Recognizing the Potential Use of IoT Applications in Commercial Real Estate

Real estate and infrastructure construction companies face the challenge of dwindling bottom lines thereby needing more effective and efficient management of their construction projects by minimizing wastage of raw materials & consumables enhancing productivity and reducing operational expenditures.

Construction and engineering firms need to quickly switch to enabled ecosystem to be more competitive. With a world of interconnected physical objects which can now also be accessed remotely via the internet, the potential for the industry has quadrupled.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is reshaping the entire industry across sourcing, storage, deployment and usage of materials and equipment, safety and productivity of workers in the construction industry. The ecosystem of connected solutions is designed to procure data and provide meaningful insights, enabling construction firms to improve speed of operations and enhance efficiencies and thereby shrinking construction cost and improving bottom lines.

The scope of data collection and analysis is significantly promising as ‘’Things’’ in IoT refer to machines designated with an IP address that can seamlessly accumulate and transfer data on a network without any manual intervention. IoT can offer new ways to ensure that resources and time are utilised to their maximum potential.

Equipment Monitoring and Preventive Maintenance

Internet-enabled sensors can be deployed on construction equipment and machineries including tower cranes, dumpers, batching and crushing plants and other heavy construction equipment to be tracked in real time across different locations.

Integrating IoT sensors with construction assets will also help managers to perform timely preventive maintenance to avoid equipment failures and boost performance. IoT applications can also forward early warning messages to the registered mobile numbers of the construction and maintenance workforce, to ensure immediate action can be taken, before it leads to major complications. Moreover, IoT devices can utilise the data to minimize the unproductive hours of machines and help save on resources for the construction industry.

Enhancing Safety at Construction Sites

Security and safety of their materials, equipment and human resources are a matter of major concern for realtors. IoT can proactively alert the users of heavy equipment of any forthcoming danger at site and resolve it swiftly. The technology can also enable remote tracking of workforce location to receive emergency and safety alerts in case of any untoward incident.

Material Tracking

Realtors can leverage IoT in swiftly and conveniently evaluating the availability of assets and can also pinpoint required assets to different construction sites. The technology can also facilitate the real estate industry in getting a precise understanding of available inventory and ordering requirements to ensure there are no delays in the construction process. With a comprehensive analysis of data obtained via telematics as well as predictive analysis, realtors can minimize risk scenarios, saving money, investing cautiously and exploring new ways of monetising assets. IoT is also enabling real estate players in precise billing of working hours for contractual services. With effective tracking of materials and vehicles, IoT can also help reduce pilferage loss.

Generating Live Business Value

IoT solutions empower the real estate players in leveraging live business value via predictive algorithms, real time intelligence, tracking and monitoring. Furthermore, an ecosystem of connected assets, both fixed and movable can enable the real estate industry to establish new business models to enhance ROIs and profitability.

Analyzing live business data with IoT will also help the real estate industry leaders in proactively tapping short term market opportunities and forecast business challenges.

Shortlisting the Right Solution Provider

A credible vendor of IoT solutions and services can facilitate the sector players to formulate and execute a rewarding IoT strategy and deploy relevant IoT applications. The first step for any real estate services provider in this regard should be to zero in on a technology partner which can offer end to end, customised IoT solutions, services and consulting. In selecting the right provider, the following needs to be taken into consideration with appropriate weightages as per the specifics of the projects:

Industry experience and domain expertise

Technology capabilities

Track record in the industry

Scalability and geographical reach

Financial sustainability

Mangesh Wadaje
Director and CEO, Highbar Technocrat Ltd.