Sweco makes digital twins of Vasakronan’s properties

Digital twins: resource smart and value creating

With the help of Sweco’s Twinfinity® service platform, Vasakronan is digitising all of its property holdings and creating digital twins of around 170 buildings. Gaining full control over all relevant data optimises operation and management, reduces the carbon footprint and makes Vasakronan’s service offer more flexible. This enables Vasakronan to work with a more resource-smart approach, which creates environmental and economic benefits.

Twinfinity® is a platform developed by Sweco to manage and visualise information in digitally linked building models. The platform uses APIs to make digital buildings accessible for a range of applications and services. Using the industry-wide Real Estate Core standard to describe these buildings, Twinfinity populates systems such as ProptechOS with building representations that make it possible to combine information such as business data, operational data and sensor data with the digital building. Combining and visualising data from ProptechOS and Twinfinity creates meaning and context.

From a drawing-based to digital model world

By linking the property’s real-time data with business and management data in a 3D model, information can be analysed, processed, visualised and shared. All data is visualised in a hub, which becomes the sole source of fact. The result is fewer sources of error, reduced updating costs, and up-to-date, accurate building information for everyone in the organisation – at any time and on all types of digital devices.

For Vasakronan, an important part of our development is to move from an analogue, drawing-based approach to a digital model world. By doing this, we gain control over all relevant data in our buildings over the entire life cycle. This enables us to remain relevant and become better both at providing sustainable solutions and at creating the flexibility in our service offering that our clients demand – says Sören Sandell, business developer at Vasakronan.

Full control over all data provides optimised, resource-smart and sustainable management

In the digital twin, various types of information are linked to the building model via IoT sensors tracking CO2, property attendance, premises utilisation, temperature, air flow, etc., which can be visualised in real-time as well as historically. By connecting this information over time in a broader context and integrating the smart city where the property is located, Vasakronan is able to optimise its business and gain more knowledge about each property’s conditions and values.

By gaining control over our data, we have exact information on things such as floor space. This gives us added value and peace of mind during a pre-acquisition due diligence process or when a property is being sold. And when we know which rooms aren’t being used and if there’s heat leakage or similar somewhere, we can optimise the property’s maintenance, cut back the cleaning schedule for rooms that aren’t in use, or optimise waste collection on a floor where the bins are empty. It’s a smart way to save resources and energy that provides benefits in terms of efficiency and sustainability – says Fredrik Ahl, head of Sweco’s SimpleBuildings digital model concept.

Reuse inventory and lease information in the digital twin

The circular economy can be planned in the twin using information about materials and components that can be reused. The twin can show the exact number of ceilings, doors and other items that can be reused and where they are located. Climate impact can also be visualised with CO2 footprint, indoor climate and supporting documentation for sustainability certification.

Lease information can also be entered into the model to facilitate administration of premises, linking lease contracts directly with rental properties in the model. This enables detailed visualisation of future vacancies, unoccupied premises, shop turnover and leased premises, and rapid filtering of lease levels, revenues and similar.

‘Digitisation of our properties gives us great options for a smarter utilisation of resources, and we see great qualitative value in gaining control over our data. It costs a lot to deal with poor quality, and we now have high quality document management. We need this in order to remain relevant, become more sustainable and be able to offer an excellent, flexible offer to our clients, who we know want modern and straightforward office solutions,’ says Sören Sandell.

Focus on a common industry-wide ecosystem

Sweco is responsible for the Twinfinity platform and its management. The concept has been developed in close collaboration with Vasakronan.

’We have a good, transparent collaboration with Sweco. We work together closely with the solution and have done pilots, tests and development together,’ says Sören Sandell.

With technological development integrated throughout its business operations, Vasakronan works proactively to promote a common, standardised industry-wide ecosystem, with stakeholders and colleagues in other property companies sharing expertise and experience and learning from each other’s models and solutions.

‘We want to make the data open, usable and accessible, so that more people can benefit to some degree from the same information. Our clients will be able to make the best use of the premises. And partners such as Ragn-Sells and Securitas will be able to add information in our model from their perspectives,’ says Sören Sandell.

This is pioneering work that will move the entire industry forward and create a common, connected world of services and products that everyone can benefit from.