Category: Business

Deferring maintenance and repairs may appear to save corporations and organizations money in the short term, but the long-term costs are significant and disruptive, even resulting in complete shutdowns of facilities. 

Strategic Space Planning teams need to know the risks and consequences associated with delaying building repairs, and that starts with understanding the basics of deferred maintenance. 

How costly is it? In a recent Higher Ed Facilities Forum article, the University of Missouri announced that they’re reducing their campus size by one million square feet due to an $881 billion backlog in deferred maintenance. That price tag was part of the university’s motivation to shrink its footprint. 

The University of Missouri announced that they’re reducing their campus size by one million square feet due to a $881 billion blacklog in deferred maintenance.

HIGHER ED FACILITIES FORUM

WHAT IS DEFERRED MAINTENANCE?

Deferred maintenance can be described as the postponement of building maintenance and repairs from an organization’s normal operating budget cycle in order to save money. Although deferring maintenance may seem like a feasible cost-saving practice, months and even years of neglecting building repairs can result in significantly greater costs and damage in the long term. Additionally, the collective cost of maintaining facilities greatly impacts an organization’s overall budget, especially as the building ages. To make this even more complicated, Facilities.Net reports that many budgets for new construction rarely include the ongoing costs for maintenance. 

HOW DOES DEFERRED MAINTENANCE OCCUR?

One of the main reasons for deferring building maintenance is inadequate funding. Facilities managers may not be aware of all the duties and money that are required to properly maintain building assets. Additionally, they may not take into account the expenses of deferred maintenance when creating budgets. Another cause of deferred maintenance is insufficient staffing. When understaffed, there aren’t enough technicians to address every maintenance issue that emerges. 

Overall, deferred maintenance occurs when facilities management teams don’t enforce regularly scheduled maintenance repairs and improvements. These include periodic adjustments, cleanings, and parts replacements that ensure that equipment is up to code and reduces the chances of its failure.

Then, there’s the relocation and placement of people. One of the big reasons operational teams wait to close buildings is because they would be faced with relocating building occupants. How do you continue operations when a building is shut down for maintenance or repairs? Space Planning teams would be forced to find new places for employees to work or new areas for students to learn while facilities are under construction or repair. 

WHAT ARE THE RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH DEFERRED MAINTENANCE?

When a repair is delayed, properties are still used and, yes, abused by employees or students every day. This can cause a minor repair to turn into a complete replacement or even collateral damage. An organization will have to pay for fixing the original repair, but they will also have to pay for replacing all other assets damaged due to the delayed maintenance. This means that managers can lose access to multiple facilities while materials are ordered and assets are repaired, another additional cost. ​​Reactive maintenance, sometimes called corrective maintenance, is an obvious problem. Allowing facility or system fixes to linger until they are urgent can mean major disruptions during peak occupancy periods. 

Along with the disruptions, when the asset controls the timing of its repair or replacement, costs will always be exponentially higher. Studies have shown that for every dollar saved by deferring building maintenance, there comes a four-dollar increase in future capital renewal costs. 

Deferred maintenance can pose physical risks – from air quality to water damage and aging exteriors. Indeed, in a 2022 Higher Ed Facilities Forum (HEFF) article titled 10 Trends That Will Reshape Facilities Management, condition-based maintenance – proactive not reactive – tops the list. 

HOW CAN SPACE ANALYTICS HELP DEFERRED MAINTENANCE? 

If Space Planning teams can understand where space is underutilized, then they can reassign and relocate employees and students, and get creative with multi-purpose space. By tracking space utilization, these operational teams can deliver data for solving space disputes, and bring long-term operational plans to the C-suite.

At Armored Things, we help higher education and corporate campuses like the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Boston Scientific make decisions by delivering deep insights about how and when to make repairs and routine maintenance. Using space analytics, we are able to aid Space Planners in making data-driven decisions by showing them where underutilized spaces exist based on usage over time.  

Want to learn more about Armored Things Space Analytics Solution? You can visit our website or reach out directly to sales@armoredthings.com for a quick demo. 

To learn more about Space Planning teams, read our Spotlight on Higher Education Space Planning Teams blog.

Alex Trotto contributes to the Blog and Social Media channels for Armored Things. She is currently a Northeastern University student in her sophomore year.

Long underserved by the technology sector and sometimes sidelined by corporate leadership, Corporate Real Estate (CRE) leaders have now been thrust into the spotlight, moved into a role that connects office reopening decisions to employee satisfaction and long-term success.

The role of the CRE Management team is evolving – and fast.

At a recent Armored Things-sponsored Fireside Chat, CRE veteran and Armored Things advisor Robert Teed talked with Madhu Chamarty about what he’s seeing on the front lines. CRE leaders have gone “from the back office to the front pages,” according to Teed, and are faced with constant offerings from technology vendors who want to reshape the reopening process. It can be hard to sort out which ones are a good match for the long run.

NEW CORPORATE REAL ESTATE STRATEGY 

In the last two years, CRE leaders have risen to the occasion – and are more strategic when it comes to workforce planning. “We’re seeing organizations embrace a more continuous approach versus a point-in-time approach to revisiting their real estate portfolio – and revisiting their headcount needs,” Madhu explained.

“We’re seeing organizations embrace a more continuous approach versus a point-in-time approach to revisiting their real estate portfolio – and revisiting their headcount needs.”

MADHU CHAMARTY, CEO AND FOUNDER OF BEYONDHQ

To get smarter with the ways organizations are using their spaces, CRE teams are creating strengthening alignments with HR teams. Strategic CRE leaders have a continuous pulse on talent trends across the country, not only for the purposes of space planning but for new opportunities to create opportunities to attract a wider and more diverse talent pool. 

WHERE TO START: SO MANY CRE TECH CHOICES

The pandemic has created what Teed called “a gold rush effect”  for the world of workplace technology. That is, workplace reopening technologies are increasing in numbers and types.

“We went from this kind of dearth of technology to this overabundance,” Teed said.

At the start of the pandemic, it was critical to make smart software product choices to allow for cross-functional collaboration which is essential for a distributed workforce. But as employees trickle back into offices, space planning technologies that track occupancy are top of mind as CRE leaders look to design flexible, dynamic spaces.

FLEXIBILITY MEANS MANY THINGS

As many CRE leaders strategize for spring and summer return-to-office plans, there’s a new vocabulary needed. An obvious start is ‘return-to-office’ rather than “return to work” – a nod to the fact that employees have been hard at work at home – sometimes working even longer hours with now boundaries between home and office.

Many corporations have been throwing around the words “remote” and “hybrid” – even using them interchangeably, said Teed. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to decipher what the idea of flexibility means anymore -and the truth is – it can mean something different for every company.

According to Chamarty, how an organization defines flexibility is dependent on two things: the  size of the company and its overall objective.

“Flexibility means how we enable some level of working from home. But also how do we make the workplace safer, more productive, and more conducive to things that you cannot do at home,” Madhu said.

“Flexibility means how do we enable some level of working from home. But also how do we make the workplace safer, more productive, and more conducive to things that you cannot do at home.”

MADHU CHAMARTY, CEO AND FOUNDER OF BEYONDHQ

For now, Teed encouraged CRE leaders to take time to explore their own space needs in a way that makes the most of the spaces CRE leaders manage – knowing the pressure is on CRE leaders to rely on hard data when renewing leases and spaces.

To watch Teed’s and Chamarty’s full conversation, click here

Here’s where you can learn more about how utilization software can help corporate real estate leaders reshape their offices.

Alex Trotto contributes to the Blog and Social Media channels for Armored Things. She is currently a Northeastern University student in her sophomore year.

Corporations are facing the twofold challenge of having to reshape both physical offices and employee attitudes as they work to design return-to-office plans and satisfy a reluctant workforce. The challenge for the CRE industry is real – how to design for flexibility without adding more premium space that may sit unused most of the time.

In most office buildings, predicting occupancy is still an enormous obstacle. At the close of last year, 73% of full-time U.S. workers were going into the office at least once a week. This means a vast mix of employees are working remotely and in the office. And the Great Resignation – a phenomenon that describes record numbers of people leaving their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic – means HR and executive leadership teams are working overtime to bridge the gap between employee satisfaction and a return-to-office norm. 

TOUGH CHOICES ON EXISTING LEASES

Accenture’s Market Leader Gabe Burke highlighted the need for corporate real estate restructuring in a recent LinkedIn article. “It is clear that if those in the C-suite knew then what they know now, they would have immediately begun to reduce their real estate assets,” Burke writes, in a post titled Corporate real estate has become a black hole that devours money. Time to fix it.  

Now corporations need to reduce their office space or restructure it to accommodate a workforce that many predict will not return to a 5-day office presence soon or ever. “Most workplace strategy experts agree that office design should change, which further decreases the value of holding empty space,” writes Burke.

Underutilization has always been a costly issue in corporate real estate.  According to JLL research, nearly 40% of workspaces in CRE portfolios are underutilized in a typical workday in the U.S.  That statistic was quoted prior to the pandemic, and it’s one that strategic planners and facility managers know can be hard to budge.

DESKS OUT, COUCHES IN

But cutting backspace can mean less inviting spaces and be caught off guard later.  In the first-quarter AICPA Economic Outlook Survey, 72% of business executives said that their organizations have no interest in shrinking their office footprint because they don’t want to risk needing that vacant space down the road.

Many corporations are already getting creative, turning unused conference rooms into new common areas for employees, for example. Brent Hyder, President and Chief People Officer of Salesforce, told The Wall Street Journal in an article discussing corporations’ plans to renovate office spaces titled After Covid Closures, a New Quest to Make Offices Less Awful that Salesforce is clearing desks from vacant conference rooms and replacing them with couches and televisions to create spaces for teams to collaborate.

“We’re creating spaces so that, when our teams come together, they have a place that’s inspiring to them,” Hyder told the Journal.

OCCUPANCY ANALYTICS FOR SPACE MANAGEMENT

To better understand which spaces are actually being used and to deliver the work environments that provide employees a sense of belonging and ownership, many corporate leaders are searching for ways to create occupancy reports, see predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI).

Space analytics software from Armored Things leverages existing WiFi, cameras, badge systems, sensors – any available data sources – to manage and monitor occupancy. When using Armored Things software, operations teams can visualize their space in a format that can be easily understood, and apply historical overlays to see predictive use cases. This type of machine learning or occupancy analytics is helping CRE customers find more value in existing spaces. Workspace analytics can also integrate with other scheduling and collaboration tools to help validate space decisions.

To learn more about how Armored Things is helping CRE leaders make the most of their spaces, check out our CRE Guide or reach out directly to sales@armoredthings.com for a quick demo.

Data indicates that organizations plan to continue a hybrid work model for the near term. A Mercer survey last May found 70% of companies said a blend of in-person and remote working will be the new normal.

But this hybrid model will also place greater onus on employers and facility managers to provide a healthy and safe working environment when employees are in the office.

That’s a tall order when 52% of employers said that they are only “somewhat prepared” to provide safe and healthy environments for their tenants and employees.

There are no easy answers to make workplaces, universities or other gathering spots safe and productive. But one important aspect of office and public health involves workspace analytics software, which helps organizations better safeguard workers in the office and make them more productive. 

Workspace analytics technology provides insight into employee density in a given physical space. By issuing alerts when the number of workers reaches capacity in a given space, the technology can ensure that workers’ social distance from one another. The technology can also queue up cleaning services or other workflows as necessary when spaces are used. Workspace analytics can also integrate with other workplace scheduling and collaboration tools to schedule meetings, create capacity alerts, or to trigger follow-up activities.

Technologies such as Armored Things have become increasingly critical to determining worker density, and environmental factors, such as building temperature, electricity used on a given floor or in a room. The software can enlist an organization’s existing cameras, sensors or other hardware, then derive data from these devices to track how many people have entered a facility.

We sat down with Chris Lord, Co-founder and CTO, to discuss the value of workplace analytics in organizations today.

WHY IS WORKSPACE ANALYTICS GATHERING STEAM RIGHT NOW?

Chris Lord: The pandemic that we’ve all lived through is probably one of the driving forces behind it. Two years ago, space utilization was an important part, but it wasn’t a necessary part. 

The pandemic has really shifted people’s thinking in terms of what is necessary [vis-à-vis a physical presence in the office].

 It’s forced us to reconsider how we use space [and to ask questions like], “When do we need to meet and why?” And “How often do we need to be in the office together?”

That’s really forced us to collect data to understand and ultimately to optimize what we do. Then the big questions are, “What is it that we’re trying to optimize?” and “Are we trying to optimize employee experience? Operational costs? Capital costs?”

You don’t just need data, you need the right data to inform the decisions you’re trying to make. 

In some cases, we need precise data to help with hot-desking [a shared-desk system for hybrid office/remote work models].

So, you may need that data to develop a hot-desking model, or you may need to understand overall utilization patterns and patterns of life within your space so that you can make coarse-grained decisions: “Do I have enough space or too much? Is it underutilized? That’s what’s driving a lot of corporate clients toward [workspace analytics] and where we obviously play a big role.

AS YOU CREATE THESE DASHBOARDS HOW DO YOU DETERMINE THESE ORGANIZATIONS’ END GOALS?

CL: We have a set of proven use cases that can help customers. That can direct the conversation, but at the end of the day, it’s really trying to understand what it is that [customers] want to do and what are the questions that they’re asking? 

So, the value of Armored Things is that you get continuous information about your environment, and how it’s being used. It’s something that’s there all the time. Sometimes that requires a deeper conversation on the facility side. [Companies] are used to these one-off studies that are a point-in-time snapshot and given the rapid change around us, has a shelf life. 

A point-in-time study that [I] did two years ago has very little bearing on what [I] need to do today. We can provide the look-back to last month, last year, last quarter, but the value of it every day and that opens up new opportunities.

I like to talk about democratization [of data], taking our data and making it available to your employees, to tenants, to whoever needs to make a decision. Our vision was three years ago, four years ago, to be the Google maps of people, not cars: Being able to show you where people are at any point in time. That’s the democratization of data.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF DATA-DRIVEN DASHBOARDS THAT AREN’T ACTIONABLE?

CL: Most people don’t have the time to swim in all the data. It’s not their job to be exploring data. What they need to do is figure out how to do what they’re doing better, faster, easier with fewer people at less expense than they did before. 

Most people don’t have the time to swim in all the data. It’s not their job to be exploring data. What they need to do is figure out how to do what they’re doing better, faster, easier with fewer people at less expense than they did before. 

CHRIS LORD, CO-FOUNDER AND CTO, ARMORED THINGS

The shift for us has been one of building our application, the set of features within the application, and through our partners to directly address what that looks like. Some of that is simple. So some of that is you know rather than present you a lot of charts and graphs, we present you the KPIs [key performance indicators]. So right at the top are the set of KPIs that tell you, what’s happening at a glance. Some of it is building in capabilities like alerting, right? Rather than having to let you look at the data and make a decision we’re just telling you about the decision that needs to be made, based on the triggers that are important to your organization to your environment. And so that’s, that’s one way, you know, you don’t have to be living in the dashboard. 

We can target the data experience to the persona—to a role, a function. When you come in you self-identify as I’m a facilities manager, “I’m in charge of operations, I have a staff that is there on game day, I am–whatever [the role] is. You identify, and then your experience is tailored to your needs. 

Then our software asks you, “What changes would you make if you had dynamic and new information all the time?” If I’m a university, I’m scheduling custodial services, if I’m an office place. I’m scheduling the same sort of thing, and I’m making determinations as to whether I clean these rooms, don’t clean these rooms, have to have more people on staff, because there’s more people there. All these things are things that we’re used to thinking of and doing in a very static way.

AS WE LOOK AT THE PAST 18 MONTHS, THIS TECHNOLOGY IS SO TIMELY. IT HAS REAL IMPLICATIONS FOR SO MANY DIFFERENT INDUSTRIES.

CL: Our earliest customers were in the university space. The safety and the security of students is foremost in [universities’] mind all the time, and we were an effective part of that. But those conversations opened up opportunities in better use of space. 

And they’ve also shifted into opportunities around, “How can we improve the outcomes of students?”  “Are we providing the right resources based on where they’re spending their time? “Are there things that we can learn about how groups of students are spending their time, respecting their privacy, that will inform better space and better information delivery to our students?” 

And so we started there. And now, sports stadiums are a huge customer for us, and other venues where we bring people together. People are their core business, right? And if people are your core business. you want to know where they’re spending their time, you want to know where those opportunities are. 

When it comes to reopening corporate spaces, there are still many unknowns. Should I renew my prior lease? Who will work full time in the office? Will they all get desks? But one thing is for sure: Space utilization will be top of mind for anyone managing an office building or campus.

Our glossary of Space Utilization terms, which includes occupancy and capacity, is helpful to keep handy as you assess the buildings and spaces you manage. And this year, facilities managers and space planning teams are likely to also year about something called occupancy analytics.

HOW DO YOU DEFINE SPACE UTILIZATION?

In its simplest terms, space utilization is occupancy divided by capacity as measured over time. Let’s say you know 150 people use the cafeteria each Monday 8 am-12 pm and your capacity for the space is 300. Well, this one is simple: cafeteria space utilization Monday mornings is 50%.

But that’s just the first layer. There are numerous ways in which space utilization can be influenced. How a space is used, for how many purposes, and how often its full capacity is needed, are all factors to consider. Facilities managers considering priorities for 2021 likely also want to look at things like crowd density and restricting occupancy to help meet safer social distancing standards.

WHAT IS SPACE OCCUPANCY?  

Space occupancy is defined as the number of people in the office (or any space) at any given time. This is a simple one but perhaps the most important, especially at a time when the number of people can be limited due to restrictions around distance. For space occupancy, real-time metrics are invaluable, and AI can help surface instant views rather than relying on manual counts of each room or meeting space.

HOW DO YOU MEASURE UNDERUTILIZATION?

To measure underutilization, you’d have to know your capacity and occupancy over time and set a goal for acceptable utilization at your company. The biggest problem with underutilized space is obvious: you’re paying for it. When considering new leases, knowing your underutilized space metrics is crucial. When looking at space management software, look for options to see historical and predictive analytics to determine how and when you can avoid underutilization.

WHY IS DENSITY IMPORTANT?

This is on everyone’s mind much more than it used to be. When space planners talk about density, they mean the number of people per square foot. But welcoming back students and employees to safe campuses means understanding density in real-time. That means real-time occupancy counts but also setting acceptable occupancy standards with new distancing expectations so that people are comfortable in large crowds. Many corporate property management advisors will tell clients to determine a density goal by predicting the number of people utilizing a workspace, and then multiplying it by the average square footage required by each employee (i.e., between 125-250 square feet). 

WHAT DOES PEAK USAGE INFORM?

Peak usage allows facility managers to track which sector of the workplace – or any shared space – receives the most traffic. These space utilization metrics can show which spaces hold the most value at any given point in time.  Armored Things do this by collecting real-time data from wi-fi and cameras to provide a historical overlay to show how a space is used over time.

WHAT IS ONE WAY TO MAKE OFFICE SPACE MORE FLEXIBLE?

In the new flexible workspace, everyone is talking about hot-desking – a system that limits the number of desks in the office space. This means multiple employees will use the same physical workstations at different points in the day in order to limit contact and maximize space. To determine if you need a hot-desking option, space managers should have a clear understanding of their space utilization and density figures.

WHAT IS OCCUPANCY ANALYTICS?

In 2022, monitoring occupancy is a top priority for many teams, and understanding what occupancy analytics means will help them get off to a good start. For help defining Occupancy Analytics, we asked Armored Things CTO Chris Lord to answer two key questions about it.

Chris Lord: When we talk about analytics in this context, it’s all about understanding patterns of life. It’s understanding how people are using your space over time and then using that information in order to drive business value and decisions.

There are many dimensions that occupancy analytics can inform. There’s the classic operation use; this could be help-desk staffing, security staffing, custodial staffing. Make sure you’re doing it at the right time with the right number of people based on how people are using a space. It can be long-term, like capital planning or deciding whether or not to renew a lease.

Overall it helps inform whether you have too much, or too little space, or the right kind of space… 

The information we extract from patterns of life can inform major spatial decisions in the workplace that ultimately should lead to greater employee satisfaction.

“The information we extract from patterns of life can inform major spatial decisions in the workplace that ultimately should lead to greater employee satisfaction.”

CHRIS LORD, CTO AND CO-FOUNDER, ARMORED THINGS

Armored Things employs two layers of analytics. The first takes high-volume real-time sensor streams and disparate data sources and combines them into a cohesive view of people and movement in space. This work relies on a lot of machine learning techniques and models.

The second layer uses that data to understand the patterns of life in space, and to combine it with contextual data (like weather or how space is allocated/reserved/scheduled) to extract insights that can directly drive business decisions about staffing, resource allocation, or space utilization.

HOW DO OCCUPANCY ANALYTICS COMPARE TO DENSITY OR CAPACITY? 

Chris Lord: Capacity is a static measure of how many people a space can support under a set of conditions (varies for an auditorium vs conference room vs coworking vs hallway) and, if unspecified, can be inferred from use and size. 

Occupancy is a point-in-time measure sampled over time and density is a function of occupancy and space or capacity.

Analytics can be done with either occupancy or density because they represent how something changes over time. 

For more on safely reopening offices and workspaces against the backdrop of the COVID-19 crisis, read the Armored Things blog found here.

Armored Things uses AI and machine learning to manage crowds, foot traffic, and wait times throughout professional sports venues, higher education institutions, and corporate campuses. To learn more about Armored Things, check out our Solution Overview Video or connect with our Sales Team at Sales@ArmoredThings.com.

A new Front Office Sports Special Report highlights this year’s huge hardware supply chain issues as a driving force behind stadium operations teams looking to IoT solutions to meet technology innovation goals.

The report, titled IoTs Impact on the Sports Economy, cites a McKinsey report on the growing influence of the IoT market, and points to a Bloomberg article on the growing number of out-of-stock hardware and technology items. 

Front Office Sports also highlighted the Armored Things intelligent software solution, and deployments at premier venues such as Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, as a way for stadium operators to drive value with IoT technology.

Front Office Sports predicts the category of Stadium Intelligence has emerged as one of the top ways IoT will influence the sports and stadium markets.

Here are some additional key excerpts from the report:

• The IoT industry could provide outsized returns in the sports and sports adjacent industries over the next decade.

• Manufacturers and advertisers alike are struggling to deal with the various supply chain issues across the board including truck driver shortages, port delays, and outright factory closures. 
• Armored Things provides a direct use case for potential sports and entertainment specific functions. The company’s software allows for smarter decisions related to crowd size, space utilization, security, maintenance, and fan experience while providing easy access to valuable data trends for space management.  

You can read the complete report here, and you can find out more about how Armored Things is helping premier customers like the Milwaukee Bucks, LAFC, and the Cleveland Cavaliers harness visitor data and transform their stadiums with deep insights into fan and crowd behavior by scheduling a quick demo.

To learn more about how we are helping partners and clients around the globe, check out this blog from my colleague David Smentek Real World Crowd Intelligence at Your Campus or Venue. 

Find John McNamara on Linked In to join his professional network and see regular Armored Things updates.

Curious about how Armored Things helps stadiums, corporate real estate, and higher education campuses do more with the data they have? Reach out today to connect with a sales specialist and learn more.

Due to our success in premier sports venues such as the Fiserv Forum and teams such as the Milwaukee Bucks, we are partnered with the Sports Innovation Lab (SIL) to help venues better understand how fans and technology interact with venues. Chris Lord, Armored Things co-founder and CTO, is featured alongside SIL stadium partners in SIL’s latest research project – dedicated to using AI to plan, build and expand stadiums.

Hear what Lord has to say about the democratization of data, and how we’re empowering venue managers to make ROI-related decisions relating to crowd management. You can also check out the entire report for key takeaways on how AI is empowering smart stadiums.

SYNDICATED, ‘AI AS INFRASTRUCTURE’, PUBLISHED BY SPORTS INNOVATION LAB, SPONSORED BY INTEL.

WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?

AI is technology that has been and will continue to work in conjunction with humans to improve overall human performance. Artificial intelligence leverages computers and machines to mimic the problem-solving and decision-making capabilities of the human mind (IBM, 2021). Robert Muehlbauer, Senior Manager of Business Development at Axis Communications described artificial intelligence in its simplest form as using a machine or a computer to do tasks that a human would. The benefits are myriad and significant—with AI and computation, we can make workflows quicker and more efficient. Over the years, popular conceptions of AI and Machine Learning have been shaped, for better or worse, by depictions in popular media such as film, television, games, and beyond.

Sometimes presented as a seemingly endless futuristic possibility space, sometimes presented as a great threat to humanity, AI captivates popular imaginations. Not surprisingly, the realities of AI and ML do not conform to popular media depictions. AI is neither a technological panacea nor an existential threat. AI and ML are computational tools that have the power to make us more efficient and to make us smarter. At the end of the day, AI and Machine Learning exist to make our work and our lives easier and better.

INTRODUCTION

The thrill of standing shoulder to shoulder with other fans, on your feet as the game clock expires, as your team buries the buzzer-beater, is inimitable and irreplaceable. It’s this feeling of shared experience and the “power of togetherness” that keeps live sports, with attendant fans, a primary pillar of the sports industry. The global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 that continues to shake the world has not only forced the sports industry to take a closer look at how we construct and design our live sports entertainment, it has also shaken the confidence of fans who continue to want the power of togetherness but who harbor concerns about the safety of attending live sports. The“return to play” has forced the whole of sports, from the professionals producing the contests to the fans adoring the action, to rethink our priorities and the role technology plays in bringing us all back together.

It is incumbent upon stadia operators and sports properties to change their thinking about the design of fan experience, and new pandemic-generated challenges that need to be addressed to ensure fan health, safety, and security. AI provides a suite of technologies, specific to problem-solving. that will play a foundational role in this change. Today, because of the rapid evolution of AI technologies, we can consider the impact of AI on a larger scale. AI is the future of sports stadium infrastructure—replacing traditional building and repair practices and implementing data solutions to create a live sports environment that is healthier, safer, and more secure for fans. To address the essential needs of fans, sports venues need to reimagine AI technologies as a new form of infrastructure, solving problems that used to be addressed through brick, mortar, pipe, and personnel.

To address the essential needs of fans, sports venues need to reimagine AI technologies as a new form of infrastructure, solving problems that used to be addressed through brick, mortar, pipe, and personnel.

SECURITY

AI and Machine Learning are being implemented in every facet of security. Physical and cyber security will continually be a main focus for venue operators and fans. Knowledge is power, so the more that technology knows, the better it will be able to output improved processes. In return, when the knowledge is made public, fans are able to digest it and change their behaviors to feel more secure. CTO and co-founder of Armored Things, Chris Lord, spoke on the democratic nature of data and the importance of understanding the problem, resources, partner companies, and areas to scale in order to be successful. The idea that data is a democracy, and understanding the problem, resources, and partner companies you want to scale can differentiate success.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are no longer “nice to have” technologies in the smart venue network, they are increasingly essential. AI and ML are infrastructure—critical systems that, together and as part of the broader infrastructure of a venue, provide the platform for fan experience.

To learn more about how Armored Things helps facilities teams deliver on priorities like this, schedule time with one of our experts today.