Artificial Intelligence for Air Quality Management
Eye on Future Of The Office
OKTO Technologies – A Breath Of Fresh Air For Workplaces One of Northern Ireland’s most innovative companies has developed a range of air purifying and air quality management solutions for any office, school, workplace, business or home setting which is able to effectively eliminate the risk of ultra-fine airborne particles, much smaller than Covid.
OKTO Technologies, based in Lisburn but with a major design and sales operation in Central London and a new upcoming office in Dublin, is the driving force behind the new OKTOair range of air quality management solutions. The Lisburn company has its roots back in 1992 when Managing Director Philip Dowds set up a firm specialising in analogue television aerials. “Our first sale was worth £28.50. I remember it well,” he says. “Since then, we worked out recently, our sales have grown by 155,000%.” The company moved from TV aerials into the wider audio-visual technology marketplace before moving on to specialise in smart building solutions right across the board. Philip Dowds recalls that when the company first came to seek work in London, its ‘office’ was a branch of Starbucks on Brompton Road. “We talked to our clients in construction about what their problem areas were, and what solutions they wanted,” says Philip. “They talked about contractors taking less time on site and about making technology simpler. “We came up with a method that saw us build solutions in Lisburn and testing them there before
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sending them over to London or elsewhere. So it takes one third of the time that other suppliers might take and it also requires less people on site, which is hugely important at the moment.” Modern methods of construction, he says, mean that the industry is moving towards the kind of lean principles already adopted by many in manufacturing. Since then, OKTO has provided full automation solutions in multi-million pound apartments from London’s Knightsbridge and Belgravia to the South of France; at Claridge’s in London and Nobu restaurant in Monaco and – closer to home – at the headquarters of local law firms Pinsent Masons and Arthur Cox. “We are the only company able to provide a full End-to-End solution for buildings right across functions like heating, lighting control, AV, IT, security, BMS, Wellness and air quality. It is unique to OKTO and we take end to end responsibility” The business is split down the middle geographically, with approximately half of OKTO’s staff in London and the other half in Lisburn. It has a team of project managers, designers and engineers based in London, where the majority of the firm’s work is based. Lisburn hosts a second team of
designers and engineers but is also home to OKTO’s administration base and off-site production facilities. Emerging technologies and innovation are central to everything OKTO does. The company, for instance, is pioneering the use of software to test software. It’s also developing ways of commissioning off-site using what’s known as a ‘digital twin’. “At the minute, we still need to have someone standing in the room to see how systems react to a window being opened or heating turned up. The digital twin system will allow us to do that remotely.” Covid has impacted on OKTO and its work but Philip Dowds reckons that they’ve been fortunate. “There was a lot of uncertainty at the very start of the pandemic but most of our sites have kept working throughout. The market has become a bit more aggressive though, with quite a few companies desperate for cashflow. “OK, we do work at the top end of the market. But our customers can afford the best cost consultants and they’re very good at driving a hard bargain.” The company’s move into air quality management wasn’t entirely driven by Covid. “We’ve always been interested in environmental control,” says Philip. “But there’s no doubt that Covid accelerated our
