On the question about how a new building should be planned in a digital era, Teh offers his opinion. "A common new building construction usually starts with a physical structure, followed by M&E (Mechanical & Electrical) fittings, and then only fitted with ELV (Extra Low Voltage) fixtures as part of an M&E project. In a modern Digital Building planning, the approach has to be different, in fact, the opposite. Most ELV products these days like parking, access control, fire alarm, IP camera, guard tour, and visitor management use lesser wiring IoT (Internet of Things) devices or even wireless. The functionalities of these devices are mostly software-defined; hence they rely heavily on software. Therefore, building owners have to decide on the system, or ecosystem first before the ELV hardware, rather than the other way around."
He believes that when a building plugs in more cloud components, smoothens the people flow, and data flow, the management can use the data to improve user experience and generate extra revenue for building owners.
