Research project The project addresses the challenge of managing and modernizing old real estate through digitization to optimize operation, maintenance and use of public premises. Through the sensors gathering data about the actual activity in the premises, the project will contribute to new real estate services in the area of Internet-of-Things (IoT) Internet for Public Operations.
The main objective of the project is to gather sensor manufacturers, system suppliers, needs owners and academics based on the needs of public actors in order to solve needs and verify developed solutions in different reference installations as a basis for scaling. The project will specifically address functional VA (water and drainage) systems, efficient maintenance and optimized local use. Specifically, different wireless sensors will be installed at Umeå Municipality, Umeå University, Västerbotten County Council and Norsjö Municipality to measure the actual use of the premises and other maintenance-related variables such as tank levels and wastewater wells. Furthermore, Umeå Energy will set up an open innovation lab to develop and test smart property services in a real laboratory environment. In the lab, the project will carry out student projects and hackatons and a new service aimed at tenant-owner associations will be developed. The project will also set up an IoT environment at the Umevatorium in order to spread knowledge about the IoT and public sector to children, young people and the general public. With stakeholders gathered in the project, which together manage more than 1,700,000 m2 of public premises, there is a broad and deep anchoring to public sector needs in the area. In addition, the project brings together players such as Umeå Energi, UmeFast, Elektroniksystem, Indentive and Fält Communications (owned by Telia), who want to develop, operate and manage smart property services. As an academic part, Umeå University participates.
Vinnova
Umeå kommun, Umeå Energi, Västerbottens läns landsting, Norsjö kommun, Elsys, Indentive, Fältcom, Umefast och Vakin
Umeå is today one of the world's most connected cities, where all households are offered broadband access and many hotspots have been created in public places so people always have a network of networks. Through a wireless IoT network (LoRa), the city has been densified even more with regard to wireless connection of things (sensors). Umeå municipality has previously worked in various projects by linking up various things such as garbage room, home and office alarms. However, a coordinated approach has been lacking in which the operations have driven development on the basis of needs, and there has been no knowledge of developments in wireless sensors. As a starting point, a needs analysis has been made where challenges were identified linked to smart property services.
Overall, real estate services address three areas: functional VA systems, efficient maintenance and optimized resource usage.
Functional VA systems address the need for real-time measurements of sewage in sewage wells, which occurs when there is too much flow in the sewage system and contaminated sewage must be discharged into watercourses (if the sewage is not discharged into streams, it will penetrate the basement in real estate) . By measuring when disembarkation occurs, the flows can be partly controlled to reduce emissions into watercourses, and the figures can be used as a basis for reporting to the County Administrative Board.
Effective maintenance focuses on state-based maintenance of real estate, including local care. Maintenance can be roughly divided into remedial and preventive maintenance where corrective maintenance is performed after the damage has occurred and preventive maintenance is done before damage occurs. Preventive maintenance can be done through planned and state-based maintenance. For example, scheduled maintenance is to clean according to a predetermined schedule, while state-based maintenance is to clean based on contamination. Good maintenance in a property facilitates ownership and management. The risk of urgent unforeseen expenses decreases and the total cost of maintenance decreases because early maintenance is usually cheaper than one later. Sensors that measure different states in a property can provide sensor data as a basis for state-based maintenance, something we will address in this project.
Optimized local use addresses the need to better utilize the public premises available. For example, at Umeå University, the goal is to increase the number of students by 1000, without the need to build new premises. By using sensor data from the property, we want to contribute to new services for both property managers and users / visitors. By getting the property owner a better understanding of how the premises are actually used, its use can be optimized. Today, the gap is often large between the man who manages the properties and the operation's use of it. In public premises, the gap between planned use and actual use may be large as the business is not always included in the planning / construction of the property. Through better knowledge of how the premises are actually used, these data can serve as a basis for better planning, operation and utilization of the premises. In this project we also want to bring users and visitors to the premises as they, through their behavior and their activities, are those that can affect local use. By following which public premises citizens / visitors use in the municipality, there is a basis for evidence-based business development. Sensor data can, for example, be used to visualize real-time information in social media about how public premises are utilized, and then become the starting point for a simplified and deeper dialogue between municipal citizens who hopefully lead to increased diversity among visitors with regard to gender, ethnicity and age, and optimization of public premises based on actual needs.
As a project owner, we are based on Umeå municipality, which manages approximately 800,000 m2 of local area distributed in schools, care facilities, cultural and leisure facilities, etc. The management of these premises requires clear and accurate follow-up of usage to reduce energy consumption, ensure a healthy indoor environment and optimize maintenance. The use of the premises, for example, gives rise to major changes in the building's energy performance, but decisions on the use of the local area are taken at the level of activity and not central to the property manager. In the municipality's operations, changes are made daily that affect the use of the premises. A local or office has ventilation, heat supply and maintenance (including cleaning) optimized for a certain number of persons. The premises performance can change rapidly if the number of people in the premises changes. Today, most of the municipality's operations have flexible and flexible staff groups, and many receive trainees and temporary staff, extended child groups, temporary events at schools etc. - Changes that affect indoor climate, energy storage and maintenance needs. In order for the property manager to follow up on the flexibility of the businesses, real-time needs to be able to follow what is happening in the properties. On the market today, IoT solutions provide heat and ventilation control through wired sensors that are well suited for new construction, but for older buildings it is costly to install wireless solutions retrospectively, why the need for wireless sensors is high. Furthermore, existing solutions are attached to suppliers of ventilation systems and the like, and do not allow property owners to use sensor data separately in other services and in other operating systems.
To further verify and scale our property services, we have the Municipality of Norsjö, Västerbotten County Council (VLL) Property, University Service at Umeå University and the University Library as a required owner. Together, these four operators manage close to 900,000 m2. These needs owners face similar challenges as Umeå municipality and want to find ways to collect data on the state's state of affairs that can be used to improve maintenance and service to the property's visitors.
In addition to sharp tests in the premises of the owners, there will be a real laboratory environment in the form of an open lab for the smart property within the framework of the project. Behind this venture, Umeå stands for energy that focuses on smart property services as a new business area. In order to develop new services, they are therefore planning to build a laboratory environment with a furnished apartment where tests can be performed. Within this project is to develop processes and procedures for using the lab and launch an open innovation business where citizens and companies can test their ideas.
