With the rapid development of various types of technology available to them, building owners and facility managers have more information than ever with which they can make decisions about their assets in a variety of ways throughout the life of said asset, from initial construction running well after construction is complete and the building is operational. Starting with BIM, and moving into digital twins and even more advanced technology like Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) sensors, there is just a bevy of information at their fingertips.
And there are also plenty of product and software providers able to relay this information to owners and managers in simple ways, many of which we’ve covered here recently like Prevu3D and SmartViz. Now, another competitor has entered the space in North America, with Integrity Aerospace Group (IAG) announcing recently the formation of Spinview-NA, bringing the London-based Spinview to the continent.
Spinview is not a new company by any means, having been founded in 2016 in London and serving that market since that point. Their main product, Visual Intelligence (VQ), is touted on the company’s website as enabling “businesses to manage smarter, safer, and more efficient spaces.” More than just a simple building information model, Spinview’s products incorporate real time data from things like the aforementioned IIoT sensors to provide live digital twins that respond and behave just as its real world counterpart will and does.
VQ provides a simple process to get the most out of the product, starting with VQmodel, followed by VQinsights, VQvision, and VQecosystem. In the VQmodel step, users perform a 3D scan of the building, taking the data collected and turning it into a digital twin. With the information acquired, owners and managers can then use the intelligence acquired in the models to make action plans on next steps, automate workflows, and provide insights on faults and health of a structure, combining insights from computers and people to solve any problems that arise. Users are also able to easily share this data, ensuring maximum collaboration among relevant stakeholders throughout the process.
While there are many different use cases that can, and will, be seen from this technology, one of the most important is going to be around sustainability and monitoring greenhouse gas emissions. Earlier this year, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a new rule around mandatory reporting from corporations around their greenhouse gas emissions, much of which revolve around their owned buildings. Getting the most accurate information for those disclosures, if that proposal does indeed become a mandate, has the potential to be a time-consuming task. However, with technology like what Spinview provides with their IIoT sensors, that information will come in real-time and can be automatically uploaded and collected.
This move into North America is being facilitated by IAG, a North American reseller and holding group for first class technology, equipment, and services. On the partnership, Spinview CEO Linda Wade said, “Cutting edge technologies, such as digital twins and environmental scanners or ‘sniffers,’ capture large volumes of seemingly disparate data – for instance, CO2 emissions, thermal imagery and point clouds – and fuses them into integrated visualizations, turning data into meaningful, actionable information.” For IAG, they say this is a continuation of the kind of development they’ve been trying to bring to their customer base, with CEO Leon Bunch noting, “Spinview’s vision of providing key information on the structural, operational, and environmental efficiencies of infrastructure and facilities all on one platform is the kind of innovation and service that our customers at IAG have come to expect from our team.”
