Digital Twins: How to Reduce Maintenance Costs and Downtime for Facilities

A Korean facility management (FM) company came to Beamo with a simple problem. 

FM Company’s facilities are decked with IoT sensors for all kinds of equipment: Fire Receiver, Purified Water Reservoir, Purification Tank, Gas Leak Detector, and so much more. Soon, they receive an alarm from one of their many sensors. They immediately notify their third-party vendor to solve the issue. 

The vendor visits the facility and heads down below ground where the equipment are stored. They screech to a halt as they stare helplessly at all the equipment. Just their luck, there’s no cellular reception at the site. It’s valve JH70-D54120, but which one is that? Shaking their heads, at a loss for what to do, they leave the building empty-handed and inform the facility manager that they’ll have to check again at another time when they know the precise location of the valve. 

The facility manager, stressed that the issue is not resolved, looks at a sea of blinking sensors and at the endless stack of equipment documents. He asks himself repeatedly, “Where IS that darn valve?!” 

This is how their POC with Beamo begins. For a period of two (2) months, Beamo will create a Digital Twin of three (3) sites and integrate it with their IOT system. Beamo will serve as a much-needed visualization tool to provide context to stakeholders as they monitor and manage their complex facility management systems.

This POC serves as an example of how Digital Twins supplement IoT systems in facility management. Many modern buildings are equipped with a variety of sensors and IoT devices that monitor various aspects of a facility, like temperature, humidity, lighting, fire, security, and energy usage. These devices generate large amounts of data that can be difficult for users to interpret and act on.

But with the aid of Digital Twins, users can better understand complex information systems by visualizing them as an ordinary human would in real life. A facility manager can see which information is pointing to what equipment and where it is in the Boiler Room. It’s as simple as that.

The image above shows a Digital Twin of the FM company’s site integrated with its IoT system.

This provides a more efficient and effective way of communicating specific issues internally and externally with third-party vendors. Just open up Beamo and point out the valve! Beamo even lets you record a Tour to help the service personnel to reach the precise location. 

Downtime is reduced, repair costs are minimized, all systems are functioning at optimal levels, and the day is saved. For a company managing hundreds of facilities, this can make all the difference. FM company predicts that this efficiency boost will provide them with a significant competitive advantage over other facility management companies. 

What’s next then for the FM company? After the success of the PoC, the company is now strongly considering the application of digital twin technology to the rest of its 150+ facilities. With the firm belief that the future of facility management lies in these technologies, they will continue their digital transformation journey to stay ahead of the game.