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Alea Fairchild – Strategic Views

Alea Fairchild – Strategic Views

Tag Archives: workplace

Creating workplace process orchestration

19 Thursday Aug 2021

Posted by afairchild in Uncategorized

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digital signage, infrastructure, innovation, orchestration, Robinpowered, Stratacache, tech stack, workplace

Photo by gdtography on Pexels.com

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.

A workplace design fixation

17 Saturday Aug 2019

Posted by afairchild in Uncategorized

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collaboration, IoT, workplace

Source: LEGO

I have been actively looking at workplace design the last few years, focusing on why and how a workplace motivates creativity and inspires collaboration. If you go back and look at some of my blog posts, you will see discussions on IoT, lighting, temperature and use of space as part of our quest with technology to make workplaces more inclusive and efficient.

But I am not ending it here, in fact quite the opposite. I have recently seen how the space that you work in impacts how you perceive work. Which is why I question the whole coffee shop working ethos, as well as the lack of logic on putting up glass walls between offices. Neither situation creates comfort and engagement. Coffee shops may be hip, have coffee and great music, but you cannot focus nor engage well for any period of time with others there. And as for the glass walls, my colleagues either stay away or put up posters blocking the view.

So I am now looking at how technology enables the use of space, and how technology and intelligent design can really push the boat out on how we work, and more importantly why we work as we do.

Reach out if you want to chat about this more.

Wearables in the Enterprise – more than watches and glasses

05 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by afairchild in Uncategorized

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enterprise, recognition, role, smart office, wearables, workplace

When you hear the term “wearables”, you think of smart watches, fitbits and other consumer oriented devices. But the real market for wearables will be in the enterprise, such as on the shop floor, warehouses and in the conference rooms. This is the research I am working on right now.

Initial deployments should be industrial applications that have use cases that are specific with clear efficiency metrics and goals. Although some believe the “killer app” is the ability to work hands-free, the real level of personalization is the ability for the environment to recognize the user and his/her needs via their role in the organization. Entry/physical access, two factor authentication, personal preferences for heating and lighting, all of these can come from user recognition.

Another aspect of wearables is worker protection. For example, integrating intelligent textiles into clothing provides the possibility of changing color when exposed to damaging chemicals and/or radiation, warning the user of exposure in a way more immediately noticed than gauges or readings. Shape memory fabrics/garments can potentially be manufactured as novel fabrics which respond to the temperature stimulation, protecting workers by telling them when they might be in danger of cold or heat. And shear thickening fluid can be used for use in protective clothing as liquid body armour as it behaves as a liquid until it is exposed to mechanical stress. At that point, within a matter of milliseconds, it hardens into a solid. So when there is no threat to the wearer’s safety, he or she experiences little impairment in flexibility or range of motion, which is excellent for a warehouse or dock worker.

The eventual use of wearables among knowledge workers will be more of a generalized phenomenon, particularly when the devices become as multifunctional as their smart phones are. As many wear company badges for access to facilities, these could be become not only more fashionable but multifunctional as RFID and other technologies could be added to adapt the functionality to the role of the wearer.

Interested?  Get in touch with me.

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