Tag: Museum

“PredictiveBMS” helps preserve art at the Museum of London

CIL projects, DTLab_Coop

In a project of the Co-innovation lab of the Munich University of Applied Sciences, a team of bachelor and master students together with the Museum of London tackled the challenge of introducing predictive maintenance to the museum’s Air Handling Units (AHUs). The “predictiveBMS” application developed in the project uses data from the many sensors in the museum’s AHUs and is able to predict when failures will occur based on the already available data. This addresses the problem of AHU downtime, which can damage the museum’s art in the long run, as the museum can currently only react to failures after they occured as there is no way to predict them at the moment.

Possibility to avoid failures and downtimes of the Air Handling Units

So far, the MoL has not been able to predict failures and defects in its AHUs. The AHUs ensure that the environmental conditions in the museum remain within the set parameters that provide an optimal indoor climate for the artworks and protect them from, for example, temperature fluctuations and humidity-related damage. However, AHU failures occur frequently and can cause damage to the museum’s artworks if they fail for an extended period of time.

Co-Innovation Lab develops “predictiveBMS” to forecast failures in Air Handling Units

To improve workflow and detect damage in advance, the new application “predictiveBMS” was developed  for the AHU maintenance at MoL. Building on the continuously collected data from various sensors in the AHUs, the MoL has taken the opportunity to further develop the smart buildings applications. predictiveBMS is based on machine learning and artificial intelligence and provides the engineers of the MoL with an opportunity  to be proactive, as it is now possible to predict failures and outages of the AHUs. The predictiveBMS system provides engineers with a web dashboard that displays all potential failures and sends alerts for faults that might occur. For on the go, predictiveBMS offers an app that can be used from anywhere and informs about potential outages through push notifications.

Facility managers and engineers are looking forward to integrating the solution into their work processes

“The move to use sophisticated learning, forecasting and prediction models in building maintenance is long overdue. We’re excited at the Museum of London to implement predictiveBMS to predict failures and improve operational knowledge and efficiency. This will be a key piece of Facilities Management software going forward.” – Steve Watson, Technical Building Lead (New Museum)

The Museum of London is striving to be carbon free by 2040

The development of a smart building management system that precisely meets the museum’s needs is intended to help achieve the target. The museum wants to be a pioneer in this field, but also a positive influence on other museums in terms of its public responsibility. Smart building management can save not only costs but also large amounts of greenhouse gasses and help to achieve the net zero emissions target set by the British government. In addition, the construction of the new museum, which is currently being designed, offers great potential to make processes and working methods more efficient. The Director of Museum of London (MoL), Sharon Ament has stated that her aim for the New Museum at Smithfield is to build “a new civic space, that is sustainable, for millions of visitors to enjoy, 24 hours a day”

     Project team: (front from left to right:) Ishak Hagi, Fabian Halbig, Jannis Unkrig. (Back from left to right:)
Jana Caven, Lea Neureither, Kathrin Wetzels, Ana Babovic, Tobias Schwarzer, Pascal Severin

Support through Amazon Web Services for project teams

During the development process of the product, the project team was supported by partners from Amazon Web Services (AWS). Lars Schmitz coached the teams at the beginning of the project in Amazon’s “Working Backwards” approach. An approach in which the customer’s problem is fundamentally analyzed and understood prior to the development phase. This process helped the team to thoroughly understand the client’s problem and thus develop an effective solution.

Dieses Co-Innovation Lab Projekt wurde in Kooperation mit dem Digital Transformation Lab (DTLab) an der Hochschule München durchgeführt:
Das Digital Transformation Lab (DTLab) der Hochschule München widmet sich den großen gesellschaftlichen Herausforderungen unserer Zeit. Zusammen mit Akteuren im öffentlichen Sektor entwickeln Studierende zukunftsweisende Lösungsansätze. Hierbei werden sie von Amazon Web Services mit state-of-the-art Cloud-Technologien und der Innovationsmethodik Working Backwards unterstützt. Wir leben digitale Transformation.

Weitere Informationen über das Co-Innovation Lab und das Digital Transformation Lab (DTLab) an der Hochschule München:

Autoren: Team MOL 1

Creation of Audio Reports for Facility Managers at the Museum of London

CIL projects, DTLab_Coop

The Co-Innovation Lab of the Munich University of Applied Sciences enabled a team of its’ students to demonstrate their skills. As part of the project, they developed a web-based software solution for the Museum of London (MOL). The smartReport (SRP) application collects sensor data from the building and creates audio reports that are made available to the museums’ Facility Managers. The SRP provides a general overview, helps with long-term maintenance of the building, and supports day-to-day operations by providing building data in a convenient way.


Dashboard view to access the current status reports on the building data of the Museum of London Docklands.

Museum of London – A building full of history and innovative drive

The Museum of London Docklands is committed to maintaining its historical repertoire. The staff, as well as the public of London, share a great interest in presenting a part of their history to visitors from all over the world for years to come. With this in mind, it is important to roll out innovative technology and enable the facility managers to do so as best as possible.

A matter of heart – The need for novel software solutions in everyday life is apparent

Until now, facility managers struggled with cumbersome information processes: Long and complicated chains of communication, complex software systems, and a missing integrated overview. They wondered if it is possible to be informed more quickly about critical data such as the humidity or temperature. Enabled employees, that is exactly what the technical management of the Museum has at heart. They are behind a new innovative thrust and are willing to invest in new technical implementations.

Co-Innovation Lab develops a web app that informs the user about building data via audio

The user-friendly application makes the facility managers’ everyday work easier. They can flexibly access the status reports from any location in the building via web either on their mobile phones or on the desktop computers in the backoffice. For the facility managers, this means no more cumbersome trips to the backoffice and an immediate understanding of the health of the bulding conditions and risk exposures of important exhibits while on the museum floor. But SmartReport wouldn’t be smart if it didn’t have smart functions in it. In the case of the novel SmartReport app, they come in form of dynamically created audio reports from realtime building data. The big benefit: Facility managers can access and assess everything relevant while action and without any interruption of their ongoing tasks.

Build things people need – Amazon Web Services as technical and methodical support

The app was developed in cooperation with partners from Amazon AWS who coached the team throughout their project. A modern methodology called ‘Amazon Working Backwards’ was applied to emphasize and approach the need of the facility managers in London. Based on regular talks and reviews the prototype was created in small but quick iterations.

The management, as well as the facility managers, are enthusiastic about the new solution

During the solution presentation, the facility managers and more than ten other stakeholders from the Museum of London praised the successfully validated prototype. A lively review and enthusiastic discussion about the implementation and future use cases has proven that the project hit the needs and the students fullfilled the core philosophy behind the Co-Innovation approach.

“As far as I know, this is the very first time in the history of the Museum of London that audio reports were created from real data in London!” – Steve Watson,Technical Lead at the Museum of London Docklands

“I just wanted to say it has been great working with you on this. I really like how the team approached and recognized our need just to prove how it could be met in such a short time” – John Laciofano,Facility Manager of the MOL

Team members of the Co-Innovation project: Roles of the Scrum Process & Working Backward Process

This Co-Innovation Lab project was carried out in cooperation with the Digital Transformation Lab (DTLab) at Munich University of Applied Sciences:
The Digital Transformation Lab (DTLab) at Munich University of Applied Sciences is dedicated to the major social challenges of our time. Together with stakeholders in the public sector, students develop forward-looking solutions. They are supported by Amazon Web Services with state-of-the-art cloud technologies and the Working Backwards innovation methodology. We live digital transformation.

More information about the Co-Innovation Lab and the Digital Transformation Lab (DTLab) at Munich University of Applied Sciences:

InSite – Seeing how a museum feels

CIL projects, DTLab_Coop

As part of the Co-Innovation Lab at Munich University of Applied Sciences, ten Master’s and Bachelor’s students from the faculties of Business Administration & IT developed and implemented a concept for data-driven facility management for the Museum of London (MoL) in the summer semester of 2021.

The project team at a virtual SPRINT review session in June 2021 (from left to right: Christof Huber – Team Developer (IT), Felix Volz – Team Product Owner, Philip Pastuschka – Team Developer (IT), Svitlana Kögel – Team Scrum Master; 2. Row: Maximilian Fitzenwenger Quintero – Team Developer (Business Administration), Dennis Pschibul – Team Developer (IT), Johannes Schwarz – Team Developer (Business Administration), Terea Auerbach – Team Developer (IT); 3rd row: Anuujin Munkhjargal – Team Developer (Business Administration), Niklas Biesold – Team Developer (Business Administration)) – Picture: Felix Volz

Dissolve dependencies

The Museum of London documents the history of the British capital from prehistoric times to modern times. A variety of exhibits are displayed in a number of galleries across the floors of the building, which require certain constant environmental conditions at all times, from which there should be no deviation. When errors occur, the facility manager (FM) should respond as quickly as possible.

Identifying and locating problems took an enormous amount of time and made the museum dependent on an outside service provider to access the data that was collected in the building, but this did not speed up the process or make it sustainable.

The central task was to integrate and visualize the existing building data on a platform in such a way that the facility manager can directly use it to gain a centralized, transparent and detailed insight into the building data in order to gain a better understanding of the building and to be able to react both more quickly and more independently to any changes.

Create real added value

For this purpose, the Museum of London, represented by Steve Watson (Client & Technical Lead, MoL) and John Iaciofano (Customer & Facility Manager, MoL), turned to the Co-Innovation Lab of the Munich University of Applied Sciences. The ten-member project team was supported by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Holger Günzel and Prof. Dr. Lars Brehm (both MUAS – Lecturer), the coaches Hans-Jürgen Haak (MUAS – Coach) and Lars Schmitz (Amazon – Coach), and the PhD student Maximilian Günzel (MUAS – SME).

Customer satisfaction at all levels

Steve Watson assesses the Co-Innovation Lab’s involvement as follows: “The project team took the first step for the Museum of London to make our building data comprehensible for us, and to enable more data-driven decisions. Technical, organizational as well as business aspects were highlighted. As a result, the work product provides a good basis for further planning in this area.”

This Co-Innovation Lab project was carried out in cooperation with the Digital Transformation Lab (DTLab) at Munich University of Applied Sciences:
The Digital Transformation Lab (DTLab) at Munich University of Applied Sciences is dedicated to the major social challenges of our time. Together with stakeholders in the public sector, students develop forward-looking solutions. They are supported by Amazon Web Services with state-of-the-art cloud technologies and the Working Backwards innovation methodology. We live digital transformation.

More information about the Co-Innovation Lab and the Digital Transformation Lab (DTLab) at Munich University of Applied Sciences: