Pulse Core, winner of first prize for innovation
Published on 16 December 2022
On 6th September in Nuremberg, the SPIE Innovation Day 2022 saw over 50 new solutions from across the Group presented, culminating in a vote for this year’s top three innovations. First prize went to PULSE Core, a ground-breaking multi-functional buildings management platform in use at SPIE Nederland. Barry Tuip, SPIE Building Solutions, who headed development, talks to us about it.
Barry, congratulations on winning first prize for PULSE Core! Tell us about the product.
Barry: PULSE Core is a building operating solution which gives users access to a lot of insights about our customers assets and maintenance process. In addition, PULSE Core contains a state of the art fault detection engine with algorithm libraries to process sensor data in real-time and analyse building performance. With PULSE CORE, we use data to create the most sustainable, efficient, and healthy working and living environments possible – both for this and for future generations.
How did this innovation come about?
Barry: In a way, the story starts over a decade ago, when I and my colleague René van Doren began thinking about how to better analyse the data from our customers’ building management systems: by 2015, we had a dedicated development team working on a platform for building performance analyses. In parallel, Rob Martens and his development team had already built a customer-facing portal in which clients could open and track maintenance tickets or access plans and documentation. In 2019 we realised that we had a lot of valuable data, but in separated silos. By renewing and merging these applications into one single platform, we would be able to take our data-driven services to a next level, and create much more value to our customers. That was really the start of PULSE Core.
What is the status of PULSE Core now? And where is it headed?
Barry: PULSE Core is already changing the way we support our clients. We can use it to continuously analyse asset performance, for example, and identify failures like blocked valves, capacity shortages, or higher baseline energy consumption outside opening hours. Some issues can than be solved remotely by our expert adjusting setpoints or control strategies, or maintenance tickets can be created so that our local mechanics can resolve issues on site. Another major opportunity is to use data analyses to shift from scheduled to predictive maintenance (i.e. changing filters as required rather than on a fixed rota). This saves costs on our side and provides our clients with real-time data about how their building is performing – and how we are helping to optimise it.
As we go forward with PULSE, we will be able to provide ever more data and ever stronger analysis to a variety of users, from our own maintenance schedulers and mechanics in the field through to client-side users of all kinds. This will help our clients with their challenges – e.g. meeting their sustainability objectives.