- Published date:
- 04 December 2019
Member Spotlight Interview: Demand Logic
We spoke with one of our PropTech Gold Members, Will Hulls, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Demand Logic who provided extensive insights into how they are using technology for good, what seperates them from their competitors and their exciting plans for 2020.
Q: Could you tell us in more detail the problem Demand Logic aims to solve? A: Energy costs on average represent 1% of a business’ entire annual budget and upwards of 10% of the property budget. Based on research by Innovate UK in 2017, they found in a study of 50 new build commercial offices were four times less efficient that the UK Building standards recommended level. The major plant within properties relates to approximately 70% of overall energy costs which is largely due to poor management of the major plant through the building controls strategy; which has led to a huge amount of energy and cost wastage across every type of property across the globe. Most commercial buildings are operated through a Building Management System (BMS) which are extremely unintuitive and difficult to navigate. This in conjunction with the inability of many systems being unable to provide trended analysis meant that it was, and still is, extremely difficult to identify issues with building operations, without having to wait for something to go wrong first. This led to a Facilities/Property Management industry which was constantly ‘Fire Fighting’, on the back-foot trying to resolve problems. The aim of Demand Logic is to help simplify property performance to provide a data driven insight into the operation of property; opening the complex information and data within a BMS and illustrating it in a usable format which can be analysed, interrogated and utilised to implement strategies, resolutions and remedies to reduce energy cost and Carbon Emissions, improve maintenance efficiency and effectiveness and create a more comfortable and productive environment for the building users. Q: Demand Logic were shortlisted for both Service Excellence and Tech for Good Award at the UK PropTech Awards, could you give us an insight into how you are using technology to make a change? A: Demand Logic provides live data intelligence, in particular the Heating, Ventilation & Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems. Utilising the existing infrastructure through our Data Acquisition Device, we can link directly to the systems and plant; providing a cost-effective and accurate visualisation of the plant operation. This provides the ability to quickly identify any outstanding issues which are causing energy wastage, comfort and maintenance issues. Better still, through the system we can pinpoint the exact piece of plant which is causing the issues and in-turn provide our client’s engineering teams with the information required to repair and resolve; increasing first time fixes and reducing reactive comfort calls. The service uses live operational data to prioritise actions which fix faults, reduce energy consumption and improve comfort. When Demand Logic is used as a collaboration tool in standard operating procedures then the property will run better and more profitably. Demand Logic is also used in commissioning and environmental testing to quickly identify defects. The holistic analysis of HVAC systems highlights a range of common faults in major plants as well as small equipment, such as terminal units. Using data intelligence has been shown to expedite this phase of construction and to ensure a soft landing for the building operation. Our clients often seen returns on their investment of less than 9 months. Q: What separates Demand Logic from their competitors? We are all about getting buildings to work better. An award-winning company forging new paths in PropTech with our ground-breaking approach. Our software is used to reduce energy; to increase the comfort and well-being, and to reduce the maintenance costs all the while providing an unprecedented level of insight to property performance. We can provide a more efficient, effective and sustainable offering which sees returns of over 30% savings in energy, over 15% savings in maintenance costs and up to 100% reduction in comfort complaints from building users. All with an average ROI of less than 9 months sets us apart. There are several areas in which we believe Demand Logic excels in the market;
Q: Could you tell us in more detail the problem Demand Logic aims to solve? A: Energy costs on average represent 1% of a business’ entire annual budget and upwards of 10% of the property budget. Based on research by Innovate UK in 2017, they found in a study of 50 new build commercial offices were four times less efficient that the UK Building standards recommended level. The major plant within properties relates to approximately 70% of overall energy costs which is largely due to poor management of the major plant through the building controls strategy; which has led to a huge amount of energy and cost wastage across every type of property across the globe. Most commercial buildings are operated through a Building Management System (BMS) which are extremely unintuitive and difficult to navigate. This in conjunction with the inability of many systems being unable to provide trended analysis meant that it was, and still is, extremely difficult to identify issues with building operations, without having to wait for something to go wrong first. This led to a Facilities/Property Management industry which was constantly ‘Fire Fighting’, on the back-foot trying to resolve problems. The aim of Demand Logic is to help simplify property performance to provide a data driven insight into the operation of property; opening the complex information and data within a BMS and illustrating it in a usable format which can be analysed, interrogated and utilised to implement strategies, resolutions and remedies to reduce energy cost and Carbon Emissions, improve maintenance efficiency and effectiveness and create a more comfortable and productive environment for the building users. Q: Demand Logic were shortlisted for both Service Excellence and Tech for Good Award at the UK PropTech Awards, could you give us an insight into how you are using technology to make a change? A: Demand Logic provides live data intelligence, in particular the Heating, Ventilation & Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems. Utilising the existing infrastructure through our Data Acquisition Device, we can link directly to the systems and plant; providing a cost-effective and accurate visualisation of the plant operation. This provides the ability to quickly identify any outstanding issues which are causing energy wastage, comfort and maintenance issues. Better still, through the system we can pinpoint the exact piece of plant which is causing the issues and in-turn provide our client’s engineering teams with the information required to repair and resolve; increasing first time fixes and reducing reactive comfort calls. The service uses live operational data to prioritise actions which fix faults, reduce energy consumption and improve comfort. When Demand Logic is used as a collaboration tool in standard operating procedures then the property will run better and more profitably. Demand Logic is also used in commissioning and environmental testing to quickly identify defects. The holistic analysis of HVAC systems highlights a range of common faults in major plants as well as small equipment, such as terminal units. Using data intelligence has been shown to expedite this phase of construction and to ensure a soft landing for the building operation. Our clients often seen returns on their investment of less than 9 months. Q: What separates Demand Logic from their competitors? We are all about getting buildings to work better. An award-winning company forging new paths in PropTech with our ground-breaking approach. Our software is used to reduce energy; to increase the comfort and well-being, and to reduce the maintenance costs all the while providing an unprecedented level of insight to property performance. We can provide a more efficient, effective and sustainable offering which sees returns of over 30% savings in energy, over 15% savings in maintenance costs and up to 100% reduction in comfort complaints from building users. All with an average ROI of less than 9 months sets us apart. There are several areas in which we believe Demand Logic excels in the market;
- Data Acquisition – Our unique Data Acquisition Device (DAD) connects in to the client’s BMS from which it can poll all the data sets connected to the BMS, on a number of sites we are polling 175,000 + data. Providing our clients with a broader insight, as well as provide an unprecedented level of data for new builds.
- Speed of Deployment - The deployment of our DAD typically takes less than 3 hours, from which we are able to build a virtual asset model within 48 hours of deployment.
- Agnostic approach – We work with all major manufacturers and systems. We can operate with over 80% of the market.
- More than just Energy – We believe strongly in not solely using the data to identify energy savings; as we often state that we are not Energy Consultants. We have three core areas of KPIs which are Comfort, Maintenance and Energy.
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