“Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it,” said American businessman, author, and improvement guru, Dr. H. James Harrington. Harrington has more than 65 years in management and business process improvement, including 40 years revolutionizing approaches to performance improvement for IBM. His famous quote, above, may have originated decades ago, but it has never been so relevant as it is in today’s smart buildings and cities. Measurement Smart buildings and cities are often defined as spaces filled with sensors. Data can be collected on everything and anything; from the movement of people, to the performance of systems, energy consumption, even air quality and localized weather. “In one experiment, we put about 400 sensors into a small suburban office. Every sensor, every five seconds, […]