GLOBAL icon Burj Khalifa is marking 10 years as a pioneer in the innovative use of connected building and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to optimize the experience of its residents through improved air quality, enhanced thermal comfort and light levels, that improve productivity, health and well-being for occupants. This has been made possible with solutions from global software-industrial leader Honeywell that have been used to build, power and maintain one of the most iconic and complex structures ever created.

The 828 meter (2,716.5 feet) tall building, owned by Emaar Properties PJSC — a global developer and provider of premium lifestyles – exemplifies cloud technology innovation through the implementation of a series of Honeywell smart devices and platforms based on IoT. Technologies deployed during the 10-year collaboration, including Honeywell’s cloud-connected building management platform, Enterprise Buildings Integrator (EBI), have played a key role in establishing Burj Khalifa as the most green, safe and productive building in the UAE, fulfilling Emaar’s vision to provide efficient, global leading operations and facilities.

A key aspect of the strategy focuses on the comfort of the building’s occupants, in line with The National Happiness and Positivity Charter, which stipulates the UAE government's commitment to creating happy communities.

“Through our ongoing 10-year partnership with Honeywell, Burj Khalifa has remained at the cutting edge of technology innovation, making it truly iconic as the smartest and most sustainable building in the UAE and across the Middle East,” said Bashar Mohammad Kassab, director, facilities management of Burj Khalifa and The Dubai Mall. “We are proud to be deploying some of the most advanced technologies in the world through our IoT platforms.”

Norm Gilsdorf, president, Honeywell, Middle East, Russia, Turkey and Central Asia, added: “With our connected offerings for smart cities, Honeywell is demonstrating how IoT creates intelligent homes and buildings for a smarter future. Our long-standing relationship is a testament to Emaar’s ongoing commitment to developing truly smart cities, and providing Burj Khalifa’s occupants with comfort and satisfaction — making it the smartest building in the Middle East. We are delighted to have supported Burj Khalifa over the last decade and to be able to join in the celebration of such achievements.”

The Burj Khalifa team has partnered with Honeywell Building Solutions to pilot Honeywell’s Outcome Based Service (OBS) solution across the mechanical components of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. The OBS software as a service solution involves collating real-time field data, pushing this data to the Honeywell Sentience IoT Platform, identifying anomalies, and running smart algorithms for predictive and prescriptive maintenance of the building’s mechanical assets.

In turn, the service has enabled Burj Khalifa’s maintenance team to transform from a traditional planned and preventative maintenance regime to a predictive maintenance program for mechanical systems — this is also known as a Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) approach. The RCM approach optimizes maintenance costs and increases asset reliability.

At the core of OBS is Honeywell Sentience, a cloud-based IoT platform that delivers robust and secure big data capabilities for all of Honeywell’s connected solutions. The platform allows Burj Khalifa’s facility managers to use building data analytics for predictive and prescriptive maintenance. The pilot has resulted in a significant reduction in preventative mechanical maintenance tasks and an overall 40 percent reduction in total maintenance hours for mechanical assets, while improving the availability to 99.95 percent, enabling a significant reduction of unplanned reactive maintenance.

Burj Khalifa also uses Honeywell’s EBI system, a technology that provides a unified view of building systems and increases the connectivity of smart devices to improve efficiency, increase responsiveness and maximize operational control. The building migrated to EBI500 — the latest version of the technology – in late 2016 and today is one of the world’s largest EBI500 implementations. With access to real-time facility data, Burj Khalifa’s facility management team is now able to detect incidents faster, respond more quickly and mitigate any impact, more cost effectively.

Meanwhile, Burj Khalifa was named in the Honeywell Smart Building Score Awards 2016 as the UAE’s ‘smartest’ building. The world’s tallest structure also received the award for the Middle East’s smartest “high-rise residential” building during the Middle East’s first-ever smart building awards. The Awards assessed the smartness of buildings across the region based on three key indicators – how green, safe and productive they are. Burj Khalifa scored the highest points in the awards across three categories of green, safe and productive.

Honeywell Building Solutions is a part of Honeywell Home and Building Technologies (HBT), a global business with more than 38,000 employees worldwide. HBT is a leader in the Internet of Things (IoT) and creates products, software and technologies found in more than 150 million homes and 10 million buildings worldwide. Commercial building owners and occupants use Honeywell’s technologies to ensure their facilities are safe, energy efficient, sustainable and productive.

Honeywell is a Fortune 100 software-industrial company that delivers industry specific solutions that include aerospace and automotive products and services; control technologies for buildings, homes, and industry; and performance materials globally. Its technologies help everything from aircraft, cars, homes and buildings, manufacturing plants, supply chains, and workers become more connected to make our world smarter, safer, and more sustainable. — SG