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Facility controls and monitoring can help ensure cost-effective operations

Facility controls and monitoring can help ensure cost-effective operations

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Home Newsletter Facility controls and monitoring can help ensure cost-effective operations

It’s an increasingly complex, competitive market. Competition in the food retail market continues to increase. Driven by the consumer’s demand for convenience, food retail concepts and formats are converging. Today’s shoppers expect retailers to fit more – or everything – into one location. They need flexible infrastructures to adapt to changing store concepts. It is no longer surprising to see supermarket chains with small format stores offering quick, convenient and niche options. 
Convenience stores today are beginning to look more like restaurants. And, quick serve restaurants are even integrating refrigerated cases, similar to those found in grocery stores. Traditional food retailers face additional challenges with the introduction of new online food retailers.
As consumers take advantage of their many options, grocery retailers need to stay ahead by creating more intimate and innovative shopping experiences designed with individual shoppers in mind. Supermarkets today are placing an emphasis on fresh, healthy and prepared food options. Retailers also have to consider rising energy costs, workforce issues, emerging equipment technologies and sustainability needs.
Introduction to facility controls
To maintain efficient and profitable operations, food retailers should implement facility control systems that provide the flexibility to operate within food safety requirements and meet the ever-increasing demand for a variety of fresh, prepared foods.

Connecting all relevant equipment into the store’s existing systems is a beneficial solution for operators.

Facility controls provide centralized control and the ability to monitor building and refrigeration systems, including walk-ins, coolers, HVAC units and lighting. This platform collects data on important performance indicators, including refrigerated case temperatures, energy usage and HVAC discharge and space temperatures, allowing store managers to quickly react to potential issues that could impact the shopping experience.
As food retail stores become more complex, scalability is key. Retailers need comprehensive facility solutions that fit a variety of formats, new technology and equipment. Retailers can connect refrigeration, HVAC and lighting systems – whether they are legacy equipment or new generations of devices functioning on different operating systems – throughout the store with integrated facility controls.
Retailers can move beyond separate building management and energy management systems to connect all store equipment, including commercial kitchen and foodservice equipment, and gain valuable insights to improve operations. With an integrated facility management system, retailers gain visibility and control throughout an entire enterprise of stores from one central location.
Remote monitoring for actionable insights
Facility controls are often optimized for use with remote monitoring services, which allow accurate tracking of store conditions and issue alerts when equipment is not operating properly.
End-users are able to access more detailed analytics reports about what is happening at the unit level – as well as across their entire chain – and take appropriate action to remedy problems.
Third party monitoring centers are staffed around the clock to remotely process, triage and resolve alarms. Monitoring and evaluation of this real-time performance data provides retailers with powerful information to assist with decisions around operational improvement.
Remote monitoring can oversee and improve energy consumption at individual locations or enterprise-wide using setpoints and alarm management. The service enables centralized data collection and real-time views into refrigeration, HVAC and lighting systems, allowing management to identify potential issues and diagnose system problems early before shoppers notice – or it effects food quality.

Working with qualified contractors to implement the latest facility control systems and leveraging real-time equipment insights will help retailers make informed operational decisions.

Remote monitoring and diagnostics can verify that the equipment has been maintained at the proper intervals and specifications to avoid future maintenance issues. Isolating these potential problems and shrink causes allow retailers to make operational improvements that result in substantial cost savings. Retailers also can use preventive measures to reduce equipment downtime and avoid large, costly issues that could negatively affect the customer’s experience in store.
Remote monitoring services can provide food quality reporting to accurately and efficiently monitor case temperatures to ensure fresh, quality food. This data will help retailers to authenticate their fresh foods story as they look to comply with food safety regulations, like the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), and to create a competitive advantage in today’s industry.
With the collection of product temperatures and data as foods move “from farm to fork,” retailers will not only safeguard their food supply, but also validate their freshness messaging.
Additional benefits for contractors
Increased visibility into system performance and consistency across an enterprise of stores is enabled with facility controls and remote monitoring. Monitoring also supports retailers with the increasing difficulty of maintaining a skilled technical workforce. Contractors can fill this gap with their personnel and taking advantage of the technology that utilizes human-centered design for improved usability and intuitive operation.
With a centralized platform, contractors can assist end users with achieving operational goals through proper equipment maintenance, efficient service and actionable insights.
Quicker, more efficient installations
For contractors, executing installations correctly the first time is an excellent way to procure and maintain a relationship with retail customers. Utilizing IoT to deploy connected devices takes this a step further. Many grocery and food retail facilities currently utilize building management systems to control HVAC, lighting and refrigeration. Connecting all relevant equipment into the store’s existing systems is a beneficial solution for operators.
Remotely update equipment
Contractors also have the ability to access facility systems remotely to make settings, software and firmware updates through IoT, rather than manually onsite. Traditionally, a contractor may install a new program individually at each location, or central management would overnight ship the program on a disk or a flash drive and rely on store staff to manually install the updates.
That scenario is time consuming and there is no potential for confirmation that the system was installed properly and is operating correctly. In newer connected facility systems, settings, software and firmware can be updated remotely, ensuring consistency and accuracy across a region. The process can be completed and validated in minutes, allowing the equipment to be configured and operating productively, sooner.
Reduce unnecessary service calls
Monitoring services provide the ability to troubleshoot a potential issue remotely. Service personnel can log into a piece of connected equipment and troubleshoot in real-time, and in some cases, fix the issue remotely, reducing nuisance dispatches. If the issue does require a visit, technicians can triage and diagnose alarms remotely, bundle work orders and ensure that employees have everything needed to fix a problem before being dispatched to a site.
Smart dispatch of experienced technicians
In the event of a service issue that needs a contractor visit, end users can be certain that knowledgeable, experienced technicians are dispatched to fix equipment issues. They will be aware of the alarm situation before arriving onsite so that technicians can be sure they bring the proper equipment needed to resolve the issue. Contractors also can be dispatched for multiple issues at a time, as remote monitoring can allow retailers to bundle work orders for efficiency onsite.
With these insights and access to qualified technicians, food retailers can focus their store employees on serving customers.
Working with qualified contractors to implement the latest facility control systems and leveraging real-time equipment insights will help retailers make informed operational decisions. Contractors can position themselves as a valuable partner to retailers, helping them to achieve better control of HVAC, refrigeration and lighting systems, ultimately improving energy efficiency, reducing maintenance costs and enhancing store operations.
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Ron Chapek is a senior product manager responsible for Emerson Climate Technologies’ ProAct™ Enterprise Software and Services.

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