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partnership
“A quick win for
building managers
is to figure out
which floors of a
building may need
elevators waiting in
advance at certain
times of day.”
systems ingest, the better they get. In KONE’s
hands these technologies will help engineers
to figure out in advance when a part in an
elevator may need servicing or replacing,
enabling predictive maintenance,” she says.
Overall, people’s journeys in buildings will
be personalized, faster, secure and better.
Putting a flexible platform in place means
the list of potential benefits is only limited by
the customers’ imaginations. “Another quick
win for building managers is to figure out
which floors of a building may need elevators
waiting in advance at certain times of day,”
adds Green.
MACHINE LEARNING
IBM’s Watson platform uses natural language
processing and machine learning to reveal
insights from large amounts of unstructured
data. It became world famous in 2011 when
it successfully competed against human
contestants in the general knowledge game
show
Jeopardy
.
For KONE, Watson will help us and our
customers realize the true potential of the
connected world by transforming rich data
into actionable insights. This will create
huge opportunities for transformation and
innovation and allow KONE to extend its
leadership in People Flow technologies.
Antti Koskelin, CIO at KONE, explains why
the platform was chosen. “By utilizing the
Watson IOT platform, we can dramatically
improve the reliability, the uptime of elevators
and escalators, and bring a better experience,
shorten journey times and improve the flow
of people in big cities. Our differentiation
will come from how we can best utilize
the insights to improve our service to our
customers.”
POSSIBILITIES FOR CUSTOMERS
Improvements in performance and being
able to resolve potential problems before they
occur are areas where new types of predictive
services come into play. But this is only the
beginning, says Koskelin, as he outlines other
questions customers are beginning to ask.
“We are looking at new services and new
business models. For tenants and people
in apartments there are a lot of things we
can do to make lives easier for people and
bring peace of mind. Services for courier
companies, for instance, or services that make
it more simple and more secure for residents
to leave and enter a building.
“Apartment buildings are locked for long
periods of time. But as a resident, if you are
expecting a package to be delivered, can you
remotely open the door to a delivery driver,
or give them access to a specific room in your
house?” he says.
Thanks to the IBM partnership, KONE plans
to encourage a vast developer ecosystem by
opening Application Programming Interfaces
(APIs) which means new applications can
be built and different types of equipment
and services can be connected – creating
a smoother, safer and more personalized
People Flow experience for building users.
“A KONE business partner could develop
an app for communities of users enabling
people to pre-order elevators during the
busiest times of the day,” explains Harriet
Green. “Restaurant staff could be alerted
when there are large numbers of people
heading their way, enabling them to make
provision for more diners. Building managers
could optimize their action plans for
evacuations during emergencies,” she adds.
This partnership is expected to transform
KONE’s operations and technology
capabilities around the world over the next
few years. With so much data available and
the right platform in place to manage it,
analyze it and personalize it, even down to
an individual level, it means urban life can
change for the better. Moving from home
to elevator, to escalator – through buildings
and cities – will become easier and more
enjoyable.
KONE and its partners are working hard to
make sure the technology and the platforms
running in the background make the most
of a world where the Internet of Things
continues to grow. /