TECHNOLOGY PORTFOLIO OF DSO IN FACILITIES

MANAGEMENT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYDubai Silicon Oasis is a technology park strategically located in the city of Dubai, and at the cross-roads of the globe’s emerging markets.

Launched in 2005, DSO was established with an objective to facilitate and promote modern technology-based industries in the emirate of Dubai and make DSO one of the world’s leading centers of advanced electronic innovation, design and development. DSO’s urban master-planned community spans 7.2 million sqm and has been carefully divided into 5 main sections such as:• Industrial• Commercial• Education• Living & Residences• Public facilities.

In line with both the Dubai Integrated Energy Strategy 2030 and the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 announced by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, we are further developing our smart and environment-friendly initiatives to increase clean energy usage within DSO premises and lower operational costs.

Moreover, technology is a vital part of DSO by naming “Technology Hub” as one of its 2021 Strategy pillars to foster technology and entrepreneurship through an integrated ecosystem. The strategy is supported by other pillars including “Desired Society”, “Smart City” and “Happiest People” all supporting its Vision to make DSO one of the world’s leading centres of advanced electronic innovation, design and development.

Facility Management scope of work includes operations of all Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA) properties, common area facilities from conceptual stage of the project up to their maintenance and handling customer touchpoints through service delivery. This report aims to highlight the various technology development within Operations and Facilities Management Department for successful delivery of various services. The technologies implemented in various areas helped achieve the operational cost reduction, increase in revenue and meet the stakeholder’s expectations such as the customers, top management, and operational staff.

Since 2009, DSO sustainability projects resulted in energy savings of 43,848 MWH in power; amounting to more than AED 19 million.We have demonstrated our commitment to establishing a sustainable model of energy conservation that offers an environment-friendly location for business partners, residents and visitors and have received many awards in the past.

This report aims to shed the light on projects that had positive impact, such as the five technology projects listed below and their impact on reducing Operational costs significantly in various areas:

S. No Description of Services Areas Covered Year Implemented

1 AI-enabled Integrated Building Management Services

DSOA Headquarters, Techno Point, High Bay, Towers 7 & 6, Techno Hub 2 & 1, Cedre Shopping Center, Operations & Facility Centre, Light Industrial Units 4 & 1,3, Silicon Residences 2 & 1; Al Waha Mosque 2 & 1 and Systems i.e. Reverse Osmosis, Dewatering and Storm Water Plants

2016

2 Smart Street Lighting All roads in DSO 2018

3 Smart Waste Management All residential properties owned by DSO 2014

4 Smart Subsurface Irrigation All DSO landscaping 2015

5 Smart Pest Control Two Villa Communities owned by DSO 2017

ENERGY SAVINGS WATER SAVINGS T S E WATER PRODUCTION

Energy saving in MWH

Savings in AED CO2 Reduction in Metric Ton

Potable Water Saving in Cu.M

Savings in AED TSE Water Production in Thousand Cu.M

Savings in AED

43,848 19,512,367 19,293 328,851 3,762,060 143,108 188,902,560

The above technologies contributed to overall savings from 2009 to 2018, as follows:

TECHNOLOGY PORTFOLIO OF DSOA FACILITIES MANAGEMENT

1- AI-ENABLED INTEGRATED BUILDING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (iBMS)

DSOA implemented iBMS to enhance the energy performance of buildings and increase energy savings.

We integrated the building management systems in various buildings through 30,000 BMS Points in a centralized system. This system boasts Artificial Intelligence capabilities. Following to the success of the project, DSOA received several delegation from private & public sectors who were interested to learn about the iBMS implementation including: Emaar, Nakheel, Dubai Asset Management, Emirates Airlines, Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority.

CHALLENGES

• Each building had separate building management systems

• Operator had to be personally present full time at major building, while they had to conduct regular visits to smaller buildings

• Systems are not monitored on real time basis, equipment malfunctions were not monitored

• Lack of systems that can predict maintenance requirements. This resulted in systems failures which affected the comfort of occupants.

• Energy utilization was not monitored on real time basis.

• High Inspection time for the water tank level monitoring

• Manual operation of equipment and systems.

SOLUTIONArtificial Intelligence-enabled iBMS has been developed as a centralized platform that is connected to buildings and systems which are described above. Network connectivity was established between the buildings through LAN. The iBMS platform allowed integration of various systems.

FINANCIAL AND ROI:Savings incurred per month is approximately AED 1,000,000 (Inclusive of the reduction of Operators and Maintenance Contracts for various Building Management Systems).

BENEFITS• Reduced number of operators from 110 managing 22 buildings

(5 for each) to only 5 operators managing all buildings in a Centralized Control Rooms.

• Centralized alarm notifications.

• Energy Savings through scheduled and more controlled operation of all equipment.

• Independent from proprietorship-based protocols of building management systems

• Real time monitoring of the electricity usage and alerts during high consumption of energy

• Historical analysis tools to target continual reduction and improvement. Figure 1 - iBMS in DSO

2- SMART STREET LIGHTING AT DUBAI SILICON OASIS

Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA), the regulatory body for Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO), the integrated free zone technology park, is leading several initiatives on the Smart Environment dimension of its Smart City Strategy, of which includes the replacement of its traditional lights with efficient lights (LED).

In 2018, DSOA replaced all its main roads’ street lights with LEDs, saving over 50% of its total electricity consumption. Implementation of smart lighting system is still in progress at DSO for different projects such as existing buildings & light industrial units.

The new energy efficient and long-life LED systems has demonstrated substantial reduction of operational cost up to 67%, due to low maintenance and energy cost after its implementation.

This was achieved using the latest LoRa WAN network across DSO district. This network also helped interconnect street luminaires and offered seamless integration with the street light management system, which allows:• Continuous, seamless and autonomous street lighting operation• Controlling lighting output remotely and scheduling of lighting profiles, reducing consumption• Monitoring and reporting of lamps performance and allowing identification of errors, thus enabling predictive maintenance

Monitoring of weather and air qualityAs the technology is scalable and many other services can be integrated, it is planned to add Smart street lighting, Smart irrigation control without any cost impact.

By 2020, O&F plan to integrate and monitor all services from a centralised platform for effective management.

Also plan to incorporate artificial intelligence, augmented reality in place to make the services affordable and easy thus achieving DSOA’s goal as one of the five best communities in UAE.

Overview of the street lighting retrofit project in Dubai Silicon Oasis’s main roads

Number of Lights retrofitted Average monthly consumption before retrofit – Sodium- Vapor

Average monthly consumption after retrofit - LED

Monthly Savings from retrofit

2,000 107,310 kWh 51,288 kWh 56,023 kWh or %52

3- SMART WASTE MANAGEMENT

In line with our Smart City vision, to make DSOA a leading smart community, DSOA piloted and developed several smart city initiatives and pilot projects. Among those initiatives, DSOA launched the Smart Waste Management System in 2014.

Based on this, DSO’s Facility Management team installed sensors in garbage bins that would send alerts through IOT Technology when the bin is full and needed emptying. With this new technology, garbage collection vehicles would take trips to empty the bins only when full, thus reducing trips leading to lower operating costs and a reduction in CO2 emissions.

In addition to measuring the level of waste in bins, the system also gives an overview of the total weight and volume of the waste. Using this data, DSO plans to implement further technologies on how to reduce overall waste in the future. DSO today is monitoring 150 bins through the smart system and aims to increase the number to 200 by the end of 2019 covering all projects in DSO.

RESULTS:

• 50–65% OPEX reduced from 2015 to 2018; • 70% Carbon Footprint reduced in 2018 in comparison to 2015; • 25% Recycling volume in 2018 increased from 8% in 2015; • 26% Reduction of waste to landfill.

4- SUBSURFACE IRRIGATION SYSTEM

With the expanding landscape areas in DSO, irrigation became a challenging requirement to manage sustainably. DSOA Facility team took the challenge of irrigation management with the latest innovative technologies, which was implemented in 2015.

SOLUTION

Figure 3 - Subsurface Drip Irrigation

10-15 cm underneath the ground through specialised drip tubes using copper shield technology. Since it is below ground, it resulted in 100% irrigation efficiency as there is no loss of water which is usually caused by: evaporation due to high temperature & wind, leakage & spillage due to spray, irrigation water accumulation on the asphalt/ hardscape. This practice reduced impact of TSE water stagnation and no breeding of pests in stagnant water. Cost of irrigation spares on the sprinklers, nozzles, spray heads etc is zero thereby reducing the OPEX.

There was significant increase in 2018 coverage areas due to new villa areas taken over.

RESULTS:• 40–50% irrigation water savings and overall OPEX saving of 40% on irrigation.• Published in UAE media as the region’s first water saving subsurface smart irrigation system• Site report published in International Irrigation Journal and websites. • Visited by various entities for benchmarking, e.g. Ministry of Environment and Water, Dubai Municipality, EMAAR, Dubai Properties.

INVESTMENT AND ROI:• 50% OPEX savings annually • ROI in years = 3.84

5- SMART PEST CONTROL

Pest control especially Rodent control is a major issue in any developing area.

DSOA ventured into using LoRa /LPWAN communication Technology (Low power Wide area network) to make all the rodent stations smart and connected for monitoring and capturing the rodents. A pilot study of 1 year was done in 2017 through a specialist and in-house team to collect data, identify appropriate technologies, suitable materials, and required authorities approvals such as TRAI.

After successful proof of concept, the solution was implemented in 2018 across all DSO projects which resulted in centralised monitoring of the rodent stations which reduced the OPEX cost on pest control management. This initiative is considered as the first of its kind in Dubai.

Figure 4 – Dashboard Overview of Rodent Stations in DSO

ROI, SUSTAINABILITY • 25% overall OPEX savings on public health pest control Annual Maintenance Contract.

STAFF INVOLVEMENT1. Operators received Certified Training Courses for the new iBMS for Programming and Logic Development.

Thereafter, all logics for the controlling of equipment, alarm creation, sequence development, graphics development, addition of new equipment, advanced fault findings all are managed by inhouse staff

2. Planning and execution of Smart Street Lighting was handled by inhouse team. The entire 2000 lamps were replaced within 2 months and completed successfully as planned in October 2018.

3. With Smart Waste Management, the inhouse team spearheaded the task of compliance check for new sensors against UAE TRA regulations, CE and ISO international standards. The sensors were fixed by the team as per specifications; they tested all sensors to ensure 100% accuracy. The software was enhanced and customised in line with our requirements to tally with the automated collection system and invoice generation called “Sahal” which means easy in English. This is communicated to all the stakeholders and awareness sessions were conducted to give more information on the system and its benefits that allows paperless invoices among many others.

4. Smart Subsurface Irrigation, since a pioneering technology in the MENA region, a specialist in-house team ventured into full planning and research including sourcing the technology and materials for the pilot study in 2014 until they were able to identify XFS-Subsurface Irrigation System as best solution after customising the system by the internal team.

5. During the development and implementation phase of Smart Pest Control, the inhouse specialist team went under methodical innovative thinking called Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT) that includes techniques of subtraction, division and Task Unification. It helped the team to think out of the box and come up with innovative ideas.

Innovative Culture is encouraged in DSO and is being practiced in FM as well. On yearly basis, we hold brainstorming sessions with our team to generate ideas and fill operational strategies. An Innovation Champion is empowered to lead and liaise Innovation efforts of the team up to creating business cases for Management approval. Among many others, some of these business cases resulted to the mentioned projects in this report.

 

TOP MANAGEMENT COMMITMENT

DSOA’s leadership team motivate and support employees to generate new ideas and innovate within their department. The following commitment is shown in:

1. Empowering the implementation team to make operational decisions as and when required.

2. Allocating proper resources, e.g. timely CAPEX approvals, budget for trainings.

3. Permission to carry out the appropriate research, benchmarks, attending technical conferences.

4. Approvals for pilot projects and testing.

CLIENT INVOLVEMENTAll above projects were implemented with our customers in mind. This is to ensure that we provide them quality community where they can live, work and build their future. The centralized iBMS would not have worked successfully without the cooperation of our clients, which we truly value. We also made sure that schedules were developed based on our client’s working hours and in coordination with them to avoid inconveniences.

Below are Key Performance Indicators that we monitor towards service delivery to customers:

Awareness sessions ran to introduce new services, safety, landscaping and other community updates.

Tracking customer feedback helped reduce repeated complaints and significantly reducing our operational costs.

In 2017, number of service requests increased due to the opening of 3 new projects

Waste management is extended to private developers in DSO. Due to our constant marketing / awareness sessions we achieved more developers and increased our customer base.