Johnson Controls’ Building Sustainability App Grabs Hold Of Big Data

6th November, 2012 admin 2

[cleeng_content id=”870935849″ description=”Read more to learn more, You know you want to. Come on…” price=”0.99″ referral=”0.33″]Today, Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls (NYSE:JCI) launched the Panoptix software development community that utilizes big data and provides services to evaluate building efficiency and sustainability.

The new application was created in conjunction with five other companies, EnergyAi, EnergyPoints, FirstFuel, Lucid Design Group, and T4G.

“Johnson Controls is connecting big data with big ideas to create more choices and access for building owners. This open platform allows developers to do what they do best – create applications,” said Laura Farnham, a vice president in the building technology and service division at Johnson Controls in a release. “As a result, building owners and facility managers will have access to a growing list of choices to manage their facilities.”

Michael Murray, chief executive officer of Oakland, California-based Lucid Design, said in a release, “Panoptix allowed us to pull data from many different sites and different systems, not just Johnson Controls but others as well, through a common API. That eases the costs associated with system integration, and that means that more of our resources, and frankly more of the customers’ resources, go into delivering value instead of into system integration.”  The system also uses cloud computing to do this.

Buildings are the biggest consumers of electricity (68%) and potable water (88%) in the world.  On its website, Johnson Controls offers ways for a business to develop a building efficiency strategy, information on obtaining LEED certification, and various sustainability systems offered. Its water efficiency systems, for example, can reduce a commercial business, hospital, educational facility, or hotel’s water use by up to 50%.

Founded in 1885, the company is now the largest company providing environmental services in North America. But the transition was not easy. In her 2008 presentation, “An Exercise in Global Rebranding for Sustainability,” Monica Levy of Johnson Controls, admits that some companies use their environmental initiatives for mainly big marketing gains.

But she also lists how business-to-business brands, like her company, add value with an effort to “align goals and objectives across business units, increase strategic control relative to powerful business customers, increase stock multiple by making superior performance tangible, and more effect and efficient new market entry.”  So, companies can have more than a marketing opportunity with their environmental initiatives.

For Johnson Controls’ transformation, it worked to first understand its corporate culture, then collected data on what it was doing positively and negatively in its change over to an environmental focus. The company adapted its logo, it updated its mission, and it now uses its employees as brand ambassadors to try to exceed expectations.[/cleeng_content]

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