The last time when we discussed Singapore being chosen as the leading smart city, it was during the Smart Cities World and Philips Lightings Research held in 2017. And this year it is Juniper Research that has placed Singapore at the first position in the global smart city ranking. Though the rankings are based on Global Smart City Performance Index 2017, the results were released this year on March 12. The research was carried out between July and September 2017 and was sponsored by the tech-firm Intel.
The Global Smart City Performance Index 2017 rankings were made considering four key areas namely mobility, health, safety and productivity. The findings were based on how smart city initiatives in 20 cities proved to be beneficial for the citizens. The primary aim of the research was to measure the success of technology in providing enhanced quality of life to people.
Singapore proved out to be the leader in all four areas considered. The city-state topped the position ahead of other major smart cities like San Francisco, London, Seoul and New York.
Let’s take a look at what makes Singapore lead the rankings recurrently – this stirs up quite a bit of curiosity, isn’t it?
Initiatives That Made Singapore A Smart Nation
As per the reports, Singapore has a leading mobility infrastructure for the citizens. The city-state has created smart and connected traffic solutions.
Besides, applying connected traffic solutions, the city-state issued a strong policy to decrease car ownership – the aim is to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads and tackle congestion as well as pollution problems.
In healthcare area, Singapore is focusing on providing quality care and treatment to elderly citizens through a variety of technologies. It aims at addressing the healthcare service provision with the deployment of digital service platform, remote monitoring devices and more.
Again in the Safety area, Singapore has deployed smart video surveillance to detect criminal activity across the city.
According to Mr Windsor Holden, Head of Forecasting and Consultancy at Juniper Research, “Analysts tend to focus on the technical underpinnings of building a data-centric world.” Further, he added by saying, “We can’t overlook the importance of the real human benefits that smart cities have. Connected communities, municipal services and processes have a powerful impact on a citizen’s quality of life.”
As per the research, what makes Singapore unique in its capability to approach the smart city vision is the Singapore’s “Smart Nation” initiative and its profile as a city-state.
Singapore was praised for its rapid advancement into the world’s leading smart city since independence.
(Check out our previous blog to know more about Singapore’s Smart Nation Vision and more)
iFM Solution – The New Smart Building Strategy
Certis Group and Eutech Cybernetic PTe Ltd have entered a partnership to leverage each other’s technology and solution to offer the first IoT Facilities Management (iFM) solution of Singapore to the targeted markets abroad. The partnership has been facilitated by International Enterprise (IE) Singapore, a legislative body under the Ministry of Trade and Industry (Government of Singapore) that promotes industry growth and partnership between Singapore-based companies to help them reach the overseas market.
The proprietary data management software of Eutech called iviva and the iFM platform offered by Certis will be integrated to provide smart building technology to building owners and operators. The solution will help in managing and integrating the building operations. It will lead to optimization of consumption of energy, physical security, safety, maintenance and even tenant services.
Certis is recognised as a leading integrated security firm in the Asia Pacific and the Middle East. On the other hand, Eutech is a Singapore-based SME that has its key operations revolving around transforming a workplace by digital software implementations, design and development.
The integration of IoT to buildings is the latest tech-trend launched in Singapore. After the launch in the city-state, Certis and Eutech will take the iFM platform overseas. As a part of this initiative, both the companies are targeting new business segments in Hong Kong and Australia.
Both the companies will set their foot in providing the iFM platform to targeted markets by leveraging Certis Group’s global reach and customer base in Australia and Hong Kong.
Key Insights Into The New iFM Solution
The iviva platform applied to iFM platform will completely transform the way buildings operate. It will give a new design and implementation solutions to buildings. In addition, a new feature integrated recently to the iviva platform is ‘Building Information Modelling’. This feature enables the creation of a virtual replica of the existing building – with this it becomes easy to check into every bit of the building’s infrastructure, assets, systems, processes and the spaces.
The new feature will enable building owners to implement predictive maintenance systems to curb energy and water consumption via iFM platform. A mobile dashboard will allow the facility managers to have a clear understanding of which segment of the building is consuming excess energy and water than required. Moreover, it will also help in finding out faults or discrepancies in the system.
Big data, IoT devices, Cloud and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will optimise all the operations including the ones mentioned above.
Furthermore, with the use of pattern analytics and AI, the visitors will be tracked in real-time throughout their stay in the building also capturing their behaviours and preferences. This feature will enable building owners to predict and prevent security breaches by creating the risk profile of visitors.
The iFM platform will reduce the manpower required for managing and operating the building functions. The security staff, cleaning staff and workers appointed for maintenance and other operations will have new quality roles to perform – in contrast to the traditional way.
The entire working staff including receptionists, security and non-security personnel will have a higher value role. With the new iFM solution they will have be able to learn new skills and perform multiple roles in a day. This will not just increase the task efficiency but will also enhance productivity.
Even more, the facility owners will tend to have energy savings and reduced costs on bills. The iFM solution will prove to be game changer in the field of Smart Buildings.
CEO of Eutech, Mr Hari Gunasingham shared his view by stating that, “We are at the cusp of a digital transformation of the S$13 billion global construction industry. We believe that our iviva technology will be a key enabler of this transformation, especially in the field of Smart Buildings.”
So, this is another out-of-the-box digital solution that consolidates Singapore’s position as the smartest city in the world.
The role of Singapore government in facilitating new launches in Singapore and abroad can be witnessed here. The city-state is not just acting towards making Singapore the leading smart city in the world. It also aims at offering new digital solutions to other cities across the world while expanding the Singapore-based company efforts to the global level.
In a recently conducted Global City Teams Challenge 2018 organised by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Singapore shared its experience and learnings in the smart city journey among 160 smart cities and 400 organisations.
The case studies of smart city initiatives shared by the city-state offer a significant reference point to other cities across the world striving to attain greater efficiencies, sustainability and expertise.
