Technology enables smarter property service deliveries

Digitalization has not yet reached its full potential in property management. But with increased use of data in combination with AI, BIM and other technologies, we are approaching the paradigm shift many have been waiting for. For the coming years, Coor sees a movement from todays’ mainly pre-defined maintenance models towards condition-based dittos.   
Today there are sensors to measure energy consumption, sound, vibrations, temperature and other performance data, that can be used to assess the health of equipment and buildings. Combined with AI and machine learning it can help us to predict upcoming failures or breakdowns in advance. We call this digital or predictive maintenance.

 Some of the advantages with digital maintenance is the potential for increased up-time, improved performance and reduced consumption.  

Increased usage of BIM in operations and maintenance
Building information modeling (BIM) has been one of the more hyped buzzwords in the property business over the last 10-15 years. It has received strong traction in the construction phase of buildings and now we see that it becomes more common in the maintenance phase as well. Many companies use BIM and digital twins also to improve the access to relevant data and documentation supporting the operation and maintenance of buildings.  

Together with a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) a single point of truth of a building can be created includin its health, its assets and all its documentation. This creates opportunities to monitor the performance of the building and improve the planning and execution of maintenance activities. This enables a value-based maintenance model, that leads to lower operational and maintenance costs. It also improves the transparency of the consumption of for example electricity, gas and water, which will become even more important over the coming years due to soaring energy prices and increased water scarcity. 

The biggest and most important struggle for service providers is not to become environmentally sustainable or to incorporate new digitized technologies into their deliveries. It is to find, attract and keep competent employees. The battle for competence is crucial for the service providers in order to be relevant.

For years there has been a shortage of property technicians in particular, but also of several other professions related to the property operations and maintenance business. This leads to challenges in finding the right competences and creates a highly competitive market for property owners and service companies to attract, recruit and retain the competence needed.  

Technology enables a more resource efficient way of working
To be successful in the labor market, companies need to focus on being an attractive employer, offering good internal career and development opportunities. Organizations will also need to look into how to make the best use of the collective competence they have in their organizations. By using sensors and IoT to a larger extent, companies will enable smarter and more resource efficient ways of working. 

We also see that adopting new technology and the benefits that follows will be crucial to manage the existing competence shortage in the market. It will be even more important to map out the knowledge in an organization as technology offers improved ways to interact. Augmented reality (AR) provides the opportunity to use remote expert support. Virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality offers new ways to create training materials and instructions, which can be used to increase safety and develop new skills. 

Over time, as technology matures further and becomes cheaper, it is likely that we also will see more tasks performed by physical robots. Many tasks that are performed by people today are still difficult to replace with robots, but technology advancements are opening up new opportunities. We already see examples like the sensor-equipped dog Spot, developed by Boston Dynamics, that can perform visual inspections, read analog gauges, detect leakages and identify unexpected thermal variations. This type of robots provides significant benefits in dangerous environments where people should not be sent for safety reasons.

The cost for the property maintenance services still remains high up on the agenda, often together with a strong focus on safety. However, multiple factors are forcing organizations to act on the energy topic. Factors such as higher energy prices, uncertain access to energy, sharpened legislation and political instability as well as stricter company policies urge the need to reduce energy consumption and costs. Coor also notices that more and more customers are demanding environmentally sustainable deliveries and that the partners that cannot meet those requirements have an increased fear of missing out on business.

Coor experiences a strong upturn in the interest for environmental certifications of buildings. These can be seen as quality stamps for the buildings and are also important from reputational and employer branding perspectives as well as for property owners making their companies a desirable green investment. There are also profitable incentives behind these certifications, as studies show a positive correlation between high environmental ratings and sales/rental prices 

Upgrading of certifications will be an important driver of investment needs in buildings. The service providers should play a key role in the certification processes, due to their detailed knowledge about the buildings maintained. Strong competence and offerings related to life cycle analysis (LCA) calculations and other measurements will become even more important to guide customers in their investment decisions.  

Increased demands of reusing and transparency   
The demand of reusing and recycling, both in relation to traditional asset maintenance and in relation to larger renovation and installation projects, increases. We believe that building capabilities to reuse and recycle will be key to meet tougher industry and customer demands.  

Furthermore, the customers are expected to be even more interested in the carbon footprint, i.e. greenhouse gas emissions, from their service providers’ operation. Forefront customers in this area are already requesting transparent CO2 accounting of the service providers' operations, including footprint from purchased goods and services. It’s our belief that this kind of accounting soon will be a strict demand for service providers who want to be relevant in future tender processes.