Tech Collective SEA interviews our CEO Sai for exclusive insights on how SensorFlow helps hotels operate better amid new post-COVID norms.
As the biggest industry impacted by the global pandemic, global travel was estimated to lose up to US$880 billion and the hospitality industry is following suit. The situation in Southeast Asia is just as dire.
However, our Co-Founder and CEO, Sai, believes that this is an opportunity for the hotel industry to enhance its energy efficiency, operational productivity and achieve its sustainability goals. Smart energy management and data-driven solutions like SensorFlow are paving the way for hotels to transition into the new normal and get the industry back on track faster.
With new social distancing standards in place and expectations of reduced/minimal contact across all service industries, AI-driven and remote working technologies such as SensorFlow’s automated HVAC (Heat, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning) management solution will be essential to cope with the “New Normal” post-COVID-19. This is because such technologies can greatly reduce the need for manual interventions while optimising existing system efficiencies and staff productivity.
Here’s how SensorFlow’s offerings help maximise hotels’ energy efficiency and operational productivity during this post-COVID period:
Smart HVAC Automation
Using an AI-driven HVAC automation system, SensorFlow’s technology automatically reduces guestroom HVAC energy consumption when our in-room occupancy sensors detect that a room is empty. Hotels can immediately save up to 20% of energy costs by optimising each room’s energy consumption based on live occupancy status. Furthermore, automation systems can greatly reduce the need for manual intervention and streamline work processes – which are key strategies required to adapt to the current trend of operating with contactless services and a limited workforce.
Real-time Data and Actionable Insights
With our IoT-based network of wireless sensors, SensorFlow detects live room environmental changes (e.g. occupancy, temperature, humidity, HVAC energy consumption, AC status etc) and reports them live on an online consolidated dashboard. Hotel staff can remotely access and monitor their room environments in real-time and on an individual-room and property level. These actionable insights empower hotels to operate with data-driven strategies and decision-making.
Here are some ways a hotel’s operational team can benefit from SensorFlow’s data-driven solution:
- Live occupancy insights of individual guest rooms can help housekeeping plan their rounds more effectively as well as minimise any accidental contact with guests that are still in-room.
- Our online web-based dashboard allows frontline service staff to remotely monitor and control their properties’ HVAC systems, enabling them to help identify and resolve in-room guest’s AC complaints from the reception desk without having to visit the guest room.
- Automatic alerts on HVAC faults can warn engineering teams in advance to pre-emptively resolve room faults. This can prevent affected rooms from being assigned to guests and help minimise guest complaints that may require engineers to physically enter the room during their stay.
- With the big data collected by our sensors on the overall HVAC system performance, even at the granular, individual-room level – building engineers can move away from regular, scheduled property-wide maintenance and advance towards predictive maintenance strategies where they will only attend to rooms with unusual system performance data as and when needed. As a result, hotels can drastically improve operational productivity by empowering even a small labour force to effectively maintain a larger property while minimising physical maintenance visits to the room.
Housekeeping Productivity Tool
In light of the higher operational standards expected from a hotel’s housekeeping team due to the strict cleanliness and safety measures in this post-coronavirus norm, SensorFlow is also developing new features and software updates that are specifically catered to help housekeeping teams access key occupancy insights and trends to better plan and optimise their cleaning routes. Focusing on delivering a more high-level and advanced dashboard of the “housekeeping view”, SensorFlow’s solution is now enabling hotels to optimise operational productivity and efficiency during their transition into the new normal.