Facility Managers Expect High ROI for IoT Investments

By this point, facility managers are likely aware that their field is being transformed by technology. Advancements in the Internet of Things (IoT) are removing redundancies and letting facility managers focus on more pressing issues.

Facility managers expect that the development of new IoT infrastructures is going to make an impact on the bottom line, too.

According to a recent survey, 89% of building managers expect that technology will provide a return on investment (ROI) over the next several years. Perhaps more impressive was that 70% believed IoT would influence their policies before the end of the year.

The survey participants have good reason to foresee an ROI on IoT, too. Some technologies, like SmartCSM, are already helping facilities save.

Cut Costs by Reducing Energy Consumption

One of the biggest cost-savers of IoT, energy-efficient tech is also helping reduce the negative impact of buildings.

Energy-efficient tech can significantly reduce the amount of electricity needed to efficiently run a facility, with some buildings seeing energy reductions as high as 18%. Smart tech sensors will continuously monitor environments to find ways to reduce energy usage without having a real impact.

Through IoT, buildings can reduce lighting and HVAC waste without any active work from a facility manager. The tech gathers and analyzes data, and functions can be put into effect automatically.

Making buildings more energy-efficient is good for the environment, too, since buildings account for nearly 40% of all emissions in the U.S. By going green, facility managers can avoid large fines and find potential tax write-offs to push costs even lower.

Reduce Risk With IoT

The vast majority of facility managers think that IoT is going to help them run efficient buildings.

Surprisingly, only 15% of facility managers surveyed are taking full advantage of predictive maintenance tools.

Facility managers no longer have to settle for the unpredictable and often expensive run-to-failure model of maintenance. Through preventative maintenance tools, facility managers can get alerts on when machinery or infrastructures are starting to fail.

Some IoT sensors and software can even predict a break before it happens, letting you schedule a repair in advance.

IoT can help avoid risk in other ways, too. Many facilities still rely on archaic paper documents for all their information. This is not only inefficient, as parsing through stacks of paper takes time, but is also reckless, since paper is at risk of being destroyed in the event of a disaster.

IoT and software can store digitized versions of your information, making everything easier to access and available from anywhere with internet.

So, if a problem were to arise in the middle of the night, a facility manager could diagnose the issue remotely and send someone to fix the problem. This is faster, cheaper, and more efficient than using paper records.

The Future of IoT

IoT provides real-time information that facility managers can use. However, only 32% of facility managers are using analytics to utilize this information.

As more facility managers adopt smart tech, IoT sensors will be able to gather more information, finding new ways to cut costs for facilities. This will eventually lead to “smart cities,” the ultimate interconnected system.

Smart cities will efficiently use energy and data unlike anything we’ve seen before. But before we get there, more facilities will need to make the switch to IoT.