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Transforming the Urban Landscape
Continued from page: 1
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Homes have just become smarter
Most of the times the term 'smart home' is confused with homes that are high
on electronic gadget usage or the ones that employ renewable energy resources
such as solar heaters or light panels and deploy water conservation techniques
such as rain water harvesting, allow more of natural light and employ
biodegradation of wastes. What is not known to the majority are the security and
power conservation potential of these homes. Information and communication
technologies have ensured round-the-clock access to information, while at
office, home or on the move. We work on our notebooks and PDAs, navigate our way
through GPS devices, access Internet on our mobile through GPRS, however, have
we ever thought of sparing some time from our hectic schedules to 'see' what's
happening in our safe havens-our homes, behind our backs? Yes, this is what
smart homes should allow. For roughly Rs 3.5 lakh for a basic 2-3 bedroom
apartment to upwards of Rs 25 lakhs for premium properties, you can get access
to technology that was unthinkable even five years back! You can have smart
cards that provide access to your home and even better, authenticate you before
you insert the key to open your door. And if someone tries to force through the
door, the system would send an emergency alert SMS on your mobile. Once you've
entered the premises, an intelligent system (based on your set preferences and
the time of the day) would control the amount and the intensity of light to be
switched on and in the rooms that you are most likely to frequent. Similarly,
electronic sensors could control the air-conditioning of the home based on the
number of family members present at a point in time. On your way back home you
could even configure the system to switch on the air conditioning and the geyser
or boiler to provide you with optimum cooling the moment you enter the house and
adequately warm water to have a nice, relaxing bath. And it's not as if there
won't be a system in place to alert you on any malfunction in the electrical
equipment. A fault at any stage, be it a short-circuit, leakage of current, gas,
etc could be picked up by electronic sensors and an emergency alarm raised in
the neighborhood, thus enabling a fix before the situation goes out of hand. The
owner too would immediately receive an SMS alert over his mobile device.
|
Remote Facility Management@Ngenox |
| A joint venture company of
Vipul Ltd and Laing O' Rourke plc, UK, Ngenox specializes in high-end
facility management of large commercial complexes in the UK
You've heard of business processes outsourcing
in manufacturing, publishing, banking and finance and legal processes. But
the kind of outsourcing we're going to talk about here is probably unheard
of-facility management. These days we see a lot of emphasis on employing
green technologies to save on power and reduce carbon footprints. This
essentially means deploying a lot of modern equipment for air-conditioning,
lighting, heating, communications, water purification, etc. Along with this
comes the additionally responsibility of service and maintenance of all
these equipment. The traditional building services & facility management
department in a complex might be good at house keeping, janitorial, pantry,
plumbing and electric repairs but they don't have the expertise to handle
such equipment. This is where companies like Ngenox step in. Based out of
Gurgaon, the company's Remote Facility Management (RFM) solutions entail
online management and advisory support for building services from a central
command center. Such a solution guarantees reduction in facility operations
costs and anytime, anywhere monitoring by a team of experts.
 |
| On Nergy dashboard you get
real time alerts on the status of different equipment and their service
requests |
The equipment on the client site contains
electronic sensors that gather information on critical parameters across the
complete electro-mechanical infrastructure setup and send it via a secure
tunnel on the Internet to the company's facility in Gurgaon. This
information is fed into customized software to analyze the status of
equipment in the facility, energy consumption patterns, optimize energy
usage across the entire complex and carry out preventive maintenance.
Additional business benefits can be derived by looking at indicators to
improve asset life cycle cost and availability of resources to support
business needs of the enterprise and compliance to health and safety
standards, now and in the future.
The company's energy analyzer software, Nergy,
fetches data from real time archived database of various parameters for
analysis and presents reports on energy consumption patterns and the
performance of various electro-mechanical equipment across a facility. It's
built on Microsoft technologies and has a customized dashboard to provide a
one shot glance of all the critical parameters to the user. Moreover, you
get real time alerts the moment something goes amiss. The various features
of this software include: Energy auditing through various forms; Real time
customizable Energy Dash-Board; Single window environment; Segmentation of
energy information at a glance; Energy analysis and benchmarking; and Remote
diagnostics and updates.
 |
| On the Ecofice dashboard,
you can find statistics on greenhouse gas emissions from a particular
facility |
For managing the routine facility operations
such as finance and accounts, administration, helpdesk facility, material
management and storage, etc, Ngenox has developed Facility Maax, a Computer
Aided Facility Management (CAFM) software. It is a user-friendly management
tool that helps you to manage & operate tactical & strategic aspects of
complex facility management functions. Similar to Nergy, this software too
has a customizable dashboard where all the important facility management
modules can be placed upfront for prompt redressal of service requests. The
key modules included in the software and their functionalities are:
Contract Module: SLAs, Contact
details, details of OEMs and service providers and other critical
information pertaining to all contracts are stored in this module.
Helpdesk Module : Generation of
service requests, work orders and job cards along with associated hazards
and safety instructions are taken care of.
Asset Module: The details of all
assets, equipment, preventive maintenance schedules and asset tracking are
achieved using this module.
Human Resource Module : Details of
employees like name and contact details along with their specialization and
skill levels are stored in this module. Routing of service requests based on
the same is done from here.
Finance Module : Facility related
budgeting, creation of invoices and recording of costs under various heads
is achieved through this module.
Reducing carbon emissions during construction
and subsequently during the operation and maintenance of a facility has not
only become mandatory through law but is also a part of the construction
industry's social responsibility and as an added incentive goes a long way
in saving on power and money. The company's third facility management
solution, Ecofice, is a carbon footprint monitoring software which allows
building owners and facility managers to analyse and predict Green House
Gases (GHG) emission impact from buildings and large facilities. It utilizes
data captured through user definable, web formats and real time information
through an online monitoring system for calculation of GHG. This would
indicate GHG emissions during construction and building operation services.
The inbuilt intelligence of the software can identify any deviation from
defined parameter values and alert the users of anomalies.
Ngenox currently manages buildings in the UK
and has plans to expand its services to the US, UAE and APAC region. The
centre and its business processes are ISO-9000, ISO-14000 and ISO-27000
certified by BSI, UK. |
The same technology could be used to keep a continuous vigil over one's
premises to prevent any unauthorized access to premises and the security of
valuables inside. Nowadays you have plenty of video cameras, door phones,
intruder alarms available, through which you could monitor the entry and exit of
people across your premises. You have a lot of IP based cameras available that
can send images of people trying to enter the premises to your computer screens
and mobile devices via the Internet. You might as well block access to your
place by simply sending an SMS to the security system or even configure the time
slots when you're away, so that nobody can break open into your home. Such kind
of a security setup has a particularly important application for the security of
senior citizens and children. For example, you could place IP based surveillance
cameras at strategic locations in your house and keep a constant eye on their
activities. We could continue endlessly on how more and more technology can be
used in homes and offices but the core message is that technologies are changing
the way we live in our homes and the extent to which we can ensure its security.
Right now these technologies are being implemented in posh office complexes and
luxury apartments. However, with broadband connectivity available outside
metros, and with technologies getting cheaper and an increasing awareness
amongst the masses, time is not far when we'll see such solutions percolating
down to budget residential complexes.
The communications conundrum
When we quizzed IT heads of some large construction companies on the
critical problems they face while implementing technology, the lack of
communication infrastructure in remote locations came out as the common grouse.
The real estate story is moving beyond metros to tier-2 & 3 cities where there
is plenty of space and at affordable prices. Even within these cities, bulk of
the action is on outskirts, where connectivity options are limited. Even worse
is the case with companies involved in the construction of expressways, SEZs,
ports and so on. GSM based mobile networks are virtually non-existent and unless
there is a semblance of habitation, telecom service providers are not willing to
lay extensive networks. DS Constructions has setup its own WAN at remote sites.
They use the RailTel network, taking bandwidth from the nearest railway
stations. The communications between the mast at the remote office and the
railway station takes place over radio links. The setup is a bit costly but
sturdy and worth using at such places.
Hindustan Construction Company too faces similar problems. But their
connectivity solutions depend on facilities available at a remote site. If
available, they use terrestrial options such as point to point lease-lines (VPN)
amongst different locations. However, if terrestrial options are completely
unavailable they go in for VSAT and radio frequency communication. In fact, at
some sites VSAT is used even for audio connectivity. Gammon India has a
centralized structure for data transfer and communications. Information from
remote sites as well as the head office is stored on the central server in the
datacenter, which is located in Mumbai. The company has deployed SiTE, an
integrated suite of business applications that provide end-to-end coverage of
the specific needs of engineering and construction companies. As 80 per cent of
its project sites are in remote areas, Gammon uses lease lines from the head
office to the service provider and from there they use VSAT for connectivity to
remote sites.
| Taking on the Seas |
| Hindustan Construction
Company's ambitious project, the Bandra-Worli Sealink, has witnessed usage
of state-of-the-art technology
Hindustan Construction Company is an eighty-year-old company with a current
portfolio consists of 6 Hydel Project contracts, 4 Nuclear Project
contracts, 20 Transportation Project contracts and 4 Water Supply and
Irrigation Project contracts amongst many others. The company's CIO, Satish
Pendse attributes a large extent of HCC's success to IT. Right from
centralization of data to connectivity and remote-site monitoring.
 |
| Bandra-Worli Sealink is the
first bridge in the open sea, linking Bandra and other western suburbs
with Worli and downtown Mumbai |
Innovation being a verb at HCC, the company
has initiated a new way of communicating with its employees both in the HO
as well as remote sites through “Digital Notice boards”, which were
implemented in March 2007. These notice boards are controlled from the HO.
Information about projects, messages from
Chairman, happenings in construction industry are put in audio-visual format
on these notice boards. HCC has data communication infrastructure which has
been created for SAP, email, Internet etc. The same infrastructure is also
leveraged for digital boards. The network, which remains less utilized at
night, is used to program news then. The news can be customized according to
various locations. For eg, in road sector projects the people involved would
be interested to know about updates in other road projects. It is controlled
through one PC at HO from where news is disseminated to other locations.
Its mammoth project Bandra-Worli Sealink (BWSL)
has witnessed use of breakthrough technology throughout including the much
talked about Asian Hercules. It is the first bridge in the open sea, linking
Bandra and other western suburbs with Worli and downtown Mumbai. Equipment
worth Rs. 170 crore has been utilized in this project. The main area of work
is in the sea. Both manpower and material needs to be supplied frequently
from land to sea where work is happening at different points. All the
transportation is facilitated through barges.
These 12 to 15 barges keep on supplying
material at various points on need basis. These barges are either at Bandra
end or Worli end. If the barges take longer time then the entire cycle time
gets affected. Inside the sea the work starts when the barges supply the
material to the specific point. If they do not follow proper path or get
delayed by an hour the work also gets delayed. To solve this issue, HCC
deployed imported GPS & GPRS based tracking devices on 5 of the barges. The
device keeps tracking GPS co-ordinates as to their positions alongwith time
and date. This information is updated on the intranet wherein it is mapped
on a Google type of map. It helps in knowing the exact status of a barge. If
at all, there is demand for a barge at any of the supply locations then the
central point can see which is the nearest barge and communicate to them to
go to the needed place thereby reducing the time. If some barge is stuck at
some point of time, then another could be sent. “Literal movement is visible
through these devices, as movement being critical to the overall cycle
timing. HCC started using it about a month back and after successful trial
has decided to deploy it in all barges”, states Mr. Pendse.
Another technology over which created much
hype was Asian Hercules, a crane to lift launching truss, which is used to
put blocks on the pillars, had been deployed. There are only eight such
cranes in the world. The company hired the crane from a Singapore-based
firm, Keppel and Smit, at the rate of approximately Rs. 12 crore for two
months. Apart from this, IP cameras were also deployed at BWSL site for
remote-site monitoring. Using Wi-Fi they were connected to project manager's
cabin and also to the head office using lease lines. Remote site monitoring
using IP cameras would also be implemented in other two projects.
How did you
centralize information to share it amongst various departments?
To centralize information and use it among various departments, HCC
deployed the SAP ERP solution in 2006. It is located at the central
server in head office, from where all sites and departments access
information. For document sharing, HCC uses a document management
system, again provided by SAP. It is currently being used for selected
departments and will later be extended to other departments. Document
sharing amongst project sites and the head office, and the document
repository is done through it.
How are HCC's remote sites connected to the main office?
HCC's remote sites are located in places like Kargil, Baramullah and
Assam. None of these sites provide quality connectivity options. The
company prefers terrestrial connectivity which is point to point
lease-lines (VPN) and then gives preference to VSAT and radio
communication. At some sites VSAT is used even for audio connectivity.
Do you outsource IT to handle any of
your projects?
In this era of outsourcing, HCC outsources a part of its IT
activities, which are held lowly in the IT value chain. Also, activities
which are strategically not important from IT perspective are
outsourced. Hardware management, facilities management and coding is
also outsourced. Core parts like systems architecture and functional
business process mapping are not outsourced. |
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Satish Pendse
CIO |
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Adeesh Sharma and Jasmine Desai
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