Challenges in Smart Building Planning

This "non-standardization" presents a significant challenge for all actors in a construction project.

With our experience in the development of Smart Buildings and connected building automation, we have defined 5 project principles to act as targeted, user-optimized, and cost-efficient as possible.

Defining Goals: What do we want to achieve with a Smart Building? These goals are formulated into concrete principles, such as reducing energy consumption by 25%. From these principles, concrete use cases are defined.

Definition of Use Cases: Which use cases do we want to implement in our building and who will use them? This target-oriented approach avoids implementing use cases that ultimately benefit no one. Based on this definition, technical and professional requirements can be defined and hardware and software solutions identified. The focus should be on open and integrable systems (such as Eliona) to cover IT standards or core functional requirements.

Defining the Business Case: Smart Building must be economically viable and not find a place in the building just for the sake of "coolness." Calculating a concrete ROI helps integrate Smart Building comprehensively across all levels in the company or building operation. Internal processes must also be adapted to justify the final implementation costs. Only if the technology is precisely aligned with the previously defined goals and use cases (e.g., process optimization, energy savings) and the implementation in the existing data landscape has been optimally carried out can the planned value contributions through Smart Building technologies be realized.

Defining Project Participants: Successful implementation is only possible if all relevant persons are involved in the project from the beginning. This includes not only "building-relevant" people such as planners, builders, or facility management but also internal resources like IT or compliance to identify important topics early and define problem areas. Open communication among all parties is of utmost importance for the overall project's success, as the Smart Building topic is new to most participants, and coordination of operational processes with the new situation has often not yet occurred.

Defining Processes and Workflows: Once goals, use cases and target groups, the concrete cost/benefit ratio, and project participants are clarified, action can be taken. A detailed project and workflow plan across all trades decides the success of a Smart Building and whether the defined use cases work and are used in practice.

The complexity of a Smart Building project should not be underestimated. We are already involved in various flagship projects and offer consultancy. We would be happy to show the optimal path for your Smart Building as well. Contact us.