Digital innovators will advance sustainable, ESG-oriented construction and building operations

Shanghai, 15 July 2022 – Akila, an ESG-first virtual twin platform for the built environment recently selected as a member of the World Economic Forum’s 2022 Technology Pioneers cohort, and Dassault Systèmes, a science and technology company providing leading virtual twin solutions, announce a two-year fruitful strategic cooperation. The two companies are closely collaborating on projects accelerating the digitalization and decarbonization of the construction and building industries. Current projects include emblematic clients like Schlumberger and IKEA. The Akila digital platform leverages the virtual twin created by Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud, with a common goal of delivering the end-to-end optimization of large and multinational portfolios across the full asset lifecycle from design to operations and ESG reporting.

This partnership will enable Akila to transform the management of the built environment through two key pillars of digitalization:

• Digital thread: Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud will enable Akila to create and maintain a common data environment based on a virtual operations twin organized by system for each portfolio site and related assets. This ensures that a single source of truth can be preserved for projects from design to construction and commissioning, after which the Akila integration will make sure that this digital thread is maintained through operations with accurate data inputs and outputs.
• Simulation: Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud will enable advanced AI-based simulation of a range of scenarios for buildings and their operational assets to optimize a facility’s overall performance for human comfort and thermal efficiency. This allows portfolio managers to see into the future in ways that facilitate more sustainable and low-carbon building design for greenfield projects. In the operational phase, predictive maintenance targets issues before they impact operations.

Akila and Dassault Systèmes will put a special focus on two areas of collaboration:

• Akila positions sustainability at the core of its digitalization business. Together with Dassault Systèmes, it will explore holistic environmental approaches to sustainability assessment, using cloud-based virtual twins on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform that digitally connect the facility operations virtual twin and lifecycle assessment. This partnership will seek to ensure that the two companies can reinvent a fully sustainability-driven building design, assembly and operation process.
• Implementing digital solutions for indoor air quality and human comfort measurement in the building industry, and furthering optimization strategy in these areas. Akila will work with Dassault Systèmes to develop best practices in indoor air simulation to evaluate buildings based on indoor environmental indices.

Akila Chief Innovation Officer and Co-founder Philippe Obry stated, “Dassault Systèmes is truly a pioneer of virtual twin technology.  The 3DEXPERIENCE platform provides Akila with the capability of transforming the way we design, build and optimize portfolios for sustainability in a manner similar to what we have seen Dassault Systèmes achieve by enabling digital transformation in 12 industries.”

Remi Dornier, Vice President, Architecture, Engineering & Construction industry, Dassault Systèmes said: “Whereas construction lasts 18 months, facility operations last 50 – 70 years. Sustainability, starting with energy performance, is the number one challenge of the construction industry that must be addressed in the complete value chain. Akila’s breakthroughs are a great showcase of virtual twin adoption in the built environment area.  We believe the collaboration of Akila and Dassault Systèmes will be quite valuable to the built environment as well as to the whole industry moving toward sustainable development.”

About Dassault Systèmes:

Dassault Systèmes, the 3DEXPERIENCE Company, is a catalyst for human progress. We provide businesses and people with collaborative 3D virtual environments to imagine sustainable innovations. By creating virtual twin experiences of the real world with our 3DEXPERIENCE platform and applications, our customers push the boundaries of innovation, learning and production to achieve a more sustainable world for patients, citizens, and consumers. Dassault Systèmes brings value to more than 300,000 customers of all sizes, in all industries, in more than 140 countries.  For more information, visit www.3ds.com

About Akila

Akila is an Asia-based virtual twin platform harnessing real-time data and AI to streamline ESG reporting and optimize the performance, sustainability and human-centricity of buildings and cities. Backed by strategic partnerships with Microsoft, Dassault Systèmes and Aden Group, Akila was recognized in 2022 by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer. Currently, Akila is deployed over 3.5M square meters of real estate.

Around the world, digital twins are being leveraged to help facilities – and the teams who operate them – work at a higher level of efficiency and keep site performance at its peak. Schlumberger, the world’s largest oilfield services company, is exploring how it can harness the power of the Akila digital twin platform to digitalize its sites across China and Southeast Asia, improving asset operations, enhancing maintenance management and accelerating its ESG roadmap. Let’s take a look at one such site, Schlumberger’s 3.5-hectare maintenance workshop in Rumbai, Indonesia.

Digitalizing SOPs, inspections and maintenance planning

Following the successful deployment of the Akila Asset module at the Rumbai maintenance workshop, Standard Operation Procedures (SOPs), inspections and maintenance plans are now fully digitalized and integrated. At every level, operations are being streamlined. On-site workers no longer need to rely on their physical maintenance job cards to write down, track and review every work order. The maintenance managers are better equipped to perform consistent and efficient maintenance management at a strategic level.

The entire digitalization process – including the initializing of the digital twin platform and the Asset Module – was completed within 6 weeks. Here’s what it took to get the Rumbai maintenance workshop up and running with Akila:

• Registering and digitalizing every asset within the workshop to the Akila platform, covering 12 buildings and equipment such as HVAC, lifting equipment and electrical systems
• Uploading complete equipment data to the cloud; Historical and real-time data has been recorded and applied for maintenance analysis and planning
• Customizing mobile services that streamline conversations between teams – maintenance managers can now guide on-site technicians via a mobile app and digital work orders
• Building digital performance dashboards to help comply with maintenance management reporting KPIs, deploying inspection and maintenance services and forming the basis for scientific performance evaluation

Streamlining multi-site maintenance management

To date, the Akila Asset module has been deployed at Schlumberger’s two sites in Indonesia – the Rumbai base and the Duri base. Digitalizing and integrating on-site performance data with the same standards, Akila empowers the site managers to realize efficient multi-site management by ensuring the alignment and consistency of both sites in regard to maintenance management. This enables benchmarking between sites and supports full flexibility in staffing.

Additionally, the site managers can now follow real-time situations down to a single work order without having to physically transit between sites, eliminating costly travel time and reducing emissions.

Integrated maintenance leads to sustainability

Digitalized, integrated and efficient maintenance management unlocks value in operations beyond just lower operating costs. Reducing inefficiencies naturally increases sustainability. For example, the extension of asset lifespan directly results in less resource expenditure, energy usage and waste production. According to recent data, a preventive maintenance program can achieve an average of 20% savings in raw material usage terms.

In addition, the deployment of digital twins for maintenance management lays a solid foundation for digital twin-based energy management. By registering, monitoring and managing energy equipment, such as HVAC systems, portfolio managers can improve air quality, reduce emissions and reduce waste.

More on-site deployment

With the success of the two sites in Indonesia, Akila is currently working with Schlumberger in two other Asian countries, across seven industrial sites. Akila’s digital twin solutions are helping drive Schlumberger’s sustainability initiatives, making it easier for them to track and manage on-site data, streamline their ESG reporting and implement decarbonization actions.

Besides Schlumberger, Akila has been continuously building its deployment capacity across the globe. Digital twin technologies are empowering multinational portfolio owners to make data-driven decisions and reach their sustainability goals. Akila is leading the way in the maintenance management industry revolution, powered by new technology and with the help of facility owners, managers and technicians. We look forward to welcoming your company along this journey with us.

Akila is proud to become a member of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) “Race to Zero” campaign and the Climate Ambition Alliance, committing to halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 through addressing the decarbonization of buildings.

Because buildings and cities emit close to 40% of global energy-related carbon dioxide, energy-efficient and green buildings are vital to lowering carbon emissions worldwide.

Akila, an ESG-first digital twin platform, is finding its way to influence and help companies in taking action toward reaching their net-zero goal. Akila has been recognized as a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer and is committed to the Science Based Targets initiative’s (SBTi) Net-Zero Standard.

“Akila is proud to join UNFCCC’s Race to Zero with our commitment to a net-zero goal. We’re rising to the climate challenges and addressing critical issues of decarbonization through digitalization, upholding the aim of improving indoor environmental quality while optimizing performance with smarter buildings, cities and people.”

Mark Bawtree, Head of Global Sales and ESG of Akila

Applying digital twin technology to the built environment can uncover and optimize the inefficiencies in the way buildings and their systems are managed. Uniquely advantaged in complex data management and real-time simulations, Akila has been proven to realize up to 30% of CO2 reduction, 90% of solid waste recycled, 20% of workforce optimization, and 30% of equipment durability improvement.

About UNFCCC

The UNFCCC took effect in 1994, it has near-universal membership (197 Parties) and is the parent treaty of the 2015 Paris Agreement. UNFCCC’s ultimate objective is to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system, in a time frame which allows ecosystems to adapt naturally and enables sustainable development.”

At a glance:

• Comprehensive service improvement, backed by Microsoft Azure  
• Akila can now be deployed across ASEAN 
• Streamlines the process of cross-border data alignment between Southeast Asia and mainland China  

Akila Opens a new data center for ASEAN 

This month, Akila launched its first ASEAN data center, located in Hong Kong. This opening is a major milestone for Akila’s borderless platform, which is now able to offer fast, secure and reliable access to Akila in full compliance with the data protection policies in both mainland China and Southeast Asian countries. Akila clients with facilities based anywhere in Southeast Asia can now access Akila through asean.akila3d.com, with the platform already in use for a large industrial facility in Indonesia. With the expansion, Akila is better equipped than ever to empower data-driven decision-making and global ESG management across multinational portfolios. 

Southeast Asia: primed for digitalization and ESG 

The ASEAN data center’s launch is an important step toward meeting the new needs of the ASEAN market. The region has undergone economic transformation, for some time now, marked by major FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) growth and rapid urban development. As the urbanization and globalization of these economies continue, there is a parallel rise in demand for more rigorous measurements of sustainability and digitalization of traditional industries and services in the buildings sector. Indonesia’s implementation of new carbon regulation this April, for example, is just one indicator of the shift in the region’s governmental and social policies. On the other hand, pressure in ASEAN is also coming from multinational global headquarters, where there has been a marked increase in ESG transparency and carbon-reduction commitments. 

These new demands on business and the built environment are precisely the challenges Akila was designed to address as a secure, borderless and data-driven platform.  

A platform built for global interoperability 

Akila has been designed for global interoperability from the start. To understand the critical importance of this feature, it is worth considering the “old way” that data alignment would need to be handled and the severe limits this has imposed on multinational property portfolios. Simply put, the “old way” was slow, expensive, not transparent and vulnerable to human error. Among the systemic issues: 

• Companies are forced to manage multiple service providers and data formats, per each country 
• Language and operational barriers between regional teams managing site data  
• Data consolidation is very slow and complicated – requiring manual download and reformatting on both sides 

• Little access and transparency of final data, which, if collected, is usually kept in a spreadsheet 

By design, Akila does away with these barriers to efficiency and transparency. Regardless of location, the platform automatically consolidates data from each site according to internationally recognized reporting frameworks. And, because Akila records all data in real-time and in a standardized way, there is no question about gaps in the data or reformatting required between each country. 

To put this into context, a multinational portfolio holder using Akila could at any time toggle between facilities in Jakarta, Singapore, Hanoi and Shanghai, reviewing real-time asset, energy and waste-management metrics at each site. The same user could then quickly jump out to view a holistic portfolio dashboard, capturing analytics relating to ESG, financial and other metrics. 

The next step in Akila’s global development 

With this new capability in place, Akila is moving forward with its program of global alignment, with roots in the Asian market. The platform, which launched in 2021, has now been implemented in over 1.5M square meters at client facilities in China and ASEAN. Strengthened by its strategic partnerships with Microsoft, Dassault Systemes and Aden Group, Akila foresees considerable growth in both regions in the coming years, powered by its innovative monitoring, tracking and control solutions leading to an ESG-centered approach to optimization of the built environment.