Mini Podcast Episode with Landell Archer

Landell Archer, ACAEngine’s Regional Solutions Director, Australia and New Zealand, recorded a mini podcast episode this week discussing two key applications of ACAEngine from our clients. 

Listen below, or visit the ACA Podcast page for our regular episodes. (Keep an eye out - there are some great interviews coming soon!)

The first request came from an existing client who has all the basic features of ACAEngine. They've got room booking, AV control, way-finding and visitor management, and their new problem relates to the air conditioning in their auditorium space. They have a large auditorium that's normally reserved for large events so it's not booked every day. The space can get really hot really quickly, so it needs to be air conditioned. 

But they reached out to me because it's expensive and wasteful to keep the air conditioner running all day, so bad management of this could be detrimental to the green star rating for the building. So it's really important that they don't keep the air conditioner running constantly. 

The air conditioning system has now been connected to ACAEngine, so the controls, including starting and stopping the system, can be easily managed by ACAEngine. Additionally, the system isn’t managed with physical controls or buttons, instead it makes the most of ACAEngine’s smart triggers and integrations. The platform is already connected to the bookings of the space, so it was a matter of adding a command to reflect their business rule. The client wanted to turn on the system half an hour before the auditorium booking to pre-cool the space, and then automatically shut off the system half an hour after the event has finished. This is really easily achieved for ACA.

We've also had conversations with other clients who'd like their air conditioning dialled up or down depending on how many people are working in that space at a particular time. Once again, because ACAEngine was already connected with people counting, by using the wireless network to count devices, it can trigger events, and control systems, based on the data it's receiving from the services it is integrated with. This means that if a floor is empty, the air conditioning can be turned off, and if a section of the building is particularly busy the air conditioning can be dialled up and all of that can happen automatically. This means the Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems can use data from ACAEngine to operate more efficiently, making them cheaper and more environmentally friendly, while also making sure employees are comfortable in their workplace.

One of the more complex questions that were sent through this week came from our new staff members in China, and is around user experience and sort of extending workplace into a smart building or a smart precinct. In Shanghai, shopping centres are really large multi use precincts that also have eateries and office spaces. As a result, Building Managers are constantly looking for ideas to improve user experience in the shopping centre, as well as draw in high quality tenants for the office space. 

So you can imagine that Building Managers are always aiming to have a full tenancy of retailers, office workers and restaurants. Traditionally, retail or restaurant tenants are enticed by data on the likely foot traffic from the office spaces or the demographic of the workers. However, the technology behind ACAEngine can we can do a lot better than just showing them potential foot traffic or demographic data - we give them real data. 

By extending ACAEngine to include those retailers and restaurants, We could bring those retailers and restaurants onto the platform and provide a portal or an app that enables the office workers to do a range of things and make the most of the precinct.  

So they might have existing room booking for their offices or shared spaces, and we could extend that out. They might even have in-house catering within their office spaces, but we can extend that out to the precincts in the shopping centre. 

For example, if a worker wanted to order lunch and have it delivered to them in the breakout space of their office, this is possible with ACAEngine. It would be similar to Uber Eats, but inside the precinct, and you wouldn't need to type in an address or a room number because that platform is already integrated in with location services. As a result,  the person that can deliver the food to you can find the user’s location. 

ACAEngine can even provide caterers with limited building or room access if they need to deliver food to a room or a floor that requires a swipe card. This is made possible through the platform’s integration with security and access systems, so it’s simple to manage these controls.

Another might want to book a table at a restaurant in the shopping centre - this is another example of extra value created for both tenants and building managers by ACAEngine. The precinct’s app could show them a map of the available restaurant tables at a time that they'd like to book, so the worker can reserve exactly what table they want. 

In both of these cases, the workers could be building up loyalty points automatically that they can redeem as discounts in the future within the precinct. Correspondingly, Building Managers and Tenants are able to receive data on exactly who is spending the most with each service and even data on how to improve their services, staffing or operational efficiency. 

These examples all improve experiences for staff, tenants and management, and they’re all made possible because they’re working with ACAEngine, a web standard platform, so analytics from the platform can be pushed into any web standard analytics service. 

All of this is possible with ACAEngine, and it was great to hear some of these ideas from our customers internationally. In essence, because ACAEngine can identify who someone is, where they are, and the system is already integrated into the services that they want, the team at ACAEngine can map out the user experience that the customer is trying to achieve and tackle the problem to provide a great experience for end users. 

Do you have a great example of ACA in action? We’d love to hear from you! 

Feel free to reach out to us via