Prevent business interruptions and protect understaffed facilities with IoT

Many businesses are facing new and challenging changes in the ways they operate. For those operating essential businesses, their focus is on keeping their employees and customers safe by implementing new procedures, diligently cleaning surfaces, and moving as much of their business online as possible. Many businesses, whether those with staff working from home or those deemed non-essential that had to close, are finding themselves with facilities unstaffed or running skeleton crews. In these trying times, many are turning to technology to help keep their businesses operational. The Internet of Things or IoT can be another tool in the arsenal to bolster continuity.

For the essential businesses, the hospitals, the nursing homes, the distribution centers, and the grocery stores, a business interruption now could cost not only dollars of lost business but lost lives of those at risk who rely on these services.

If left unchecked, these risks could result in major business disruption. For example:

Sensors installed in a hospital quickly detected a water leak. The leak was in a storage area that contained a large number of medical supplies and was located above critical electrical equipment.

Sensors in another hospital detected a burst in a glycol pump. Sensor alerts quickly notified the hospital staff about the failure. The pump was repaired before it became a total loss.

If the leaking was not detected, the hospital would have lost cooling and humidity control, closing a whole wing. Patients would have to be relocated until a replacement pump could be shipped and installed.

Having sensors in place to monitor critical equipment gives facility staff much needed extra time to perform their new responsibilities and manage their increased workload without the added worry of a critical service outage.

Many companies have either had to close their doors until the situation has improved or have instituted work from home policies to help keep their employees safe and healthy. This has left their buildings either vacant or staffed by a small group of dedicated employees.

Without the typical foot traffic, a facility in this situation could have a toilet overflowing for days before anyone was the wiser potentially causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in water damage. With businesses already struggling a loss of that nature could result in permanent closure.

Written by: Geoffrey Jones, Sr. IoT Engineer in the HSB IoT R&D Division.

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