As we go back to the office, the process of not only being there but being productive there needs to change.  In order to engage the employee, the supplier or the customer to come into the corporate or region office, they have to be able to successfully do their business when and how they are comfortable with doing it.

Taking a holistic approach to building the tech stack, smart orchestration should be a core component of the digital infrastructure that underpins the built environment, as a means to utilise a richer data set around space and building usage that allows us to work smarter and more comfortably.

Some already call a portion of this workplace experience management.   But in order to manage the experience, there has to be an orchestration of workflows that go with that experience set. How the different experience management tools harmonise together to create the necessary processes for productive work.

When we come to an office, we want to know:

• Availability of people and resources.  This involves open scheduling, collaborative tools and change management resources.
• Status of physical areas and their hygiene.  This includes digital signage, capacity data being communicated, and personal preferences to heat, light and air quality.
• Capacity of environments in terms of usage.  Can I come in?  Can others still join?
• Procedures and protocols for visitors, suppliers, procurement of goods and services, etc.
• Changing regulations about how we engage with the environment, including cyber security protocols.

Role of sensors and edge computing in orchestration

The underlying aspect of knowledge is data, and we have to be able to gather the necessary data to create the knowledge and communicate it to the right stakeholders in a timely fashion. The tech stack on which decision making sits is made of both internet of things (IoT) and operational (enterprise quality) technology.

Both for IoT and operational technology (OT), the common characteristics of these technologies is that they are based on decentralized architectures and they use edge computing. There is an explosion of sensors, devices and compute at the edge, and that is bringing in new types of artificial intelligence (AI) usages at the edge for real-time analytics that enable decision making.

Summary

Orchestration is harmonized with other key factors in workplace design as visibility, light penetration and communication potential; we should examine workplace tools, data analytics, sensor technology, and smart algorithms will impact how we design and what we design, to help shape the workplaces of tomorrow.