Day: January 18, 2022

As demand from the industry grows, SMG Holdings LLC has announced the launch of a new energy and sustainability solutions division – SMG Energy Solutions (SMG Energy).

Led by Jason Menser, Executive Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, the vision is to integrate technology capabilities with core services and strategic alliances to meet the growing demand for “greener” solutions and newer sustainable technologies that will offer clients unique opportunities to reduce their carbon footprint while improving operational efficiencies and mitigating risk.

SMG Energy, which will focus on the wide range of energy and sustainability initiatives, is the vision of Shannon Prato, SMG Holdings LLC’s CEO, who for over 25 years has overseen the industry-leading integrated facilities management company – SMG Facility Services.

Shannon Prato commented: “SMG Facility Services has been supporting multi-site clients for over 25 years; we are in an excellent position to start this new division based on our broad experience in the space, the industry’s growing focus on “green” and our keen ability to provide energy and sustainability solutions and services that can greatly help reduce a client’s carbon footprint.”

“With the increased sense of urgency for companies to establish tactical ESG (environmental, social and governance) strategies, it’s becoming increasingly important to direct our efforts to address the challenges of reducing carbon emissions and curbing waste across our clients. By analyzing all stages of the energy and sustainability journey more efficiently, we can provide a single source or strategic service that helps companies raise the Sustainability bar while reducing overall costs.

Areas of concentration that SMG Energy will offer are as follows: electrification / electric vehicle (EV) charging (ex. installation, repair services), energy management systems, energy procurement, ESG, utility and equipment rebates/incentives, waste & water analysis and solar installation and service.

The move follows SMG’s recent announcements of opening a state-of-the-art Center of Excellence in Roanoke, Virginia that greatly expanded the company’s capabilities in professional services and client support, as well as SMG Facility Services’ upcoming step to international expansion to support existing clients who have a global presence.

About SMG Energy Solutions (SMG Energy) 

SMG Energy delivers multi-site companies customized energy and sustainability solutions that lower costs, manage risk, and improve brand position. We partner with clients to establish and achieve proven energy saving and sustainability strategies (ex. decarbonization targets) while maintaining a unique focus on driving down energy spend, increase visibility, and improve overall operational cost savings. Understanding our clients’ sustainability goals, cost drivers and consumption profiles, we help to identify, analyze, and achieve sustainability targets that meet their financial targets.

SMG Energy is the energy and sustainability division of SMG Holdings LLC, a privately held facility services, real estate and investment firm focused on energy and sustainability solutions and services, strategic sourcing, and procurement. Learn more at www.SMGEnergy.com

The leader in multisite energy management and smart building technology, ENTOUCH, has dramatically expanded on their existing machine learning (ML) algorithms with predictive failure results. This added functionality is designed to assist facility managers’ decision-making about their sites by predicting failure events within weeks of it actually occurring. 

 

ENTOUCH has long been a pioneering innovator and launched an Artificial Intelligence (AI) initiative focused on using machine learning algorithms in 2018. Initially focused on HVAC equipment efficiency and diagnostics, the ENTOUCH algorithms analyze years of raw data from over 70,000 devices to identify HVAC and refrigeration issues, potentially leading to component failure. More importantly, the technology can identify these potential failures with at least a 90% confidence level weeks before the failure. 

 

Now, as part of the ENTOUCH.cloud and ENTOUCH.360 managed services platform, ENTOUCH customers can learn more about their building systems operations by giving extraordinary insight into how facilities operate while reducing energy consumption, decreasing maintenance costs, and preventing downtime. The overall benefit has an eye on predicting failure while informing facilities management teams of potentially imminent issues. 

 

In discussing the expanded solution Jon Bolen, CEO of ENTOUCH, commented, “It’s always been our vision to transform buildings into data-generating objects, and we have done that. This enhancement to our platform transforms that data into truly actionable intelligence by detecting anomalies and trends virtually impossible for an individual to detect at scale across an entire enterprise. With these analytics in hand, our customers will appreciably expand the ENTOUCH value proposition beyond energy efficiency and drive an even more significant impact on their company’s operational expenses.” 

 

ENTOUCH’s ML algorithms use four types of analytics to turn insights into actionable items. Each analytic type gives a different approach and answers questions about your facilities, specific enough to the RTU level, making data more useful than ever before.

1.      Descriptive analytics – “What is happening?” Descriptive analytics is the measure of how an event affect your facility. It provides clear and concise information about what’s happening within your facility that can be used to improve or troubleshoot aspects of your operations, such as energy usage metrics, for example.

2.      Diagnostic analytics – “Why is it happening?”  Diagnostic analytics helps identify the root cause of any issue and determine the source, deeper analysis, including historical data and correlated with other data points.

3.      Predictive analytics – “What could happen if left unattended?”  Predictive analytics applies mathematical models to predict future behavior by examining past data sets, focusing on how these patterns may reveal insights into what’s yet to come. This is critical to mitigating customer comfort and operational cost impact.

4.      Prescriptive analytics – “What options are available?” With prescriptive analytics, you can use the power of predictability to your advantage. Decision options are provided to take advantage of a future opportunity or mitigate future risk, additionally providing implications for each option.

 

The future of building management is now available thanks to smart technology and machine learning. “Technological advancements, especially within the sphere of AI, are finally becoming commercially practical. With our latest predictive failure models, ENTOUCH continues to demonstrate our commitment to provide meaningful applications that positively impact members of our client community,” said Frank Menocal, ENTOUCH CTO. By using advanced analytics platforms with these capabilities, increasingly resource-constrained facilities managers can significantly improve their decision-making skills as well as the performance of their locations. 

 

 

About ENTOUCH

Founded in Dallas, Texas, in 2008, ENTOUCH is the pioneer in energy management as a service and smart building technology. Our turnkey solution digitally transforms and optimizes operations while reducing energy usage to drive profitability for multisite businesses. We are the only provider that owns our entire technology stack and can take over heterogeneous systems and manage them from a single cloud solution. We lead the industry in speed and deployment quality, and the ENTOUCH.360 service has earned a 100% renewal rate.