15 Apr 2022 | Insights

Why are digital twins the perfect solution for hybrid working?

Why are digital twins the perfect solution for hybrid working?

The COVID-19 pandemic forced almost all businesses to shut down their offices and let employees work from home. Now we are out of lockdown and life is returning to some form of normality, the way in which we work has changed forever.

YouGov found that only one in five bosses will require their staff to come back to the office full-time meaning the majority of people will spend their working hours between home and the office in a hybrid-working arrangement.

A new normal

The most popular arrangement seems to be allowing employees to work at home for two or three days of the week and travelling to the office for the rest. This represents a challenge for commercial building owners and facility managers as it will be more difficult to ensure that no energy is being wasted and that the spaces in the building are utilised, ensuring the building is optimised for this new way of working.

Due to the nature of hybrid working, one week a building may expend more energy than the next therefore it can be difficult to achieve the right balance as there is no set amount of energy being used like there was when people were in the office for the same amount of hours Monday to Friday.

How does Twinview improve space utilisation?

The Twinview digital twin uses sophisticated artificial intelligence to identify trends and patterns of energy use within a building, empowering FMs to make informed decisions on where they can reduce spending on energy. The more you understand where energy is being consumed, the better you can develop approaches to reduce operational costs.

Until digital twins rose to prominence in real estate, building managers had no real way of analysing and controlling energy use. Buildings have always produced huge amounts of data but there has been no way of accessing this information until now.

Twinview helps to unlock access to your building’s data through the use of IoT and sensors with data streams available on a single dashboard for your convenience. By monitoring a building’s systems such as lighting, heating and cooling, Twinview helps a building to achieve the optimal performance which is perfect for hybrid working.

Twinview improves space utilisation by empowering users with the tools to improve many facets of their working day. For the two days a week they come into the office they will be able to use an app to check the availability of rooms and even book them out should they need to. They can also enjoy many other benefits such as heating control, air quality reporting and lighting control to optimise their environment allowing them to feel as comfortable as possible on the days they commute to the office. On days where entire spaces are not being used, the temperature can be lowered remotely in order to reduce costs even further.