Honeywell's Healthy Buildings offering integrates air quality, safety and security technologies and advanced analytics.

- Ashish Modi

Vice President and General Manager Honeywell Building Technologies

How critical is the adoption of smart building technologies in the post-pandemic era and also brief us on the scope and potential of the same?

The current uncertainty will likely remain at least for the next 12 to 18 months. From a building owner's perspective, it is important to build operational resilience to manage this uncertainty.

Commercial building owners and operators will need to reassure visitors and occupants that it is safer to go back to their buildings. Occupants will want to know that their buildings have the means to identify and respond to safety issues. New standards will require real-time, transparent insights into actions that building owners are taking to monitor and manage hygiene, improve air quality, and implement social distancing norms. Reassurance may take the form of new directives - such as limiting the number of occupants in a conference room or elevator, or regular sanitization. However, reassurance will also come from clear and frequent communications based on what is happening in the building. That information will come from data, which can be analyzed to provide accurate and real-time insights.

In the new normal, many commercial spaces like offices, malls, and airports require new signage, realignment of spaces, floor markings, temperature checks, and increased cleaning. All these measures are visible and, therefore, reassuring. What is not always obvious to visitors and occupants - but a cause for concern - are air quality, temperature and humidity control, strict enforcement of social distancing and usage of masks, and capability to implement contact tracing, if required.

What is the size of this segment in terms of value, and what is the expected CAGR?

The connected buildings space has been well positioned for growth for some time. As per a recent report, the global smart building market size is expected to touch $127.09B by 2027 with a CAGR of 12.5% in 2020-2027.There is another recent report that pegs the market for indoor air quality improvement at $10B.Our new normal is driving focus on both existing technology that's being used in new ways and the need to develop solutions that better support air quality, social distancing and contact tracing.

As a solution provider in this space, what do you think the major challenges?

In India, a large part of the white-collar workforce continues to work remotely. Even where operations have commenced, many building owners are looking at ways to implement new processes such as pre-screening temperatures, increased cleaning, and space reconfigurations - from reviewing open seating plans to realigning conference rooms, and from redesigning common areas to relooking at the use of common passageways and thoroughfares. What is clearly needed is to build confidence to returning workers/occupants that the environment is cleaner, safer, and ready for business. For building owners or facility managers, the challenge is to identify occupants if complying with safety policies and that the buildings are operating within the latest health guidelines. The trick is in being quick and nimble in implementing tech solutions that address these issues, capture data on compliances, use data analytics to optimize and fine-tune adherence to safety guidelines, and use information on readiness, compliance and response to build confidence.

What contributory role is Honeywell playing in this space?

Honeywell's Healthy Buildings offering integrates air quality, safety and security technologies and advanced analytics to support business continuity by monitoring both the building environment and building occupants' behaviors. Our solution features two packages - one focused on indoor air quality and another on safety and security.

The Honeywell Healthy Buildings Air Quality package monitors, manages and controls key parameters to create a healthier built environment while still managing energy efficiency. The Air Quality package can:

- Help building owners implement the latest ASHRAE and other local guidelines;

- Manage pressurization, ventilation, temperature and humidity;

- Gauge environmental and occupancy parameters;

- Provide real-time insights on contaminant risk, alerts to change HEPA filters, cleaning and occupant behavior; and

- Control and optimize UV cleaning, air filtration, and air composition.

The Honeywell Healthy Buildings Safety & Security package features hardware and software that can help building owners minimize risk by monitoring, detecting and responding to potential issues using integrated security tools. The Safety & Security package can:

- Manage people flow and reporting, people counting, proactive property protection, thermal temperature screening and PPE mask detection;

- Monitor and help sustain compliance with social distancing, space sanitation; and

- Support contact tracing due to potential virus exposure by leveraging advanced video analytics and incident management workflows. 

How have you been able to leverage the advantages of disruptive technologies in your solutions?

Recently, we announced new solutions to our Healthy Buildings offering. We have deployed Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learnings (ML) to help identify trends, track patterns, and help building owners better understand how spaces are used.

The Honeywell Pro-Watch and MAXPRO Network Video Recorders (NVR) and Video Management Systems (VMS) can now use existing cameras to identify if building occupants are complying with guidelines around social distancing and wearing masks. The advanced analytics and deep learning artificial intelligence video analytics, provide an industry leading level of accuracy, when used in the recommended operating conditions, and can isolate and report any instances of non-compliance to buildings and facility managers.

Currently, most building operators do not have effective ways of monitoring compliance with social distancing and mask guidelines. The Pro-Watch VMS/NVR and MAXPRO VMS/NVR solutions conduct real-time monitoring of people within a building to determine compliance to a building's customized guidelines. Building operators can leverage incident management workflows to digitize standard operating procedures based on the events. The easy-to-use interface provides live monitoring and counts the number of people in the field of view of the camera and detects masks. The solutions report on activity throughout the day so owners and managers can identify usage or issue trends and even manage access control if needed based on non-compliance events.

The Honeywell Pro-Watch VMS/NVR and MAXPRO VMS/NVR solutions with deep learning AI capabilities leverage the Intel Distribution of OpenVINO toolkit. The social distancing and mask detection metrics will be integrated into the Honeywell Healthy Buildings Score analytics that provide building owners, operators and occupants with information on key building metrics.

What is your contribution to India's Smart Cities mission?

The current situation has encouraged everyone to re-think the quality of life led in a city. The crisis has shifted the focus from taller buildings and more highways to technology-enabled buildings and enhanced citizen experience. Now more than ever, state governments, real-estate owners, and facility managers are focusing on the safety, security, and well-being of building occupants. To make it a possibility and provide for the aspirations and needs of the citizens, urban planners are aiming to develop an urban eco-system represented by the four pillars of comprehensive development - institutional, physical, social, and economic infrastructure. Here are some ways we are contributing to India's 100 Smart Cities mission and how the company is shaping the future of living.

- Lockdown Monitor: Honeywell's Lockdown Monitor was implemented by several cities to monitor the efficiency of the nationwide lockdown. The software proactively sends notifications regarding lockdown violations.

- Faster Response to Medical Emergencies: Address need for a coordinated approach to address public health & wellness. Computer-Aided Dispatch for healthcare systems and city-level situation management systems can help address emergencies during the time of the global pandemic.

- Healthy Buildings: Provide building owners with more control over critical health, safety, and security factors to encourage sustained compliance with changing building standards, safety guidelines, government-issued regulations, and a company's policies. These solutions also provide transparency into a building's health status to its occupants.

- Hi-tech Command and Control Centers: Map and video-based orchestration for optimized situational awareness and management can help authorities monitor safety and security in a city.

What are the latest solutions from your stable you are excited about?

We recently revealed the first tools from our new suite of Connected Life Safety Services (CLSS), the first all-in-one cloud platform for fire safety systems. Our CLSS suite of tools, built on the Honeywell Forge platform, enables fire technicians to minimize disruption, prove compliance and reduce the time needed for design, installation, commissioning, inspection, maintenance, and reporting of life safety systems. The solution was architected, designed, and developed by a team of engineers from Honeywell Technology Solutions (HTS) in Bengaluru. HTS is the global technology and engineering arm of Honeywell, with centers in Bengaluru, Gurugram, Hyderabad, and Madurai. For this solution, specifically, a group of engineers comprising cloud programmers, IoT stack developers, and mobile app developers was involved. 

How do you ensure the OT environments' safety from cyber-attacks?

Accelerated adoption of digital remote technologies is encouraging but puts industries at risk from security threats to critical infrastructures. A robust industrial cybersecurity solution along with digital remote solutions is imperative for securing assets. Organizations leading digital transformation are deploying cybersecurity solutions that drive greater consistency and protection across operational technology (OT) environments. Cybersecurity solutions coupled with other remote technologies help identify insights regarding the vulnerabilities and threats and avoid expensive downtime due to possible attacks.

The Honeywell Forge Cybersecurity Suite offers:

- Software solution to improve industrial cybersecurity performance across an enterprise

- A vendor-neutral solution to strengthen cyber defenses regardless of the control system

- Industry proven technologies of ICS Shield and Risk Manager, installed at hundreds of sites

What do you think of your role in Rebuilding India?

To reboot the economy, it is essential to build confidence that public spaces, including offices, factories, airports, commercial buildings, hotels and hospitals are safer to visit and work in. The concept of Healthy Buildings isn't a new one but is receiving increased attention. We believe building owners are keen on making long-term investments on smart and healthier buildings to dispel uncertainties and increase occupancy.

Honeywell has a wide portfolio of products and solutions to provide reassurance to building occupants:

- People temperature pre-screening and face masks to minimize risk of exposure

- Face recognition technologies and touchless access controls to enable frictionless access

- Dashboards with easy access to information such as air quality data and statistics on people flow to reassure both occupants and operators

- Monitoring people flow and access to support contact tracing

- Our sensors can monitor humidity, pressure levels, occupancy, temperature and more to reduce the potential of airborne cross-contamination

- Automated, advanced analytics to enable enforcement of healthy social distancing

- Use pressure to create isolation spaces

- Effectively manage airflow

- Apply UVC light to clean surfaces and air ducts, safely, and securely

Importantly, the Honeywell Forge platform enables analytics to monitor the health of buildings and ensure safety of occupants by offering

- Trends and analytics such as people count and flow

- Alerts, tracking and application of standard operating procedures

- Location-specific alerts and responses coupled with video analytics confirmation

- Capabilities to monitor compliance in adherence to standard operating procedures (WHO, ASHRAE, etc.) in real time

- Capabilities to manage and react to alerts, anytime, anywhere to ensure business continuity

- Automated incident response standards

Honeywell has proven experience with global reach. Our technologies are at work at some of the largest and mission critical facilities around the world. Our products, software and technologies are found in more than 10 million buildings worldwide. Commercial building owners and occupants use our technologies to ensure their facilities are safe, energy efficient, sustainable, and productive.

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