Energy Information Systems: From the Basement to the Boardroom

A significant buildings energy reduction opportunity exists in the office sector, given that this market segment typically is an early adopter of new technology. There is a rising trend towards smart and connected offices through the internet of things (IoT) that provides new opportunities for operational efficiency and environmental sustainability practices. Leading commercial real estate companies have begun to shift from individual building automation systems (BAS) to partially integrated and automated systems such as energy information systems (EIS). In both the United States and India, organizations are seeking operational excellence, enhanced tenant relationships, and topline growth. Hence it is imperative to engage the executives with decision-making power, by tapping into their interest in sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and innovation. This expansion of interest can enable data-driven decisions, strong energy investments, and deeper energy benefits, and would drive innovation in this field. However, none of this would be possible without robust, consistent building energy information to provide visibility across all the levels of decision making, i.e. from the basement where the facilities staff take operational action to the boardroom where the executives make investment decisions. Price, security, and ease of use remain barriers to the adoption and pervasive use of promising EIS technologies in commercial office buildings. We believe that these barriers can be addressed through the development of ready, simplified, consistent, commercially available, low-cost EIS-in-a-box packages, that have a pre-defined set of hardware components and software features and functionality that are pertinent to a particular building sector. These simplified, sector-specific EIS packages can help to obviate the need for customization, and enhance ease of use, thereby enabling scale-up, in order to facilitate building energy savings. The EIS-in-a-box are adaptable in both U.S. and Indian office buildings, and potentially beyond these two countries

Santa Fe Traffic Operation Center

The New Mexico Department of Transportation is expanding the District 5 Traffic Operations Center (TOC). We assessed the current communication methods and technologies used within the District 5 TOC. From various interviews and research we recommended that the TOC increase operational efficiency and interagency communications by implementing the following technologies and systems: Dashboard systems, NMRoads access expansion, automatic vehicle location, jurisdictional boundaries and infrastructure map, and interagency conferences, notification systems and contact lists

Investigating the use of real-time data in nudging patients' Emergency Department (ED) attendance behaviour

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the Society for Modeling and Simulation International via the URL in this record.Decision-making in healthcare is a complex process involving multiple stakeholders. One such stakeholder category is the intended users of the system itself – the patients. We present a study in which users use real-time hospital operations data to make attendance choices. The work was carried out with the Torbay & South Devon NHS Foundation Trust (TSDFT) and its network of Minor Injury Units (MIUs) and one Emergency Department (ED). The aim of this research was to provide information transparency on ED/MIU waiting times which would allow recipients, including, significantly, patients who are in need of urgent medical attention, to make informed decisions as to the facility that could best serve their needs. This work will contribute towards reducing pressure in ED by redistributing demand for minor ailments among the MIUs, since the MIUs have facilities for the treatment of minor injuries and the ED exists mainly for emergency and life-threating conditions.We would like to acknowledge the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account on Project Co-creation for the project on “Systems Modelling and Computer Simulation of Urgent and Emergency Care in Torbay & South Devon"

A productivity dashboard for hospitals: An empirical study

Health units are institutions which require accurate, updated information to support managerial decisions for thriving in such a critical industry. Thus, health information systems have been developed to help hospital managers steer daily operations. These systems provide not only operational support, but also key performance indicators (KPI’s) to monitor relevant areas at a time-aggregated basis. Despite the recognized value of dashboards in helping decision-makers, the literature shows a lack of proposals of productivity dashboards to assist Hospitals stakeholders. The thesis focuses on two problems: Hospital organizations need access to production and productivity information to improve access to services. Managers need production and productivity information to optimize resource allocation. The importance of addressing these issues lies in the fact that to monitor production and productivity information, is it possible to improve resource allocation. This dissertation consists of the development of dashboards to monitor information obtained from a hospital organization at the level of production and productivity, with the mission of supporting decision makers in the decision process. To properly develop the productivity dashboard, the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology was adopted to build and evaluate the artefact. It was ascertained that the production and productivity segment need more study and that the dashboards on these themes is an asset at the level of monitoring and analysis and subsequent decision-making process. The expected contribution of this research is to develop a dashboard recognized by health stakeholders as capable of better assisting them during their management duties.As unidades de saúde são instituições que requerem informações atualizadas e precisas para apoiar as decisões de gestão a fim de prosperarem numa indústria tão crítica. Assim, os sistemas de informação de saúde foram desenvolvidos para ajudar os gestores hospitalares a dirigir as operações diárias. Esses sistemas não fornecem só suporte operacional, mas também indicadores de desempenho chave (KPI’s) para monitorizar áreas relevantes numa base agregada no tempo. A tese concentra-se em dois problemas: As organizações hospitalares precisam de informações sobre produção e produtividade para melhorar o acesso aos serviços. Os gestores precisam de informações de produção e produtividade para otimizar a alocação de recursos. A importância da resolução destas questões prende-se com o facto de que ao monitorizar a informação de produção e produtividade é possível melhorar a alocação de recursos. A pesquisa consiste no desenvolvimento de painel de controlo para monitorar as informações obtidas numa organização hospitalar ao nível da produção e produtividade, com a missão de apoiar os decisores no processo de decisão. Para desenvolver adequadamente o painel de controlo de produtividade, adotou-se a metodologia Design Science Research (DSR) para construir e avaliar o artefato. Verificou-se que o segmento de produção e produtividade necessita de mais estudo e que o painel de controlo sobre estas temáticas é uma mais-valia ao nível da monotorização e análise e posterior processo de tomada de decisão. O contributo esperado é melhorar o processo de tomada de decisão nas Organizações de saúde, podendo ser útil para alertar de factos que a própria organização possa ainda desconhecer relativamente à sua operacionalidade

Extraction of Vehicle CAN Bus Data for Roadway Condition Monitoring

Obtaining timely information across the state roadway network is important for monitoring the condition of the roads and operating characteristics of traffic. One of the most significant challenges in winter roadway maintenance is identifying emerging or deteriorating conditions before significant crashes occur. For instance, almost all modern vehicles have accelerometers, anti-lock brake (ABS) and traction control systems. This data can be read from the Controller Area Network (CAN) of the vehicle, and combined with GPS coordinates and cellular connectivity, can provide valuable on-the-ground sampling of vehicle dynamics at the onset of a storm. We are rapidly entering an era where this vehicle data can provide an agency with opportunities to more effectively manage their systems than traditional procedures that rely on fixed infrastructure sensors and telephone reports. This data could also reduce the density of roadway weather information systems (RWIS), similar to how probe vehicle data has reduced the need for micro loop or side fire sensors for collecting traffic speeds