The digitalization of buildings of all sizes promises to deliver significant benefits for their owners, operators, and the individual users.

It already made the automation of system controls possible using smart technology a long time ago – but when confronted by increasing complexity, artificial intelligence makes its welcome appearance. First of all, you build a digital twin of the building, such as Bosch Building Technologies does. This provides the most transparent view of all the elements of the building’s technology – and shows their most efficient way of working together. GIT SECURITY spoke about the subject with Andreas Mauer, Chief Architect at Bosch Building Technologies.

Andreas Mauer: Bosch Building Technologies focuses on commercial buildings, such as office buildings, shopping malls, airports, or factories. One aspect of digitalizing such buildings is understanding the processes that take place within them. Examples of areas we are working on include parking space management and the extent to which meeting rooms or elevators are being used. Then we have to consider the conclusions that need to be drawn from this in the interests of our customers, and what these mean for the building occupants, such as chefs, canteen staff, office employees, and janitors. Essentially, it is about understanding the building as a whole, being able to manage and operate it effectively, and asking how digitalization can help with this.

In the first instance, a shift toward intelligent systems means the building can, as it were, reveal itself to us, depicting the physical reality in the form of digital representations. We obtain transparency regarding the performance of the heating, lighting, and cooling systems, which we obviously want to work as efficiently together as possible.