Japanese companies Obayashi and Hitachi have established Oprizon, a joint venture providing smart building-related services and that started operations last month.

Recently, there has been a significant increase in demand for smart buildings that provide value-added services to building users and management companies using IoT technologies such as sensors. However, the growing demand has created challenges for building owners to select the most appropriate services, maintain equipment and keep the software up to date. This has led to problems with the continuity of service usage and underusing the available functions during the operating phase.

The two companies formed a global corporate ecosystem in California’s Silicon Valley and have been among the first to incorporate the latest IT products and services across various areas, including construction. Leveraging this experience, they have established a service provider that can offer a comprehensive one-stop service, consolidating all necessary ingredients for a smart building, such as construction, equipment, digital and systems.

Oprizon will combine Obayashi’s knowledge and skills to design and implement information systems for buildings as a general contractor and Hitachi’s expertise in system integration and experience as a service provider.

In recent years, the demand for smart buildings that incorporate IoT technologies and building digitalisation has increased with the aim to improve the convenience and comfort of the building owner, manager and users and to increase the added value for the building.

In the next ten years, the number of buildings reaching 25 to 35 years from completion and requiring large-scale repair and maintenance will peak in metropolitan Tokyo. Therefore, in addition to the new buildings, the demand for smart buildings is expected to increase for the renovation of existing buildings. As more buildings introduce services using technologies such as IoT and AI, building owners must make use of such functions to improve the services for users, and maintenance, operation and security measures will become critical.

In addition to the construction of high-quality buildings, Obayashi has been developing and operating smart building services that are readily available for management companies and users. These included establishing the network environment for highly digitalised buildings, building applications and providing services such as energy use visualisation.

Hitachi established an office in Silicon Valley more than 15 years ago, adopting the latest IT services available in the USA and Europe and providing various technologies to the construction and real estate industries. One of its features is the use of ethical hackers for total security that protects PCs, networks and the cloud.

Oprizon plans to integrate the technologies and expertise of the two companies to co-create new values for realising convenient and sustainable smart buildings. It aims to offer services centring on shared services for smart buildings. Smart buildings require updating various services and monitoring network equipment. Making these services available through a subscription-based cloud model should let building owners and tenants use them with reduced initial investment.

An open architecture will incorporate services from Japanese and overseas vendors with IT to offer a broad range of convenient services for smart buildings. Initially targeting new construction and renovation of large and medium-sized office buildings, a wide range of proposals will be made for development and operation services. Moving forward, Oprizon will contribute to achieving carbon neutrality, which is a pressing social issue, contemplating expansion to buildings other than offices, such as factories, schools, hospitals, commercial facilities and hotels, and further business development in smart cities.

In the future, Oprizon aims to capitalise on the strengths of a global ecosystem and expand its business to address various issues faced by users. This includes providing services that meet the digitalisation of the construction process as part of its vision to offer a broad range of services from construction to building operation.

By installing these services in advance, Oprizon aims to provide end-to-end support from the construction to the operation phase, enabling flexible and prompt responses to various requests from users regarding the building environment.

It will offer integrated services for the network infrastructure provided by the building, such as the building facility, management systems and wifi. Services include security measures, linkage with IoT equipment, and remote monitoring of the operation status of network equipment.

Through collaboration with the partners in the ecosystem, it will offer the latest building applications such as meeting room booking, seat and other facility reservation, building entry and exit system, interior environment monitoring, air conditioning and lighting control, and provide services to integrate the applications.

It will support reduction of environmental load by visualising energy use and CO₂ emissions level with IoT equipment. Building management must present specific measures, realise services for urgent energy conservation and carbon neutrality issues, and be socially accountable. To meet these requirements, Oprizon will provide functions to visualise the data on energy usage and CO₂ emissions to prepare reports necessary for optimal operation and renovation planning by integrating the building facility with IoT equipment and applications.