Overview

pRanked as one of the a href="https://www.tranetechnologies.com/en/index/news/2020/recognition-and-responsibility-of-100-best-corporate-citizens.html"100 Best Corporate Citizens by 3BL Media/a, Trane Technologies is recognized for its exceptional environmental, social and governance (ESG) transparency, and performance. Within the Trane North America Commercial, Digital, Energy Services and Controls group, reduction in energy consumption is one key driver of our corporate commitment to sustainability. Trane Intelligent Services falls within this group./p pOne fundamental offer of Trane Intelligent Services is active monitoring which includes fault diagnostic detection for HVAC equipment as well as lighting, security and other facility and building management devices. The objective is to detect and automate the resolution for equipment faults since every fault and analytic points to a level of how energy is used./p

Supernova Award Category

Data to Decisions

The Problem

pWe had two primary problems:/p ol liWe needed to become more productive and efficient to reduce costs affiliated with our Intelligent Services’ strategy./li liTied into this was the fact that we needed to bridge the business gap between corporate, the 50 district offices, and our clients./li /ol pBreaking down the 5-10% of alarms affiliated with lack of communication between three operational groups provides a tremendous efficiency increase. Key to all of this is a href="https://www.actionable-iot.com/"VSI’s solution for Actionable IoT™/a that folds into our Intelligent Services ecosystem covering the white space between our IoT platforms and enterprise systems (FSM, ERP, CRM, etc.)./p

The Solution

pWe went through several iterations trying to resolve our two key problems. Initially, we used a 3rd party provider with an antiquated system. Next, we developed a homegrown system. We realized that the amount of mods, support and upkeep didn’t align with our goal of increasing productivity and efficiencies in an effort to reduce costs. Realizing we needed a better solution, we wrote a spec of the critical attributes, reviewed 3 options, and chose VSI./p

The results

pHistorically, local servicers in the HVAC industry are not interested in avoiding service calls. However, Trane is advocating reducing dispatches to the field by 20-30% with our digital solution. The dilemma? Smaller servicers depend on on-demand service to maintain their business./p pTrane empowers the servicers and their customers to shave 20-30% off of what was paid in service calls. In essence, Trane is “automating-out” the number of visits. By removing business from the servicers, the customer can be more self-maintaining. The carrot is that both servicer and customer may detect things they couldn’t otherwise without Trane-provided data. This enables a transition where each member has an opportunity to implement an outcome-based business model. By sharing the data and subscription fees, Trane is creating an ecosystem of knowledge to anyone that connects./p pIn the end, the servicer gets more serviceable, critical alarms to assist in creating new business models. Instead of just “rolling trucks,” they may have, for example, 20 field service engineers in trucks and 5 who handle monitoring. Different than service calls, with monitoring, they get a subscription fee regardless. Over time, reducing the number of dispatches to the field but offering subscriptions to a greater percentage of customers, can increase revenue in a reliable fashion. It’s a way to entice wide-scale disruption through an incentive-based subscription model./p

Metrics

pBefore implementing a href="https://www.actionable-iot.com/new-page"VSI’s Actionable IoT™ Squirrel/a solution, we struggled with a way to reduce costs and increase revenue through our Intelligent Services’ initiative. Our reduction in costs to deliver provides a 40% increase in productivity./p pOur goal is for overall alarm reduction which translates into eliminating alarm “noise”. There is a cost on each alarm that comes in, and the only way to reduce operational costs is to reduce the number of alarms that don’t need to be touched. What is the net impact? Less service dispatches, less alarms, and fewer charges to the customers for unnecessary visits. a href="https://www.actionable-iot.com/find-out-how"VSI’s solution/a:/p ul lisheds light on service levels that you can commit to via connected services,/li liprovides energy savings by automating action around fault trends paving the way for pre-emptive service,/li lireduces customer’s operational expenses through automation and action,/li liincreases revenue through subscription upticks, and/li lienhances customer stickiness by expanding access to the installed base increasing the number of touches./li /ul

The Technology

pa href="https://www.actionable-iot.com/"VSI’s Actionable IoT™ Squirrel/a for Alarm Response Automation (ARA)/p pVSI’s solution is part of Trane’s Intelligent Services offering. Built on a href="https://www.actionable-iot.com/what-we-do"Vertical Services Platform (VSP™)/a, the system enables better visibility into data via full management of Actionable IoT events. VSP is a cloud first aPaaS featuring unique, multi-channel capabilities that automates interactions between any entity, database, or group within our supply chain based on business processes./p

Disruptive Factor

pChallenges are similar with all intelligent services’ initiatives. On the technology side these include platform, cybersecurity, and connectivity./p pHowever, moving to a digital business culture is most challenging. Transitioning the culture from, “We have to go to the field and inspect” to “We can view alarm data and anticipate,” highlights a paradigm shift down the entire supply chain. It upends the way the supply chain views revenue-generating activity. All of this data can be translated into service leads, and VSI enables us to do analytics and mining to generate these leads-- all the while paving the way (via energy usage and recommendations) to become more energy efficient./p

Shining Moment

pOur total number of connected facilities is over 10,000 which translates into 100’s of 1000’s of assets. Trane has a huge digital footprint, and is taking advantage of automating the resolution for equipment faults to improve energy efficiency. In the end, we found we are automating things we didn’t even imagine. VSI’s solution creates a dynamic view into actionable data that lets us manage IoT alarm exceptions, replacing 2-3 systems, resulting in huge efficiency gains./p