Granlund introduces digital twin to the property management industry

Granlund Manager’s Digital Twin updates the idea of building information models.

At Slush’s official side event ReCoTech on 30 November 2017, Granlund announced the launch of the digital twin for buildings – becoming the first company to use the concept. The digital twin is used in property management for visualising the real-time conditions of an individual building.

The new functionality of the Granlund Manager software is called Digital Twin.

Granlund is a true frontrunner as a similar functionality is not offered anywhere else in the world, despite widespread global interest.

“Creating a digital twin for property maintenance is an objective that is widely discussed, and it has been advanced on the theoretical and research levels—for instance, in the United States. However no one else has yet realised it in practice. Many are talking about it, but we are the first to offer a concrete functionality for our customers to use in the Granlund Manager software”, says Jack Westrén-Doll, Director of Granlund’s Software department.

The digital Twin controls a massive amount of data from different sources of information and presents it in a way that is understandable for people. By collecting data on a building and analysing, the Digital Twin creates a unique way of visualising and bringing information to those who need it.

“We use the building’s data model as a basis and bring information visually to a room level. This means that when you are solving problems, you don’t have to go through the entire building. At its simplest, this could mean colouring different spaces according to the real-time conditions. People understand that everything is good in the green spaces and that something is seriously wrong in the red spaces, and this is where the maintenance activities and resources should be targeted”, says Tero Järvinen, Technology Director at Granlund.

Digital Twin brings IoT and digitalization to the property sector in a completely new way.

“Digital Twin is a building information model on steroids. We are adding new value streams by combining the design data of the buildings with maintenance data and adding other relevant information, such as user feedback,” says Järvinen.

Customer launch in spring 2018

Digital Twin brings the data from design and maintenance to property management, which presents unlimited opportunities. The Granlund Manager team will be introducing new functionalities to the application in phases, starting in spring 2018.

“Digital Twin will be available to Granlund Manager customers in April 2018. In the first phase, we are offering the opportunity for targeting and visualising customers’ service requests and condition information. In the future, there will be more functionalities”, says Westrén-Doll.

In spring 2018, Digital Twin will be available to customers as a desktop version. A mobile version will be launched later in the year.

Digital Twin focuses on the property user

One of the most important aspects of Digital Twin from the perspective of maintenance personnel, the property owner and the user is visualising data. Its objective is to produce a strong visual overview of the building for the property manager and facilitate the daily work of maintenance personnel.

For users, the Digital Twin makes the data easier to understand.

“In this development work, the end user’s opportunity to see the conditions of spaces has been important to us. In the future, we believe that communicating, for instance, the quality of indoor air visually to users of premises and potential tenants creates additional value for the property owners’ business. Who wouldn’t want to say that in their building people are healthy and happy”, states Westrén-Doll.

Granlund is piloting the Digital Twin together with Senate Properties at the National Museum of Finland. Watch our Digital Twin video on YouTube.

Want to hear more? Contact us:

Jack Westrén-Doll
Department Director, Granlund Software
+35850 525 2551
firstname.lastname@granlund.fi