Recently I was able to organise an afternoon with the staff at school and the Head of operations at Chadstone Shopping centre in Melbourne, Aus. During this meeting the Head of Operations took us through the different systems they have in place to make Chadstone Shopping centre run more efficiently. Sensors throughout the centre collect data continuously which is fed into a range of different datasets. They have AI systems in place that analyse how to better and more efficiently run the multitude of systems they have in place.

An example of this is the system used to monitor the heating and cooling system in the centre. The temperature is monitored using a number of different sensors throughout the centre. The temperature data that is collected by these sensors are feed into a dataset along with a number of different other variables. They use the data and these variables to calculate how they can optimise the way in which this system works. This minimises their electricity usage and greenhouse emissions and more efficiently keeps the temperature of the centre where they want it to be.

They take a number of different variables into consideration during this process which include  temp within the centre, temp outside of the centre, weather forecasts, past weather forecasts for a particular day, air temperature, previous days that have had the same variable numbers, how efficient was the system on days that had similar variables and how can this be improved etc…

The more that the system is used the more efficient and accurate it becomes. Machine learning at it’s best!