Real-Time Monitoring and Workflow Optimization for Retail and Commercial Buildings with Atrius Assets

July 18, 2019

As customers become increasingly discerning and market competition over the customer pool increases, the retail industry continues to look for innovative ways to increase sales and improve customer experience. Installed digital lighting networks, which can be paired with cloud-based software services like Atrius Assets, can be implemented to optimize not only the retail space layout but business workflows across the enterprise. When a business operates within a connected building (enabled through Atrius IoT Solutions) or across several connected buildings, it can provide increased efficiency through monitoring venues real-time or create an enhanced mobile app experience for building owners, tenants/consumers and facilities/maintenance staff.  Navigant research director Casey Talon states, “The digital transformation of commercial facilities is beneficial because the comprehensive dataset can be translated into the diverse economic and business metrics that are most important to the increasing sphere of influencers and decision-makers” (Casey Talon, Smart Cities Dive, March 2018).

Atrius Assets melds the customers’ collected data from the connected building into interpretable analytics that can be used to develop key performance indicators for decision-makers, thus allowing them to access the insights necessary to excel today as well as the capability to handle the increasingly complex technological needs that will emerge in the future. The solution took years of development and refinement to ensure that it would securely accept and process data from numerous types of sensors in the backend and provide an intuitive user experience on the frontend. It has already changed the way some of our customers do business by revealing a deeper story about an asset, consumer or occupant’s journey through the connected building space.

One example of how Atrius Assets can be used is in the buy online pick up in store (BOPIS) shopping option many retailers are offering, where the challenge is often the delay time at pick up. Through implementing Atrius Assets, a retailer can receive more reliable information regarding the BOPIS process to help their staff make faster decisions and deliver a better, faster consumer experience.   

Retailers, hospitals, office buildings, airports and other high traffic facilities can now enhance their customer’s experience by using the outputs from Atrius Assets to gain a thorough understanding of an asset’s real-time location and movement trends. The resulting business benefits include optimizing logistics and operations workflows such as BOPIS or restocking, enhancing on-demand and dispatch services (wheelchair assistance), redesigning space layouts to make it more fit for use, implementing safety or theft prevention initiatives, and improving equipment utilization and maintenance through the ability to accurately monitor the use of assets and resources. With the ability to connect to a customer’s building infrastructure via sensors as determined by the business’ requirements, the usage possibilities are endless. Strategically, Atrius Assets augments the Atrius IoT Solutions platform offering:  

The Atrius IoT Solutions platform was developed by the product team to be future-ready. It anticipates the customers’ needs of today while helping them remain competitive in the future, offering connected buildings as a foundation that can easily be upgraded and updated to take on additional services such as Atrius Assets asset tracking, wayfinding/navigation or other operational improvements when the time is right to deploy these features.

To learn more about the innovative and scalable applications of Atrius Assets, visit our website or contact us.

Curren Shorte

Senior Manager IoT Product Management

Acuity Brands Technology Group at Acuity Brands Lighting, Inc. 

Curren developed deep domain expertise in engineering, development and strategic positioning of IT-OT solutions from his service in the Navy as well as in business development at GE Power over the past 10+ years. His current focus in the technology group is to drive development, productization and positioning of AtriusTM Assets and AtriusTM LiveView products, which leverage Acuity Brands' Atrius Sensory Network to create value by uncovering business insights.

And, as a Naval Officer, Curren refined his technical acumen, strengthened his strategic thought processes, and developed an innovative mindset. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Systems Engineering from the United States Naval Academy; a Master of Science equivalent in Nuclear Engineering from the US Department of Energy; a Master of Engineering Management from Old Dominion University; and a Master of Business Administration from Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

In his spare time, Curren enjoys relaxing with his wife and dog. He stays active by participating in sports leagues, advocating for military veterans and providing youth mentorship.

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