WGAN-TV | SIM-ON by SIMLAB + NETxAutomation: A Next Level of Interoperability with BMS | Guests: NETxAutomation Software GMBH Sales & Business Development Suvankar Das and SIMLAB Product Owner/Project Manager (SIM-ON) Michał Szopa | | Episode #217 | Thursday, 16 May 2024 www.SIMLABinc.com | www.SIM-ON.com | www.NETxAUTOMATION.com
- How can live data be added to Matterport digital twins for facilities management?
- How can IoT from various open standards be centralized and synchronized?
- For building automation control, why are Matterport digital twins better than traditional 2D dashboards?
Stay tuned.
Hi all, I’m Dan Smigrod, Founder of the [www. WeGetAroundNetworkForum.com]. Today is Thursday, May 16th, 2024.
You’re watching WGAN-TV Live at 5: a podcast for digital twin creators shaping the future of real estate today.
We have an awesome show for you: SIM-ON by SIMLAB plus NETxAutomation Software, a next level of building management system interoperability.
Our subject-matter experts are SIMLAB SIM-ON Product Owner and Product Manager Michał Szopa, and NETxAutomation Software Sales and Business Development in the Asia Pacific Region, Suvankar Das. Michał and Suvankar, thank you for being on the show.
- Thank you, Dan, for inviting us. Thank you very much.
“We want to create something new for building automation and facility management. Not only do we want to avoid using the normal 2D dashboard that everybody has, but we also want to give another dimension to the experience for the customer and user. Matterport will be used daily for managing and maintaining the property.”
Michał Szopa
Product Owner/Project Manager SIMLAB SIM-ON www.SIMLABinc.com | www.SIM-ON.com
- Thank you as well, and hello to everybody.
- We also have a special guest. Jay, please introduce yourself.
- Thank you, Dan. Hello, Michał and Suvankar. I’m Jay. Thank you for taking this Zoom meeting. I was just hired as Executive Vice President at ABC Global Company. I oversee facilities management and hotel and rental property management worldwide.
For context for our Zoom call today, we own an occupy and lease space in 100 office buildings and 25 locations in the US, Europe, and Asia: about 2 million SQ FT. Our property management division also manages 10 hotels.
We have a vacation rental division with 1,000 rental properties worldwide. We are using various building management systems. That said, I have learned that some facility managers are still using china markers inside HVAC cabinets to mark the last service visit. We have thousands of square feet filled with file cabinets of MEP manuals.
We seek to consolidate to one BMS. My team sourced Matterport Pro3 Service Providers via the We Get Around Network. Those MSP scans some of our buildings in the US. So I’m intimate with Matterport digital twins.
That said, we are using MatterTags for tracking assets. That’s too hard at scale. It’s not great for maintenance inspections, communications and documents storage.
All the Matterport Service Providers said they read the [www.WeGetAroundNetworkForum.com] about SIM-ON powered by SIMLAB and NETxAutomation Software, as well as saw some [www.WGAN.Info/SIMLABonWGAN] about SIMLAB and NETxAutomation, and thought your solutions might be helpful for ABC Global.
I’m focused across divisions on three things: 1) saving money, 2) Saving time; and 3) improving workflows to help get answers faster. I have asked our Matterport Service Providers and some of my facilities managers and hotel and rental property executives to join us on the Zoom video chat today in listen-only mode.
Many have dialed in by phone worldwide without video, so no PowerPoint slides please. We can read your slide deck and visit the [www.SIM-ON.com] and [www.NETxAutomation.com] websites later. Let’s just have a conversation.
A short demo is fine too. So Michał, to get started, how about telling me about SIMLAB in general and SIM-ON powered by SIMLAB in particular?
- First of all, hello, Jay, and thank you very much for this meeting. Your portfolio sounds very impressive, [Including] facility management and [hotels] are very nice and I think that your main goals are saving money and saving time. It’s definitely this thing we want to share with you with our solutions.
And according to our company, SIMLAB [on 15 May 2024] was our 5th birthday.
We are based in Poland in the Silesian region in southern Poland. And we are mainly focused on the IT solution; the software solution based on Matterport. It’s very good that you also have the Matterport knowledge, and you know what the scans are and how the technology behind that is working.
But we want to create something new for the building automation and for the facility management to not only use the normal 2D dashboard as everybody have, we want to give another dimension of the experience for the customer and for the user that will have the Matterport used also for the daily basis, managing and maintaining the property.
If we have a couple of minutes, I will be very glad to show you what our product looks like, and if you have any objections, I will do it now or you have some other questions.
- Not yet please; in just a moment. Before we do the demo, just help me understand a little bit more about SIMLAB in terms of the kinds of companies you’re working with. Or, the kinds of applications? What kinds of solutions? We’re talking today about SIM-ON. Are there any other solutions that SIMLAB offers?
- Yes, we have another solution because our main focus is two solutions. One of those is the STAGES solution.
The solution which is also using the Matterport scan, but also the Revit models, the CAD files, the blueprints, and we can compare the two, for example, different ways of the scanning or the planning of the building, and also making the timeframe between the different STAGES of the building.
For example, if you want to make a new building, you can scan it on the first level, for example, only with some naked walls without any wiring, without the finishing.
After that, with some wires, with some plumbing, we have some other stuff, and then after everything is finished. And we can compare these two and see how it looks like now and how that was during the building phase. And also ...
- Thank you for sharing that. That’s a good conversation for us to have, in addition to focusing on SIM-ON today. I’ll put together
a different team to do a conversation on that SIMLAB STAGES product.
- Will be great. Michał, before we jump into a demo of SIM-ON, Suvankar, how about telling us at a top line about NETxAutomation Software?
- Sure, Jay. It will be great to talk a few things about our company. Of course, thank you very much for this opportunity to meet you personally and also to explore how we can revolutionize all these huge buildings that you own, your company owns. And I think we are at the right place at the right time.
Together with Michał, with SIMLAB, we can totally redefine how all these buildings can be managed not only in today, but many years to come.
And I think that would have a direct impact on your organization in terms of organizational efficiency. We are talking about improving the bottom line, we are talking about energy savings, and of course, keeping in mind the users at the very center because at the end of the day though, we are talking about a lot of tactical things over here.
The final objective is to provide a solution which everyone can use and manage based on their level of knowledge. So I think that is the final goal we want to achieve with you by the end of this meeting.
And a little bit about our company, NETxAutomation Software. We are a software company based in Austria. So our specialization is in managing building automation functionalities. So you know, for all the audience and participants here, today’s buildings are having heterogeneous architecture.
So you have multiple functions: lighting; HVAC; shading; fire safety; security; everything. And they all come with their own intelligence and own way of communicating.
So as NETx, we try to solve this complexity of dealing with hundreds and thousands of hardware and services within a building, and kind of merge them together and bring it to a more holistic approach where a building owner can interact with all those systems from a single interface. And along with SIMLAB, we are taking that experience to a totally new level where we are talking about digital twin solutions, which I’m sure Michał will talk of.
And you will see that this collaboration we have globally with them is very, very symbiotic, highly complementary, noncompeting, and adds a lot of value to our end-users and customers.
So I think that’s all I would like to say in the beginning. I’m sure we are going to explore more in the next few minutes. Yeah.
“We want to create something new for building automation and facility management. Not only do we want to avoid using the normal 2D dashboard that everybody has, but we also want to give another dimension to the experience for the customer and user. Matterport will be used daily for managing and maintaining the property.”
Michał Szopa Product Owner/Project ManagerSIMLAB SIM-ON www.SIMLABinc.com | www.SIM-ON.com
- Well, Suvankar, as you were listing all those different services that your company kind of checks the box for, I could sense the problems that ABC Global has that you can help us solve.
That said, forgive me, but I have never heard of NETxAutomation Software. So I have no idea. How many clients? How many integrations? Can you give me some sense of the scale and scope of NETxAutomation?
- Absolutely, mm-hm. Yes, so we are selling -- we develop this software ourselves, and we sell it in more than 100 countries globally. So we have been operational in the market for the last 22 years, and we have more than 8,000 licenses sold globally.
So the way it happens in the entire value chain is that we work with a set of customers who are called the system integrators, okay? So the system integrators are the people who are actually working at site.
Their responsibility is to really merge hardware; software application; everything under one umbrella; act as one point of contact for the end users, and develop the final requirements of the customers for the buildings they’re working on.
So while doing so, we also come across having a lot of discussion with end users like yours; plus also the specifiers and consultants who are designing the building.
So we also have to give a lot of input to these stakeholders because sometimes, they may not be aware of all the possibilities that such a solution can bring in a project. So we also work very closely with specifiers and the consultants who are designing the entire automation and electrification of such buildings. Yes. So if that answers your -
- So Suvankar-
- Mm-hm.
- Thank you, Suvankar. As you can imagine, ABC Global does work with lots of system integrators, consultants and various vendors to do integrations for our company.
- Mm-hm.
- So I think the purpose of today’s call is for me, for our team listening in today, is to understand how perhaps Matterport plus SIM-ON powered by SIMLAB plus NETxAutomation Software can save us time; save us money; improve our workflows.
If we can get past that, then we’ll figure out the appropriate place to do business with you if that’s working with the system integrator or working with you directly.
- Absolutely, yes. I think in the coming minutes, we are going to talk about the key benefits for the end users, and then we take a step back and see that, okay, to realize those key benefits, what is the model we have to get engaged in? For example, how can we, as the provider of the solution, make sure that the solution is implemented in the correct proportion based on your specification and requirement of the building?
And for that, yes, we have to do a very good, well-coordinated project management work along with the system integrators, of course, but also your inputs are very, very important to kind of arrive at the final specification we have to deliver. Yeah, so I’m looking forward to that discussion as well.
- Great, sounds great. Let’s go back to Michał, if we may. Michał, this would be a great time to see a demo so I can really understand where this value-add happens related to a Matterport digital twin. Perhaps you could go ahead and share your screen with us?
- Okay. I will appreciate it. First of all, I would like to show you our webpage that has a lot of information about our company and our solution. This is the webpage, landing page of the SIM-ON and here. And we have the information about the-
- It’s a little bit small, so for my team that’s watching or listening in, it’s: www.SIM-ON.com
- Yes.
- Pronounced Simon, but with the hyphen in it.
- Yes, and we have here the information about the benefits of our cooperation, about our partners like NETx as well, and also some subscription plans for the normal user. It’s not for you, of course, Jay, because you are the enterprise customer, and that will be the custom price of our solution. But-
- Well, let’s jump into an actual example. Yeah.
- Yeah. Last thing only that we have on the webpage is also the three demo projects that you can go yourself if you have a little bit time and see it and go around the spaces and see what our solution is doing.
And after there is signing in, we have another option or another window, and now we are inside our-
- Michał, let’s jump into a tour, okay? I got a lot of people on the line. They’re interested in seeing your solution. If we need to go back to these other things, we can, but let’s jump into an actual Matterport tour and take a look at it so I can understand
- Yeah, of course.
- where the value add is with Matterport.
- Yeah, I will choose one. Oh, here is some alarm. It’s good to know because our solution is working. This solution is that as you see on the background, we have the Matterport tour, but if there we have the warning alarm, we can very easily, first of all, see where the alarm is.
Okay, it’s here. I will put it later on during the presentation as the proper ticket to the person responsible for the alarm.
But what we have here, we have our solution with a couple of layers. On the background is the Matterport tour as you can see.
But in the Matterport tour, we have some other things like here, we have some IoT devices, we have some water leak alarms; we have some sockets that we can from here; turning on and off. We have some other things like the CO2 sensors; some motion sensors.
All of that information and IoT or some other devices that we can collect the data from the sensor and we can put into the space; into the real location; in a digital twin model. This is very important and time-saving.
For example, if you want to know where the motion sensor (this one) is because this is not working, for example, you can easily with one click, and the camera is going directly to this motion sensor into the Matterport 3D space.
We have the tour, and then put every element into the space. Also some data from the International University of Japan shows that saving up to 55% of the time using the normal paperwork on some Excel sheets, Excel files, versus using the digital twin technology.
But that is not all because this is only one of the layers is the IoT Devices. And here, we have connected it through the NETxAutomation Software system.
That means that the NETxAutomation system is working in that facility, and we are collecting and taking the data from the NETx and also sending it to the NETx through the cloud.
That means that everything in our solution can be accessible from the web browser without installing any special software, only the web browser and you can go inside and use it, SIM-ON with connection to NETx.
What we have else, the second thing we have there is the Asset Management System. That means that we can store all the information about the assets in one place. We have here, for example, some manometer with their description; we have some photographs; documentation; and some also Events.
The Events means that some functionality of the facility management system. We can put here the dates or the terms that are very important for the asset and all the information about the terms that need to be done for maintenance certification or something like that.
We are in one place, and we can very easily go into our solution and check that okay, we have to do something for 16th of May, 19th of May, and so on. And also with one click, we can go to the place where it is exactly into the space.
The other thing we have, this is the Ticketing System. That means that we can share and collect information about some issues and have communication between the user and for example, the facility manager.
For example, here we have the alarm, and this alarm is indicating that some water has leaked from this tank. I can easily get the information, adding the ticket, for example, water leak, adding the status, it’s open, setting the date because this is very urgent. It needs to be fixed today, but we have it in Poland today, it’s tomorrow in the US time.
“We want to create something new for building automation and facility management. Not only do we want to avoid using the normal 2D dashboard that everybody has, but we also want to give another dimension to the experience for the customer and user. Matterport will be used daily for managing and maintaining the property.”
Michał Szopa Product Owner/Project ManagerSIMLAB SIM-ON
www.SIMLABinc.com | www.SIM-ON.com
And also the stakeholders, which means the people who are responsible for fixing the problem. I can put the description here, add the location very quickly and easily, and send it automatically to the person who needs to go and fix the problem.
This is a very, very good option because the maintenance guy, for example, the facility manager is now receiving the email information about the problem. He has this problem here, but we have so many water tanks here in space, and taking the time to check every tank where the leakage is, it’s very time-consuming, yeah?
But here, he has all the information. He can go directly with the one click to that specific place where it is, saving time and also sharing the information. For example, it’s fixed. And that’s it. Yeah, we have the information, send it to the person who was responsible or who announced the problem to the maintenance guys.
And mainly, primarily that’s it. We can also manage, as you saw in the first page, the main menu. We can collect the many, many, many properties into one account. It’s very important also for such companies as yours because we can manage a couple of buildings and a couple of other things.
And also, some virtual tours can be used for, for example, the marketing proposals. Yeah, if you have the hotels or something like that, you can send the link to the client. You can add the information in the assets, for example, about the equipment of the room; and the price levels; everything you want.
And the customer can go inside the room and see what this looks like. what’s the view outside the window and everything; and connect it to NETx, for example. We can also show the occupancy of the room; the availability with some particular time; which is interesting for the customer. If you have any questions, Jay, please ask, interrupt me because I can talk a lot about our solution.
- Yes. I think that’s a great overview, you know, I would say, Michał -- And I want to say this in particular for the other ABC Global team members and the Matterport Service Providers that I invited to sit in on our Zoom call today, is I heard four things: I’m looking for a fifth.
The first I heard was IoT, and you demonstrated IoT not just with static labels -- you demonstrated that you had some live data that was streaming to that point, that alert. That was awesome.
So I’m super-excited about the IoT. Second was Asset Management because we have, as you can imagine, a global company. We have so many assets, and it’s really hard to keep track of everything.
And then those file cabinets are just driving me bazonkers that we’re paying rent for all that material as opposed to putting it in a tag to identify the asset.
The third thing that I saw was your Timeline for tracking, and I can certainly see that for maintenance and scheduling. I wasn’t sure whether I was able to look at past history as well as forward of what’s coming?
- Yeah, the past history is also -- you only need to scroll to the top and there is also all the past history as well.
- Okay, and the fourth thing I heard was Ticketing System. That just resonated with me that all the people who are inefficiently communicating problems and getting that information to the right person to solve the problem.
So SIM-ON has a Ticketing System to, in a robust way, to send the problem/challenge, the action item to the appropriate person.
- Exactly, yes. And also, it’s very, very nice for, for example, language barriers, yeah, because in the hotel, for example, the housekeeper can only go and take the picture of the place where it is automatically put it into the our system and we have the location of the, for example, bulb, which is broken, yeah. It’s very easy to also use for the normal -- on the primary level staff of the hotel, for example.
- Terrific. On that Ticketing System, is AR built in so that the tech that’s coming on site that’s never been in our facility before can go right to the problem?
- We have our partner, which is VIEWAR. We can also manage the AR in our system, but we also have in our plans to make this implementation of that feature inside our solution.
- Okay, so you have a way to integrate AR to help get our team members to the right place as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
- Yes, we also have some instructions and some other things which are related to fixing the problem, for example.
And only one thing also to the assets. If you have many assets, for sure, you are also using the software for asset management.
And we also want to -- we have in the plan integration with IBM Maximo software, but if you have some other software for the asset management, we can also integrate; and we can import all the assets from the external system to our system.
And only thing it’s to need to put it into the place, and that will be also, I think very, very useful for you.
- Well, gee, that’s like three thoughts here. So let me see if I can break it down. The first is we do use the IBM Maximo, so that’s great to know. Second... Forgive me, I’ve lost my thought on what
- It’s all right.
- those three things were on that. Now I may have to just come back to it. I know that my third one was trying to understand the BMS system integration. Is all this integrated?
- We are integrated mainly-
- Suvankar, is this where you tell me that everything that SIMLAB is doing is totally integrated with the NETx BMS system, your BMS solution?
- Yes. Michał, maybe I’ll take this one, if you don’t mind? Okay. Yes, Jay. So as part of NETx and SIMLAB, we are trying to solve different problems which the customers face today in enterprise-size buildings like yours.
So what you saw is the management-level solution where SIMLAB is really bringing the digital twin to make life easy for people who are managing the building, on a day-to-day basis. We address the problem, which is on the other side of the spectrum as NETxAutomation by providing a solution to connect different applications and devices which are there in the building. It might be old devices; and then during a renovation, you bring your new devices.
End of the day, there has to be a platform where the data is concentrated or collected from all these devices.
And then we, as a data warehouse or as a data concentrator, having the capability to talk to multiple protocols at the same time, we are collecting this data, organizing it in a way that when we send this to SIMLAB, to Michał, they’re able to deal with it and create that final outcome, which you have just seen. So whatever solution you have seen so far is flexible.
For this example or the demo Michał did was with the food factory where you had a certain set of equipment.
But if it is any other building with a totally different set of equipment, the idea is to really have this integrated approach where we combine everything under one umbrella first at a data warehouse level, and then the same data goes to SIMLAB, and then they create the virtual or digital twin to make the final layer of visualization for the end user like yours, yeah.
So it’s an integrated solution using NETx as a BMS platform, and then having SIM-ON as a visualization layer coming at the management level.
- Awesome, Suvankar, some of my team members, since we have such diverse divisions that were acquired at various times, asked me to just, I’m getting a text in here about does it work with KNX, OPC, BACnet, Modbus, SNMP?
Are these all solutions that are interoperable within the BMS of NETxAutomation Software?
- Yes, that’s right, Jay. So one of the main features, as I mentioned in my previous answer, is that NETx comes with multi-protocol capabilities.
So over the last 22 years, we kept adding all the traditional and upcoming technologies used in the building space so that we are able to provide maximum number of integration at a field level.
When we are saying field level, it means that we are able to communicate directly with the devices which are installed in the building.
And all these protocols you mentioned, KNX, BACnet, Modbus, OPC, these are all standard protocols developed by different standardization bodies, and we are also part of those standardization bodies.
So we are also upgrading our software every year or whenever there is a new upgrade coming on the standards, which means if today, you are using our software, it is always complying to the latest developments on any of these standards. Having said so, you may have a question that, “Okay, what about proprietary systems?” Okay, maybe you’re building ABC Global -- in your hotel buildings are using a particular type of equipment which may not work on these standards, okay?
“We want to create something new for building automation and facility management. Not only do we want to avoid using the normal 2D dashboard that everybody has, but we also want to give another dimension to the experience for the customer and user. Matterport will be used daily for managing and maintaining the property.”
Michał Szopa Product Owner/Project ManagerSIMLAB SIM-ON www.SIMLABinc.com | www.SIM-ON.com
But they may have a certain written document which talks about the nature of the protocol they’re using.
So because we are a software company, we have the flexibility to understand this document and create a totally new integration for these devices, which means now those devices, which may be so far were isolated in the building, they were not part of the whole building ecosystem, can now be brought into the entire ecosystem, and then SIMLAB can manage it, and then you will see that not only KNX, BACnet, Modbus, OPC, but maybe a proprietary system also become part of the entire building system.
They can exchange data between other systems, making it an ideal scenario to create the smartest building, if we can think for you. Yeah, so that’s how it works around, yeah.
- Awesome. Michał, back to you. We started out with Matterport because we felt like we could do all the things that you’re talking about, but it turns out we couldn’t do that with the MatterTags.
So I totally get it in terms of what you just showed us of how SIMLAB, through its SIM-ON service, is turning Matterport from a tool to a solution. That is so obvious looking at your presentation. So I’m just really excited about that.
As I shared with you, we engaged a number of Matterport Service Providers to shoot some buildings in our portfolio so we could test and learn.
And that’s what we learned: this whole tagging of how we were trying to tag our assets within the Matterport platform really didn’t meet our needs. That said, we now have many Matterport tours with literally thousands of MatterTags.
I know some of those that are sitting in on our call today are thinking, “Oh my gosh, I got to go redo all those tags in yet another platform.” Is there a solution for that?
- Yes, we have the solution because in our SIM-ON solution, there is an importing tool that you can import all the MatterTags and convert it into our assets.
And you can obviously add some other information about that because we are taking only the information from the MatterTag, but it’s not needed to put everything again and again to our solution from the MatterTag, it’s automated.
- So again, just for clarification, as a very large customer of Matterport, ABC Global doesn’t have to start from scratch.
The team members that are listening in on this call can go, “Ah, great.” There is a workaround, a workflow using SIM-ON to simply import our existing Matterport tags, our existing MatterTags into the SIM-ON platform.”
- Exactly, yes, and also we can import, if you will maybe in the future also using our another tool, the STAGES tool and you have the final STAGE and final scan with some nodes and some other stuff into the STAGES, we can also import it into the our solution and convert it to the SIM-ON and use it for the daily basis maintenance and using the building as well.
- Okay, great, so on the SIM-ON side I heard -- I heard four things, and the fifth coming from Suvankar. IoT; Assets; Timeline; Ticketing System; Building Management System . At a high level, are there yet other things to talk about that fall into that level of overall? I think of those as layers.
- Yes.
- So a layer of IoT. There’s a layer of Assets. There’s a layer of Timeline. There’s a layer of Ticketing System. All that goes into the BMS system. Are there yet other layers within SIM-ON?
- We also have the normal Dashboard as everybody has. But we have one more thing, that we can also make some very simple Automatic things. If we have, for example, the NETxAutomation Server, but we can add to it some very cheap solution from the IoT area, we can also, for example, buy it a $20-$25 motion sensor, and also connect to, for example, when you have the movement: turn on the light.
It’s very easy in our system, but it’s mainly made in the NETxAutomation to have all the logic inside there.
And if there is something more complicated, for example, which NETxAutomation is maintaining, for example, the HVAC, a big ventilation sensor or something like that, we can also visualize the NETxAutomation Visualization layer in our solution using the iFrame.
That means that will go in the window -- into SIM-ON that we have all very complicated and more technical stuff into our system. Yeah, some charts; maybe some diagrams with the temperatures; with every other thing that is more technical, yeah.
- I can- Yes. Our team has -- just looking at what you showed, I immediately get it. We can annotate an asset with photos; video documents; whether it’s a PDF; a .DOC document; an Excel document.
Whatever digital asset, we can annotate that. I want to get rid of all these file cabinets. It’s costing us money, it’s hard to see that. It’s obvious to me that we have more space than we need because we’re storing all these documents.
I’d much rather see us going forward, moving that all to an annotated space. So back to my two questions, Michał, we have some assets that are on the move.
They’re not stationary. So, for example, sometimes in the hotel space, we need to track where our wheelchairs are. They move around, our dollies, our cart stuff moves. Do you have a way of tracking moving assets?
- We have it right now in development to have the tracking of that and real-time assets into the space. And that will appear in a couple of months maybe. And that will also be available for tracking and seeing in real-time where the asset is in the space. It is possible that we’ll-
- In our company facilities management, our rental properties, was there anything that you went, “Oh, that’s how that would be used within some of our locations?”
- Yeah.
- Was there something else in terms of things that are moving that might relate that back to ABC Global Company?
- We can track everything you want. It can be tracking, as you mentioned, the wheelchairs, but it also can be tracking some vehicles into the parking lot. It can be tracking with some hotel spaces.
The movement of the staff as well, because that can be also, the staff might maybe be checking how the housekeeping is going through the rooms, yeah. There can be some IAD devices in the hotels because that is mandatory in some states; also such kinds of devices.
- And again, just maybe to overstate it for those of my team members that are listening in. Why have a container, a 3D model, be the container for the visualization for IoT, Assets, Timeline, Ticketing, BMS, versus a 2D traditional dashboard within the BMS?
- Because in our opinion, it’s very intuitive for the user. Yeah, if we have the same space -- what you see in our system, the same what you are seeing in real life, yeah.
For example, if you have, Jay, the guest in the room. Yeah, you are going somewhere in the room, and they want to turn on the light. In the normal dashboard, it can be the name of a lamp, but the name can be everything.
Yeah, the main lamp, side lamp, but they want to turn on this particular lamp. In our system, they are clicking this lamp turning on, and the lamp is on. It’s the first thing. The second thing, it’s the easiest, yeah, of the usage.
The second thing is the best way the asset or the device is inside the space . If we want to find, for example, in the basement -pump number 12345.
Normally, somebody needs to look at some documentation, find it, check where the location is, go to this location, and also localize the particular pump, for example. It takes time. Here, we have one click, and we are going exactly to the place where it is. It’s saving your time. It’s very important in that case. And, yes?
- Please go on.
- Okay, and also in our opinion, as I told you, that 3D space gives you. For example in the future as well some other possibilities.
For example, artificial intelligence. If you have, for example, a big area and you have the lamps, normally, you need to count how many lamps you have here and in this space, in this space, and another space.
And using artificial intelligence, we can very easily click on the lamp, and by only pressing one button, count every lamp in the scan. We have the same dimension and the same type of lamp.
And you will have the report that you have, for example, 345 lamps like that, yeah. Then you can check another thing, another, another, another.
“We want to create something new for building automation and facility management. Not only do we want to avoid using the normal 2D dashboard that everybody has, but we also want to give another dimension to the experience for the customer and user. Matterport will be used daily for managing and maintaining the property.”
Michał Szopa Product Owner/Project ManagerSIMLAB SIM-ON
www.SIMLABinc.com | www.SIM-ON.com
And also the artificial intelligence, which we are planning to implement, is automatically tagging the equipment you have, for example, the TV sets, some kettles, the carpets, everything that will be automatically adding the assets with the type of the equipment and asset you have in the property.
- Let me follow up on those two thoughts. We do have yet another initiative for LEED for our buildings where we have a lot of legacy buildings. We’re planning to change the lighting in many of these buildings.
Typically what we would do is ask our facilities managers to literally go through that 100,000 square feet, that 500,000 square feet, and count those fixtures. If I’m hearing correctly, what’ll happen is one of two things as you implement SIM-ON with AI, the first is that every object within a space will be tagged and then it can be assigned.
And maybe I should say that a little bit differently, it’s probably the second one, which is I can say maybe circle this light up here above me and say “this light that I’ve put a circle around, how many do I have in my 500,000 square feet?”
- Exactly, correct.
- So that’s the example that I’m looking for of how we can save money; save time; improve our workflows. It’s just not a good use of our people’s time to ask them to go count the number of light fixtures.
And we’re counting things constantly. In every one of our properties, we have things that we need to know. “How many fire extinguishers do we have in the building?”
Are we meeting the code for safety? I did want to go back maybe to Suvankar -- if this is the right question for you -- many of those in our organization that are using BMS systems are using a 2D dashboard.
Even though we’re talking about a 3D dashboard, the Matterport 3D digital twin, is there still a fallback for those that are comfortable looking at a 2D dashboard?
- Yes, absolutely. One of the key features of the combined solutions of NETx and SIMLAB is a hybrid visualization model. Okay, so as you already saw in the demo that the digital twin is making us familiar with the equipment and controls that are there probably more at a visual level.
Okay, but still, as Michał also mentioned in one of his answers to a question, that we may need more visible data about a particular equipment. Imagine, you have exactly the same example.
You have 500,000 SQ FT of area with thousands of light fixtures, and maybe the maintenance team wants to have a single view on a single page to see how many lights are faulty in that entire space. So maybe in this case, we are talking about a hybrid visualization where you walk through the space, you have more individual views to the equipment.
But as a maintenance person, I need a single page to see. So now this is where 2D visualization will come in. Michał also mentioned that a seamless integration of the 2D visualization we create on the NETx platform can be integrated in the SIMLAB SIM-ON platform, which means as an end user, you don’t have to switch platforms, you are still on the same page.
But yes, now you have an extended view of the floor or the area, and you have on one page all the lights with maybe some red dots which says that these are actually the faulty light fixtures. So yes, this is very much possible. You have a hybrid possibility.
And in many cases it’s an important point that our combined solution is addressing different types of users. Even within your building, we will see many different types of users. We may have end users. People who are probably working in an office area, the end users.
Their level of involvement with the systems will be very minimal. On the other hand, you will have people who are facility managers, technical managers who are having the responsibility, I’ll say even the bigger responsibility of running the building smoothly.
So they may need a lot of detailed data where you may really have to use a 2D because it makes more sense because they have on one page with a lot of numbers, alarms, status, and everything, which they are more familiar with.
So yes, you can have a hybrid model, you can have two separate systems, and you can keep backups. All the possibilities are there in the whole ecosystem of NETx and SIMLAB SIM-ON.
- ... For clarification, is the page that you’re describing, is that page showing up within the Matterport 3D digital twin, or no, it’s showing up within the NETxAutomation dashboard as the list? Is it the latter?
- You can have it both. You can have it parallelly on a separate NETx dashboard, and as Michał said, that we can integrate this wave visualization pages into the SIMLAB digital twin platform also, which means if someone is already on the digital twin platform, he doesn’t have to switch his platform.
He can continue to explore those pages which are already integrated into the digital twin platform. Michał, you want to add something onto that point maybe?
- I think you explain it very,
- Okay, yes.
- very clearly and correctly.
- Mm-hm.
- Okay, so I think what that might say -- I embrace technology, not everybody embraces technology.
So for those that are comfortable with the technology that they have with the BMS two-dimensional dashboard and calling up a list, perfectly fine, can still do that.
So maybe in terms of trying to figure out how to roll this out within our own organization, maybe the acceptability by the decision-makers to say we need to move to this Matterport 3D digital twin, we still may be getting some pushback of those who want to keep the 2D dashboard, and they certainly can keep the 2D within a BMS.
For those that are using china markers within our HVAC units, sorry, we don’t want to have the knowledge live within all our facility managers, and as they retire and move on, that knowledge of how that last chiller or boiler was repaired, fixed, maintained -- to walk out the building. So we really need to start annotating the space with the maintenance schedules, et cetera.
- Absolutely, yeah.
- Yeah. And maybe this is kind of an open-ended question for Michał, maybe you first, Suvankar. You’ve heard me talk a little bit about ABC Global Company, and that my focus is saving money, saving time and improving workflows to help get answers faster.
Are there things about SIM-ON and NETxAutomation that you go, “Oh, well, here are the top three or top 10 things you’re going to save money, or top three that you’re going to save money, top three you’re going to save time, and top three include workflows to get answers faster.”
- Yes, I think there are some. Apart from this, there are some other key benefits, of course.
So I think in today’s world, preemptive maintenance is one of the key features that you are not reactive, but you are proactive, and all the intelligence that we are putting in, I think one of the key areas we want to address is that how we make people managing buildings, or even end users make more proactive to possible situations that are coming up.
I’ll tell you a very common example, which we come across with many clients we deal with. Changing the defective or faulty lamps. It’s a very simple example for everyone to understand.
So our system can predict a possible failure, which means it has multiple advantages. So not only you are changing all the possible failures, which are going to happen in the next two weeks in one go without really disturbing people.
So if you know that, okay, I’m going to have 200 lamps failing in the next two weeks. I send one maintenance guy over the weekend to change all of them.
So then you know that yes, I’m kind of taken care of for two months, nothing has to be done. This is one advantage, that you are not disturbing the occupants in the building.
The person who goes, he doesn’t have to go more frequently. He’s doing the job in one go. In addition, it has tremendous benefit on companies like yours where you must be maintaining a lot of inventory for replacement.
So if you know that you have 50 buildings where you need to replace maybe 5,000 lamps in the next two months, you are going to negotiate with the vendor who is going to supply you that, and maybe you will get a 20% additional discount.
And this is just lamps. Imagine if you are talking about other equipment, which also can be monitored, the savings can be huge, okay, apart from the factor of convenience, yes?
- I was thinking that our biggest savings was going to be in travel, reducing the number --
- Absolutely.
- of flying our experts all over the world too, yeah.
“We want to create something new for building automation and facility management. Not only do we want to avoid using the normal 2D dashboard that everybody has, but we also want to give another dimension to the experience for the customer and user. Matterport will be used daily for managing and maintaining the property.”
Michał Szopa Product Owner/Project ManagerSIMLAB SIM-ON www.SIMLABinc.com | www.SIM-ON.com
- Yes, exactly. So if you have specialized assets in different location in the US, and it’s a big country, and if you have maybe one expert who knows that machine very well, so if he has pre-information about such failures, you actually can make a very effective logistical flow of this person, carrying equipments, manage it. It’s a huge benefit for everyone.
So I think this is one area. Another area is of course energy savings, which we broadly talked about, but we are not only talking about saving energy blindly without compromising on comfort or convenience. So when-
- Yes, I understand. Even this week, Matterport announced it’s going to help reduce carbon emissions by helping enterprises like ABC Global do an easy calculation of carbon emission savings.
- Correct, yeah, so-
- So we’re totally into that.
- Absolutely, yes.
- In terms of time savings, Suvankar, do you have some clients that have been reporting back just a lot of time savings so that those people could be used to handle more tasks, other tasks, different tasks?
- Absolutely, yes, we see it in a big way in hospitality buildings like hotels.
So we are dealing with hotels with 500+ rooms, and the biggest challenge the housekeeping department has is that in the morning, how do they distribute their cleaning resources across the entire building?
So we are generating smart reports, for example, which tells them that, okay, what is the number of rooms to be cleaned in each zone, area, floor, whatever, and if there are special services to be catered to.
And based on those reports, which are just generated by a single click available with the manager who is allocating the housekeeping resources, they’re really focusing or prioritizing how the entire workforce should manage that activity.
So this is not only of course making them efficient, but you can imagine that it is leading to higher guest satisfaction because maybe they have the optimum time in cleaning a particular room. It is making the staff more informed, okay?
They know that they have to clean 100 rooms in the next two hours, three hours, whatever. So I think this is a crucial factor in hospitality buildings, but also other buildings wherever there is a workforce who needs to be assigned for a particular task, and if we can give them such information before they start it, it leads to job satisfaction.
The person is more happy, well informed, and of course, the organization has benefited because the workforce is more efficient. They’re saving time, doing things faster. Yeah, so this is also-
- Yeah. Awesome, thank you for that. I kind of wonder, you know, gee, what are our next steps? We’re talking about a lot of conversations going on here.
We have Matterport. we’re hiring Matterport Service Providers. we’re engaging SIM-ON by SIMLAB. we’re engaging NETxAutomation Software. We have all our integrators. For an enterprise company like ours, what’s the best way to buy your solutions?
- Okay, I think it’s a great question. Michał, would you like to take that, or maybe I can say a few words and please add from your perspective, how do you see it?
Okay, I think one of the main aspects we have to address together is to identify the real need of the customer.
So a good conversation like we are having now in part of this meeting is that we are trying to understand the pain points of our end users. I think the whole bottom-up approach has to be an understanding of what are your pain points today.
Then we also have to consider factors like how is your interaction with the building for the next 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, because we are making buildings for the next 20, 30 years. So maybe the habits we have today may not be the same in the next five years.
So we also have to factor in those aspects that, okay, now they’re managing the building in this way. But yes, maybe five years down the line, it will be different. Okay-
- So Suvankar, I understand that and we’ll do a needs assessment. We’ll put our team together with your team and actually figure out, well, what is it that in this particular building, how’s everything being done today?
That said, I got money to spend. How do I spend it? Who do I talk to, right? Do I buy everything I need from Michał ? Do I buy everything I need from Matterport?
- Okay, okay.
- Do I buy everything I need for NETxAutomation Software? Do I go to our system integrators? Do I go back to our consultants? Where do I wire the funds?
- Okay, I think you have to give your comments to the consultant. The consultant will derive a specification.
Based on the specification, the system integrators will come in, they will read the specifications, they will discuss with you, and then they will define the list of hardware and software which they need to meet those specifications.
And when those hardware and softwares are identified, they will purchase it from different vendors because you can imagine in a building like your own, there will be at least maybe in a building, there will be 500 different vendors whose products have to be there.
So this is the job of the integrator. They manage multiple vendors. They handle the entire commercial warranty with them.
Then they procure these devices. Or maybe there is an electrical contractor who is doing part of the procurement and they are
giving it as a sub-vendor to the integrator to combine those equipment and do it, yes.
- I totally get that. We’re doing that now on lots of levels within our enterprise. I’m just curious about SIMLAB and NETxAutomation. Is that two separate entities for your services, or do I just en engage SIMLAB, and SIMLAB integrates the -- I’d prefer to have fewer vendors.
So is it possible that I can just place my order with SIMLAB and SIMLAB is a reseller of NETxAutomation Software? Or perhaps it’s the other way around?
- We can do it in both ways because we are working very closely. We want to reduce the number of contacts for you.
So if you are the end user, you can place the order with the system integrator. So we are working in very close cooperation to make sure that the integrators of NETxAutomation Software are also well-trained to implement a SIMLAB SIM-ON solution and vice versa.
So depending on who is having a first point of contact in the project, the customer just has one point of contact for both NETx and SIMLAB. Michał, would you like to add to that?
- We are offering the common solution that NETx and SIMLAB with both ways,
- Exactly, yes.
- as Suvankar said. And we have the partnership, that means that everything, if the NETxAutomation goes to their customer, they are also offering the SIM-ON visualization layer.
And in the opposite way, if we are going to the customer who needs the building automation system, we are offering and proposing the NETxAutomation Solution system.
- Absolutely.
- That sounds great. I know Dan has asked for this callback. So I’m going to say bye. Nice visiting with you, Michał and Suvankar.
- Thank you very much.
- And-
- Thank you. Thank you, Jay.
“We want to create something new for building automation and facility management. Not only do we want to avoid using the normal 2D dashboard that everybody has, but we also want to give another dimension to the experience for the customer and user. Matterport will be used daily for managing and maintaining the property.”
Michał Szopa Product Owner/Project ManagerSIMLAB SIM-ON
www.SIMLABinc.com | www.SIM-ON.com
- And yes, Jay, thank you for talking with Michał and with Suvankar. That was awesome. Suvankar, Michał, was there anything you felt like that you wanted to say about an aspect of SIMLAB or SIM-ON or NETxAutomation that you didn’t get a chance to say to Jay?
- Michał, do you have anything?
- I think we already talk a lot, and there is a lot of information passed to Jay, but in this case, what else to add? Maybe I can add that we have some very nice news to announce. ... All the details will be announced soon in our social media.
That means that our position is very nice, and also thanks to the partnership with NETx, we are now opening to the more professional way of business of buildings, but not only for the buildings because where we can get our common solution is it can be also be a ship, for example, yeah, because if we have the big ships, some tankers or some passenger ships or something like that. There is also the automation system.
And we can also add Matterport and also add all the layers we have, not only for the buildings, yeah.
- Totally get it.
- It needs to be in the mind, yeah.
- Works with lots of verticals at all levels.
- Yes.
- Let me add a couple things before we say bye. You can get more information on SIMLAB at: www.SIMLABinc.com You’re interested in SIM-ON in particular, the website is: www.SIM-ON.com You can also go to: www.NETxAutomation.com and there is also a deck available from SIM-ON. Go to: www.WGAN.INFO/SIMONdeck
That’s without a hyphen in this particular use case. www.WGAN.INFO/SIMONdeck In addition, we’ve done a number of shows with the SIMLAB.
You can see those shows on those WGAN-TV podcasts, www.WGAN.INFO/SIMLABonWGAN And lastly, before we say goodnight, I just want to point out for the Matterport Service Providers that are listening, it doesn’t have to be an enterprise-size client. SIMLAB is happy to do a home, a condo.
I mean, it’s literally at that level, and I won’t say that about NETxAutomation, it doesn’t have to be a ginormous enterprise. Really, as a Matterport Service Provider, there’s an opportunity for you to get more scanning business so that when you come into a commercial space and you scan it, to think about the solutions that we’ve heard about today to be able to do some suggestive selling because that suggestive selling, where you turn your Matterport tours into 3D digital twin solutions, through all the different things that we talked about today, that’s going to trigger some conversations about, “Oh, we have sister buildings, we have sister properties.
We need to have a refresh. If we’re going to do this, we need to refresh our Matterport tours.” So it’s an opportunity to get more scanning business simply by taking what you’ve heard today and suggesting to clients or asking clients,
“Do you have a need for asset tracking?”
“Do you have a need for live data of IoT in your mechanical, electrical, plumbing spaces, your MEP spaces, or throughout the entire property for that matter?”
So Michał mentioned at the top of the show that there are three different SIM-ON demonstrations on that page: www.IM-ON. com Go take a deep dive and see what I think of tags on Steroids. That’s what SIM-ON powered by SIMLAB has done with this tagging solution that it’s like, it’s hard to even say it in the same sentence, the difference between a Matterport Mattertag and a SIMLAB SIM-ON tag in a Matterport tour.
This is all the future today. Live data with IoT devices today. So Michał, Suvankar, thank you so much for being on the show today.
- Thank you, Dan, for inviting us and giving us this opportunity to speak about the future of buildings. Thank you, we hope we get to speak more about it to our customers, right, yeah.
- And thank you, Michał.
- Thank you so much as well from my side to you, Dan, and to you, Suvankar, and to all of you, who are watching us. I also only to supplement and end it at this whole hour today’s meeting, I would like to encourage you to visit also our different product, www. SIM-STAGES.com
That is also a very nice product for multiplying the scanning business to you, to the Matterport Service Providers as well. Thank you very much.
- Awesome. We’ve been visiting with SIMLAB SIM-ON Product Owner and Product Manager Michał Szopa, and NETxAutomation Software Sales and Business Development in the Asia Pacific Region, Suvankar Das.
For Suvankar in India, Michał in Poland, Dan in the US, I’m Dan Smigrod, Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum, and you’ve been watching WGAN-TV Live at 5.
