Automatic Energy-Saving Operations System Using Robotic Process Automation

Abstract

We have developed an energy-saving operations system featuring remote operation of central monitoring equipment installed in a building. This system applies robotic process automation to remote operation to automatically perform energy-saving operations on behalf of the operations manager. Furthermore, as another feature, the system requires only a local area network to connect to the central monitoring equipment enabling automatic operation to be performed regardless of the specifications of the central monitoring equipment. The items targeted for energy-saving operation by this system are the optimal operation of a heat source system, setting of the supply water temperature of heat source equipment, setting of room temperature, and setting of outside-air intake volume. At present, the operations manager has the role of performing these energy-saving operations, but finding the optimal value for each of these operations is a difficult task. An operations manager, moreover, is responsible for tasks other than facility operations such as maintenance management, so changing optimal settings accurately at regular intervals on an ongoing basis can be quite a burden. This system uses robotic process automation technology, so it is capable of performing all energy-saving operations that can be executed by the central monitoring equipment. We installed this system in a large-scale shopping mall and performed energy-saving operations on outside-air processing units. In this trial, we achieved a 44% reduction in the amount of energy required for outside-air processing and a 47% reduction in CO2 emissions.

Using RPA for Performance Monitoring of Dynamic SHM Applications

“…Finally, a similar approach to this research can be found in the work of Shah et al [105]. This work was a digital twin framework that was developed for temperature monitoring through sensors linked to Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) programs and open-source software.…”

“…Regarding the application of RPA in civil engineering, sensors, and monitoring, three papers were found that were published between 2020 and 2021. Then, concerning the field of study shown in Figure 4, [103] was related to the integration between RPA and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and [104] and [105] were linked to civil engineering. These articles are summarised in Table 3.…”

Robotic Process Automation as a Digital Transformation Tool for Increasing Organizational Resilience in Polish Enterprises

“…In the BPO and SSC sector, there has even been talk of cannibalizing the traditional method of conducting business [44] (p. 50). It should be emphasized that, currently, companies from other sectors, for example, utilities [45], use software robots.…”

The Use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as an Element of Smart City Implementation: A Case Study of Electricity Billing Document Management at Bydgoszcz City Hall

“…Using advanced software robots, RPA tools enable the automation of tasks thus far carried out by humans [6]. Today, the main users of these solutions include enterprises from the financial [7,8] and BPO/SSC [9][10][11] sectors in particular and, less often, those from the utilities sector [12,13]. Such enterprises are making the decision to implement RPA tools because they provide several benefits.…”

“…Such enterprises are making the decision to implement RPA tools because they provide several benefits. The most important among them include reducing the costs of performing business processes; increasing the ability to carry out such processes without raising headcounts; improving employee experience by freeing employees from performing the most mundane and routine activities; improving the quality of the products/services delivered as a result of minimizing the number of errors committed by humans while performing business processes; and, finally, increasing the organizations' innovations by enabling the fast prototyping of new products/services that require various systems to be integrated, without the need to engage IT departments [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17].…”