How space is utilised in the education sector is key and will be more important than ever in the current times. As a result of this, getting actionable insight means we need to able to measure utilisation accurately and in as near real time as possible coupled with the reporting and visualisation needed. But what is space utilisation? Space utilisation measures whether a space is being used and how well it is being used.

Making Space utilisation measurable means it can be improved, not only allowing you to adhere to any compliance regulations, but importantly ensuring it is optimised for learning. Some examples of how to ensure you are utilising your space include:

• Desk Booking: By providing a room or desk booking service, via an app for example, students are able to see which desk or room is available for them. Students can also then be notified when a space becomes available for them.
• Occupancy Sensors: Occupancy sensors provide insight into the hot-spots of a building and can be used to create alerts for building management when spaces become too busy. Algorithms can be updated to reduce the number of spaces available to ensure that occupancy remains at a safe level. Once a desk or room becomes vacant, cleaning and prep alerts could also be generated.
• Building Management: The team managing a building will be able to see who is working where to help them intelligently manage the flow of people within the building. If needs be, areas with low occupancy can be closed to contain areas efficiently. As well as this, airflow, lighting and other building operations could respond to information from other systems and sensors.

(Source: British Council for Offices)

Ergosense Sensing Solutions

Ergosense Sensing Solutions are a great way to measure occupancy behaviour and physical wellness conditions in schools, colleges, and universities. These solutions provide valuable information that allows you to adjust the environment to optimal conditions and improve space utilisation. The Ergosense solutions include:

• The Solutions Hub which is the core of the Ergosense ecosystem. This cloud-based hub interprets data captured by sensors and displays this data in a user-friendly analytical view. It also serves as a systems administration platform for the Sensy Mobile App.
• The Doc measures environmental metrics such as light lux levels, CO2 levels, humidity levels, and more. This sensor also acts as the communications gateway between sensors and the Solutions Hub.
• The Abacus is a people counter, measuring the occupancy and utilisation of rooms. These devices also measure the wellness metrics of an area such as sound, temperature, light, humidity, TVOC and CO2.
• The Pebble is fitted to individual spaces to measure the occupancy of that space and communicates its data via the mesh network to a gateway (Doc or Abacus).
• The Sensy App is fully integrated with the suite of Ergosense sensors giving you the insight into the building, rooms and areas as well as incorporating other functionality to enhance the user experience including facility booking, surveys, integration to ITSM solutions and other engagement functionality. As well as this, it is also fully integrated with O365.

The Sensy App and Display Panels

As mentioned above, the Sensy App provides facility booking which allows students to book a space, whether this be a desk or a room in the building, directly from floorplans. Using this app allows you to improve space utilisation, monitor conditions and improve the overall experience for those in the building.

Notifications can be sent to students and if needed, Surveys can be created and facility maintenance feedback can be received to keep facility managers informed on any issues that may occur. Other features include automatic entry logs, quick access to emergency protocol and links to appropriate contacts and information.

Display Unit Integration is also available and can be used throughout buildings. These displays can provide building level information such as the building usage and environmental factors which allows the students to make informed decisions on how they use the facilities. Focused displays for an area level can also be created to provide more detailed information in specific sections of the building.

If you are interested in finding out more on how to improve space utilisation in the education sector and to see how Ergosense can help you with this, please contact us by either calling us on +44 (0)1923 618 099 or email us at info@channel-tools.biz.