Powering Supermarkets and Hypermarkets with IoT-based Energy and Asset Management Solution

In a Retail Industry consisting predominantly of supermarkets and hypermarkets, change is certainly in the air. The growth of online shopping gave the retail industry a wake-up call, but this field has always been changing, adapting to customer needs. Given the new normal for consumer behavior at the moment, retailers are looking for ways to get more out of their brick-and-mortar locations by enhancing their in-store experience. Especially, the Supermarkets and Hypermarkets are altering their business models to remain competitive in an increasingly cut-throat industry by adopting energy and asset management alternatives. Now is a great time for such marketspaces to embrace the IoT-based Energy and Asset Management solution.

To expand, Supermarkets and Hypermarkets need to maximize their savings and invest the saved amount into other profit-maximizing opportunities. Deployment of power-consuming assets all over the infrastructure contributes to a major portion of the expenditure. Bringing into play, IoT-connected devices would enable these retailers to move ahead from various roadblocks.

How IoT-based automation solutions can enable smart energy and asset management at Supermarkets and Hypermarkets?

IoT-based automation enables multiple physical devices to digitally connect with each other using wireless sensors and actuators, empowering the Store Manager to monitor and manage operations of a large number of retail stores efficiently at an ease from anywhere in the world. It allows recording and analyzing data as per the desired perspective using AI/ML algorithms through a centralized cloud platform.

Geographically distributed Supermarkets and Hypermarkets lead to inconsistent operations thereby creating the following challenges for the retail leadership:

• High energy cost due to operations out of working hours, poor power factor and suboptimal equipment working
• Low Compliance due to undesired temperature and humidity levels at common area and storage facility
• Electrical Health & Safety Risk due to repeated fluctuations in voltage and current flow
• Lack of detailed visibility of asset operations and carbon footprint at multiple sites

A thorough monitored and controlled facility would help in optimizing energy consumption, maintaining temperature compliances and asset health, facilitating digital workflows, and enabling predictive maintenance.

Let’s deep dive into the architecture of the IoT-based mechanism, ZenConnect at the Retail sector in supermarkets and hypermarkets.

Power Consuming assets at a retail store can be mainly categorized into three types:

1. Refrigeration: Freezers, Chillers, Cold Rooms
2. Power Backup: Diesel Generator, UPS, Solar Plant, Grid
3. Illumination: Guest area, Back area

Zenatix deploys the enhanced open-source wireless mesh based on Google OpenThread which includes a wide variety of battery-powered sensors (such as temperature, humidity, luminosity, CO2, etc.) that relay data to its industrial-grade gateway. The Gateway integrates with various above-mentioned assets and sensors to extract data from them ultimately sending it to the Zenatix cloud platform. Using AI/ML algorithms, the IoT Stack on Cloud generates statistics as per the appropriate requirements. Such reports, statistics, and charts are provided at the centralized Zenatix Dashboard. This dashboard enables constant monitoring remotely at any time. It provides access to automated control of assets. Maintenance tickets and alerts also pop up on the dashboard.

ZenConnect serves all sizes of retails and integrates with different equipment across multiple store formats. The deployment takes place at ease using the wireless and plug & play feature. Since it is OEM agnostic, it can interoperate among various systems. It also allows sensor and schedule-based automated operations for efficiency.

Guaranteed Benefits delivered by optimum Asset and Energy Management

• Enabling 5-10% energy savings by:
  • Automated controls
  • Centralised energy consumption tracking across different locations

• Temperate compliance improving food safety and customer comfort up to 30-60% by:
  • Enhanced customer comfort by maintaining the comfortable ambience
  • Reduction of food spoilage up to 30% by monitoring cold storage/ refrigeration temperature

• Maintaining Asset health and reducing breakdowns by 25-30% by:
  • AI/ML-based predictive maintenance alerts for different equipment
  • Identification of assets having a sub-optimal operation
  • Digital automated ticketing workflows based on real-time equipment data

IoT is one of the largest growing segments within the Internet of things concept. I think it is the future, and everyone can come out with new ideas to enhance its market value. There are various ways in which the different sectors will be benefited from the use of this system, Supermarkets and Hypermarkets have an efficient opportunity to transform and accelerate towards the future. The Automation process will limit the manual errors and play a key role in enabling retailers to drive efficiency gains and achieve their operational targets.

Zenatix offers IoT based energy & asset management solution for built infrastructures (e.g. retail stores, hotels, warehouses, pharmacies, clinics etc.). The solution helps in monitoring & automation from a central/distributed location(s). The consequent benefits delivered by the solution includes optimized energy consumption, maintenance of environment compliances, predictive management of asset health etc. The solution is based on Google’s OpenThread mesh technology and is equipment OEM agnostic. It is a cloud-hosted application with easy to deploy (plug & play) edge hardware. It can be remotely maintained & provides a quick ROI in a timeframe of up to 18 months.

We have been serving our customers across the Middle East region in association with our local partners. If you need IoT based energy & asset management solution for your built infrastructures, please submit your inquiry at this link.