Return to office solution for Subsea 7 with Empathic Building digital twin

Like most companies during the past year, Subsea 7 has had a lot of people working remotely. Yet, some actions require physical presence at the office. For this, Subsea7 needed to make sure that the people at their Stavanger campus site could social distance easily and have clear COVID guidelines easily available for different areas.

One big benefit Subsea 7 has, is that they have a lot of space in their about 30 000 square meter campus area. This enabled them to spread people out easily for social distancing. Subsea 7 also created clear COVID-19 guidelines for different areas, including regulations in meetings the rooms, and seating in the campus cafeteria.

As people were spread out across the campus an issue emerged: how to find your coworker fast and how to make sure everyone knows the latest COVID guidelines for each area? The campus cafeteria was also having difficulty predicting the number of visitors for each day with the quickly changing situations and people working part-time from home and part-time from the office.

When Hans Olavesen, the Facility Manager of Subsea 7, came across Empathic Building, the idea emerged for it to be used as the information center for their return to office policies. Hans’ requirement was a simple, easy-to-use solution that would require little maintenance and would be flexible enough to allow them to do a lot of things themselves. Another important requirement was that the solution should have little to no disturbances to the building infrastructure or systems.  

The installation of the Empathic Building digital twin at the Subsea 7 campus only took a couple of days, with wireless IoT sensor devices installed on desks, meeting rooms, and entryways. The social distancing plans were brought to the digital twin, with free desks planned so that there is plenty of space between people. With the employees having new seats, the desks are named, so that you can simply check where your co-worker’s seat is from Empathic Building. Also, the preferred entries and exits are marked to the digital twin, to minimize people meeting each other when moving across the campus.

The campus cafeteria also has a reduced amount of seating, with free and cleaned desks marked as green, and used desks marked as yellow for cleaning. To predict how many people would be using the cafeteria, a lunch booking system was also included in the Empathic Building and now people can “book a lunch” in advance when they know they’re visiting the office. All the COVID guidelines can be found in the Empathic Building, so people can always have the most up-to-date information and feel safe in the office environment.

“One of the things that impressed me was that most of the work was done in just 3 days,” Hans says. “You can create the digital twin model from a simple PDF blueprint. Then we installed the sensor devices according to our plan and added them to the Empathic Building system. It was a very easy and surprisingly fast process.” He continues. Since Haltian Thingsee devices use cellular connectivity, the onboarding was effortless with no disturbances to the building’s WiFi connections or infrastructure.

The requirement for flexibility was also met, and the customer can create and change the different info signs, as well as move desks around, and mark them differently when needed.

Empathic Building also visualizes other useful information, like bus schedules user guides, and videos to make the everyday workday of Subsea 7 employees a little smoother.

Subsea 7 has been using Empathic Building Return to Office Solution since June 2020, with great results in keeping their employees safe with easy social distancing and efficient information sharing in their digital twin. “When using Empathic Building, we were able to make a safe return to the office fast, and we felt very comfortable doing it with clear guidelines for social distancing,” Hans says. “I see Empathic Building as the home for all information. Everyone knows where  to find it, and everyone has the same view of it.” He continues.

The solution also received very positive feedback from the employees working at the campus: “Our people have been very happy using especially the people finding. Now you don’t have to walk through the entire campus to find the person you’re looking for.”

According to Hans, one of the biggest benefits of Empathic Building digital twin is that it’s very easy to use, and people learn it very quickly. “I would recommend Empathic Building for any big company. It has been very handy for us, and easy to use,” Hans says. One recommendation Hans would give to Empathic Building users is to take ownership of the solution and be active with it. “I often think that with Empathic Building the limitation is your own imagination.” He says. “In the beginning, I couldn’t even imagine all the benefits and possibilities we have now.”