An occupancy monitoring solution for modern offices

Step into the offices of tomorrow, where work-life balance and adaptability coexist harmoniously. In the current work landscape, flexibility is the name of the game, and resource optimization a necessity. In these conditions, a common challenge is to accommodate hybrid work models with limited office spaces, over multiple locations.

Take the example of Swisscom. As an established company with a large corporate real estate, Swisscom offers various collab spaces for its employees spread over the country. Employees have the possibility to pick the location where they want to work, depending on their work obligations and own liking.

How can businesses such as Swisscom ensure that their office spaces are as agile as their workforce?

Part of the answer lies in the deployment of occupancy monitoring solutions that empowers employees with real-time insights and offers facility managers an unprecedented view of their spaces.

Step into the office of the future: a people counting solution from akenza and headbits

To help businesses such as Swisscom and ISS Schweiz, akenza developed a scalable people counting solution to monitor the occupancy in offices. The solution was developed in partnership with headbits, a company creating innovative digital products with great user experience.

The final product is in the form of a mobile optimized webapp, that delivers in real-time the occupancy number in the different locations as well as the occupancy trends for every day of the week.

The Spotfinder webapp in desktop version

Mobile version of the Spotfinder webapp

The system is composed of people counting sensors from Xovis sending their measurements to the akenza platform via HTTP. The data is then processed and stored in akenza. Finally, it is made available to the webapp developed by headbits via REST API. One of the benefits of the current system architecture is that additional data input sources such as additional devices can be added at any time with relatively low effort.

Offering clear benefits for employees and facility managers

This solution gives direct access to occupancy data to the employees of our clients and enables them to pick a location of their liking for their next workday. That way, one avoids overcrowding and other friction points, for the benefit of the visitors of the different buildings.

But that’s not it.

The akenza platform also offers detailed data analytics dashboards for facility managers. These can be used to analyze trends, identify anomalies and trigger notifications if needed. This reporting can be used to improve resource planning and offer space optimizations possibilities.

As the solution is built on a scalable, horizontal platform, it can be expanded with other use cases such as indoor air quality monitoring, dynamic cleaning, or service on demand.

Driving innovation through collaboration

Such use cases, developed in a timely fashion, are made possible thanks to strong partnerships from the IoT ecosystem. We are glad to offer innovative solution with our partners from headbits, for the benefit of our customers and their employees.