Siemens Smart Infrastructure: establishing a new normal
SIEMENS
DIGITAL REPORT 2020
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Siemens Smart Infrastructure: establishing a new normal WRITTEN BY
WILLIAM SMITH PRODUCED BY
GLEN WHITE
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Ahmad Farrakh Manzoor, Head of Siemens Smart Infrastructure, discusses the AI and IoT-enabled future of smart buildings and the new normal they enable
M
ultinational conglomerate Siemens is a vast business of over 300,000 employees, with history dating back
over 170 years. Among its other operations, such 04
as energy and manufacturing, Siemens operates a Smart Infrastructure division dedicated to a 21st century approach to buildings. Ahmad Farrakh Manzoor is Head of Siemens Smart Infrastructure – Regional Solutions and Services, for Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Siemens Smart Infrastructure’s mission of ensuring buildings remain safe and secure has taken on a new level of importance in the current COVID-19 pandemic. “We can help to ensure hospitals remain enabled to serve more patients,” says Manzoor. “Siemens is a company that provides essential services to essential services. Therefore, there is a lot of demand right now – which we are keeping up with. We have not let our customers down even at this critical point. And I have to thank all of our Siemens employees out there
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“ What we try to do is make buildings communicate with us” — Ahmad Farrakh Manzoor, Head of Siemens Smart Infrastructure - Regional Solutions and Services, Siemens
who continue to go to customer sites and provide the services that ensure these utilities keep running. We still have water, power, internet and healthcare, in part because we at Siemens Smart Infrastructure are ensuring we keep that running for our customers.” Even before the pandemic, there was an imperative to make smart what had previously been ‘dumb’. “If you’re not making infrastructure smart, then it’s going to haunt us in the future,” Manzoor explains. “That’s
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where Siemens Smart Infrastructure comes in. As the name indicates, we make infrastructure smart. How do we do it? We make infrastructure talk to us. Normally, if you’re feeling too hot, you just decrease the thermostat. There, the communication is going one way – from you to the building. What we try to do is make buildings communicate with us.” Such feats can only be accomplished by the use of advanced technology, such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT). “When we put AI in buildings, we no longer need to tell them we’re feeling too hot. The building can sense your comfort. It can
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“For example,” Manzoor says, “if
sense whether there is a sand storm,
there is a fire alarm or an evacuation
as we often have in the Middle East, it
needed, instead of just sound-
can sense if there is rain coming, if the
ing a fire alarm, Siemens Smart
humidity is too high or too low and then,
Infrastructure could also send a
using those analytics and those sen-
tweet to you on your mobile phone
sors, it can adjust the environment in
specifying where the fire is and which
the building. Similarly, we have solutions
exit to take. This intelligence can be
for power resilience. Now every build-
built into those buildings using our
ing could be a power plant. In Germany,
technology, to make those buildings
there are millions of power plants in
and the users happier.”
every city, and it’s similar here in the Middle East and in the US.” Safety is another topic immeasurably improved by smart infrastructure.
Siemens is now dedicated to answering the question of how such technology can help our lives to return to the ways they were. Thanks to its ne w.si e me n s . com
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extensive smart building experience,
contaminants. This can be achieved
it’s a question the company is very well
through the ionisation of contaminants
equipped to answer. “We’re coming
with Siemens non-ozone producing
up with a lot of use cases for the ‘new
ionisation technology. Ultraviolet
normal’ – they are being developed
can be used to kill bacteria, fungi
on a weekly, even a daily basis,” says
and some viruses, while new HVAC
Manzoor. “There are many, many new
maintenance strategies and advanced
ideas of what the ‘new normal’ is going
filtration can improve air quality and
to look like in an office environment. As
reduce the spread of viruses.
offices around the world start to open
The maintenance of social distanc-
up, our Siemens technology will be
ing is another area where Siemens’
integral to getting back to work.”
technology has a part to play. Office
One potential solution lies in reducing the spread of airborne and surface
occupancy can be monitored for density using IoT sensors and data
analytics, while thermal cameras can screen individuals for evidence of elevated skin temperature. Contact tracing can then be put in place for individuals who do test positive. The number of occupants within a space can also be monitored and controlled thanks either to the use of video analytics or access control readers.
“ Siemens has a deep history of innovation, of excellence and also of reliability” — Ahmad Farrakh Manzoor, Head of Siemens Smart Infrastructure - Regional Solutions and Services, Siemens
Real-time updates can play their part to sustain safe and healthy working environments, for instance by utilising 24/7 remote monitoring and response, 09 E X E C U T I V E P R OF IL E :
Ahmad Farrakh Manzoor Title: Head of Siemens Smart Infrastructure - Regional Solutions and Services Ahmad Farrakh Manzoor is Head of Smart Infrastructure, Solutions and Services at Siemens Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Manzoor is an advocate of cultural transformation leading towards teamwork, ownership and creating the leaders of tomorrow. He is passionate about digitalisation, IoT and smart city applications. Through his work, he intends to make technology simple to understand and to have it applied in a useful way, helping make infrastructure more smart, sustainable and energy efficient. ne w.si e me n s . com
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“ Siemens is a company that provides essential services to essential services” — Ahmad Farrakh Manzoor, Head of Siemens Smart Infrastructure - Regional Solutions and Services, Siemens
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or leveraging analytics and fault detection to identify any issues that may occur. Emergency notifications can then be ‘pushed’ to occupants, alerting them to critical events. It’s not only offices where Siemens technology has a crucial part to play. Hospitals, of course, have become a focus of late, with Siemens providing the technology for isolation rooms for a number of hospitals. “In a hospital there are negative pressure rooms and positive pressure rooms,” Manzoor explains. “An isolation room needs technology to keep negative pressure in the room so that germs are not spread outside the room. Positive pressure rooms are, for instance, operating rooms, where we want germs to leave. We provide the control and sensor technology to go into those rooms and sense factors such as air pressure, temperature and humidity, and using all of that information, we can then control the air movement.” Siemens has a long track record of working with hospitals in epidemic situations, with its proven credentials leading to trust from hospitals. ne w.si e me n s . com
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SIEMENS
“While we have been providing a lot of technology to hospitals in the last three months, we also did this a few years back when we had the SARS epidemic and the MERS epidemic. Now we are providing technology on a larger scale to our customers. There are a lot of hospitals that we’re working with, as well as a lot of temporary hospitals, which are being constructed in various countries. We have been deeply involved with some of these hospitals, providing them 12
with Siemens technology in a very fast way. Our people were working around the clock to ensure that temporary
“ As offices around the world start to open up, Siemens technology will be integral to getting back to work” — Ahmad Farrakh Manzoor, Head of Siemens Smart Infrastructure - Regional Solutions and Services, Siemens
hospitals were set up in record time. They had the power distribution, sensors and devices to operate safely and at a very high intensity.” Siemens has not lasted as many years as it has without building strong and lasting relationships with vendors and customers, says Manzoor. “There are many customers with whom we have a strategic relationship. We’re a large company, present in over 170 countries around the world, and a lot of our customers also have a
1847
Year founded
€86.8bn+ Revenue in Euros
300,000 Number of employees
similar global footprint. So, we have
brand anywhere in the world, you have
these deep partnerships with our
those parts. That’s why we’re one of
customers stemming from our global
the best-known brands in the world
account management organisations,
and one of the highest regarded com-
meaning we can provide the same
panies for customer service.”
standard of service in each and every country or region.” It’s thanks to that commitment that Siemens has achieved the level of success that it has. “Siemens has a long history of innovation, of excellence and also of reliability,” says Manzoor. “If you look at the Siemens ne w.si e me n s . com
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