Software especially building/IoT software has a reputation for being more headache than helper. They tend to veer towards creating alarms for every fault or issue that looks anomalous. Dashboards that are more complicated than commercial airplanes create data fatigue, alarm fatigue and worst of all decision fatigue – if everything is urgent, nothing is urgent. The true aim of facility management software should be to make the facility management teams’ decision making easier, faster, and more accurate.
Fortunately for overstretched facility teams, sometimes data is just data. So how do facility software companies help sort through the noise and create an experience for users that prioritizes action and effectively uses their time?
The Pareto Principal – or sometimes called the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity – is how we approach our software. Specifically, it is how we approach and design the interaction between user and software. We want the software and the algorithms to prioritize limited interaction, so that teams are not spending their workday tied to sorting through alarms and data that is not relevant to their buildings or priorities.
This means the things we direct user attention to have to be the important things. In buildings, the 80/20 principal means that addressing the most important 20% of faults, results in 80% of the improvement opportunities that exist in a given building. We find this leads to lower equipment life, better occupant experience, and lower costs.
A software platform that gathers granular data from building control systems could quite frankly be the opposite. PointGuard too includes a mass of visualizations for all manner of data views, but there is a difference between information and data. In the PointGuard platform, data goes through customized algorithms to remove the noise, so users are directed towards the relevant signals or faults.
PointGuard algorithms help curate and prioritize issues as they come up and provide resource-constrained facilities personnel with actionable recommendations, which avoids false noise and ensures customers harness maximum value from the platform.
PointGuard turns data into information in the form of our Quick Tools. We offer an entire set of tools for rapid execution of cost-saving and profit-finding action items, including: Set Point Manager, Simultaneous Heating and Cooling, Pressure Resets, Optimal Start Stop (Sequence of Operations), and Excessive Operations. We also offer customization of dashboards and KPIs which direct users to the most relevant information to their operation.
In the end what PointGuard users see in the Platform is that which will make their lives easier and drive them to turning a wrench in their buildings. Nothing good happens in buildings until you turn a wrench to make the improvement.
In the PointGuard Platform the Pareto Principal helps direct facility teams to what data is important to help make decisions. The DNA of our platform is to get customers focused on the right data quickly and drown out the noise. While some platforms could look like an airplane cockpit, a glut of information with no context or insight does not help make faster decisions.
About PointGuard
PointGuard is a facility management software company that leverages existing building control systems to maximize the value and performance of mechanical equipment, increase occupant comfort and extend asset life. PointGuard’s platform, via monitoring based retrocommissioning, provides real time transparency to equipment performance in buildings for instantly better decision making for maintenance and capital budgets - so one facility engineer can manage up to 20MM sq ft strategically and effectively.
The PointGuard Snapshot provides an overview of operational performance levels after just 30 days of data, revealing potential and permanent improvements available through PointGuard's analytics platform. Based out of Charlotte, North Carolina, please visit www.pointguardtech.com for more information or PointGuard at info@pointguardtech.com.
