner because it can be done as needed.

Asset tracking

Asset tracking was implemented as a POC for several meeting rooms. This means that the position of flipcharts or other materials, for example, can be seen at all times using the map function in Eliona. This allows office materials to be used in a targeted manner. The effective benefits and ROI of this use case are currently still being evaluated.

Interview with P. C. - Head of Digitalization

What are the challenges for an active smart building?

Due to the complexity and the various stakeholders within a company, different cultures collide. On the one hand, there is IT with its security concerns, the digitalization department with sometimes radical and modern ideas and facility management with more traditional structures. Harmonizing these different mindsets takes time, patience and a lot of persuasion.

But surely the advantages of “interdisciplinary” collaboration are obvious?

Absolutely. Another challenge we face on a day-to-day basis is data silos. Instead of data democratization - as would actually be expected in the 21st century - silos are still being formed. On the one hand, this is due to the fear of relinquishing information sovereignty and thus losing relevance, or on the other hand because suppliers close their systems in order to push their own software. An example: we would like to integrate sensors from a specialized manufacturer for ammonia and chlorine into the central alarming system. However, they refuse to open their data for Eliona, which means that another expert system is required.

Nevertheless, your company is leading the way and has already implemented several smart use cases. What is your experience?

We are lucky that we can “experiment” independently of facility management. Although the building is always part of the use case, it also influences other disciplines such as operations or HR. We have discovered that it makes no sense to calculate the ROI of each individual use case. A single use case in isolation is not economical. But it is the enabler for other use cases, as data is suddenly available that is useful for various departments or evaluations. Using IEQ as an example, the room climate can be optimized for employees and their productivity demonstrably increased, room utilization can be improved by avoiding no-shows and, combined with people counting, energy consumption can be reduced. An IoT infrastructure can therefore kill several birds with one stone.

How do you see the future?

Clearly in the direction of smart buildings - we won't be able to avoid that. And with the generational change in trades that are still craft-oriented, such as FM or HVAC, the mindset is becoming more modern and future-oriented. I am convinced that we will manage to get out of the data silos in order to operate buildings more efficiently and put the user - i.e. the team - and their needs at the center.

This is an AI generated image of a modern facility manager. Due to compliance reasons of the client we are not allowed to publish real names.