Boon Edam

Royal Boon Edam: ever smarter revolving doors and access gates thanks to the cloud

Anyone who ever takes a plane at Schiphol Airport, or goes to the restroom in a roadside restaurant, will encounter Boon Edam's products. What not everyone knows is that there is a lot of smart technology in the systems for physical access. And that's only going to increase. Valid is helping Boon Edam take another step in modernizing its products with a connected platform, bringing Internet of Things, Machine Learning and predictive maintenance within reach.

Challenge: data-driven work

Boon Edam's business strategy is based on two pillars: putting the customer first and taking into account the scarcity of technical specialists. Therefore, the company wants to work in a data-driven way. Valid was brought in to help with this.

Indeed, in a Proof of Concept, Valid had shown that Azure offers the greatest potential for bringing existing dashboards to the cloud, and for doing much more with data. With the connected platform, Valid follows this up: with this solution it is possible to monitor and control access systems. Initially 250 turnstiles were connected, but Boon can add thousands of revolving doors, gates and turnstiles, wherever they are in the world.

Boon Edam office
Valid - man workplace
Business continuity

First, back to Boon Edam's products. These find their way to various types of customers, from airports and high-security data centers to large hospitals, shopping malls and offices. Martin Moes is manager of integrated products at Boon Edam: "What our solutions have in common is that they should always work. If a gate in a large office doesn't open, you get queues and people can't get to their workplace. Or if a toilet turnstile jams, the operator suffers financial loss. It may sound crazy, but business continuity starts with properly functioning physical access." Ways to gain passage range from simply pushing open, to facial recognition.

Customers increasingly want to monitor whether systems are working, and what traffic is going through them. High-security environments want to get that information in real time and incorporate it into their security management system. Large offices want to integrate the data from the gates with climate control, energy or elevator systems in a building. In this way, physical access becomes embedded in comprehensive management systems for building management, crowd control and security. But also in commercial applications, for example for paid access to toilets or gyms. Moes: "Then it's nice to get insight into the turnover at the end of the day and to implement price changes remotely. Or to see when the paper in the voucher printer needs refilling."

Solution: transition to the Azure Cloud

By moving to the Azure Cloud, Boon Edam can do much more with the available data. It creates an easily scalable data warehouse with flexible functionality for reporting and dashboards. Depending on their role and rights, users can retrieve exactly the information they need. Moes: "The front-end of the platform is different for the customer than for Boon Edam. Take the turnstiles in restrooms. Our customers can easily adjust settings through self-service, for example, implement discounts centrally. Or fix minor malfunctions."

Customers can download the data to their own environment for further enrichment. "With the information from the dashboard, they can identify peak moments, and take further action on them, such as intensifying toilet cleaning and scheduling maintenance at less busy times." Thanks to Machine Learning, the system can trigger such actions automatically.

Benefit of collaboration: applying new concepts

Links to Boons SAP backend and external systems are easier to establish and maintain in Azure. The Azure cloud also offers all kinds of advanced tooling for analytics, security and Machine Learning. "These make new applications possible that we can't even think of now," says Jeroen van de Poll, Project Manager at Valid. "We are working on something special, a combination of IoT, Big Data, predictive analytics, cloud, we are applying all kinds of new concepts to serve the customer's business."

"Many compliments for the way the project went and for the final result. "

Patrick van Weert Senior IT Supervisor Medtronic
Managed Services - Valid
Valid - collaborate 2 (2)
Result: predictive maintenance

The new platform offers opportunities for predictive maintenance. You can then use historical and current information to have the computer predict when components need maintenance or replacement. Faults can thus be prevented before they actually occur. The deployment of service technicians can thus be planned much better.

The Valid Development Factory developed the connected platform in Azure, migrated the historical data to Azure, created various links, and set up the dashboard. Moes: "A platform like this is a must-have if you want to compete as a supplier. Some sectors are already further along. We have taken a step toward a bright future. We are already developing plans for the next project. We want to keep the momentum going."

Boon Edam
  • Exists for over 150 years
  • 1,300 employees
  • Active in more than 60 countries
  • Tens of thousands of access systems worldwide
  • Over 20 branches at home and abroad
Results
  • Increased innovativeness
  • Good ability to meet customer needs
  • More efficient deployment of support engineers
  • Future-proof foundation
  • Compliance with corporate, Microsoft-based IT standards
Added value Valid
  • Proven expertise in Azure
  • Convincing PoCs
  • Valid Development Factory for agile development
  • Result-oriented
  • Structured yet flexible approach
  • Teamwork