Boring Problems. Beautiful Solutions

Technology can, and should, work its wonders for something as everyday as the AC’s level at an airport or the temperature knob in a car factory’s paint tunnel. After all, the God of any business enterprise is in the details – like how much heat a banquet hall uses in a hotel or how much electricity can be saved by cutting down unnecessary use of fans in factories.

Chatting with Bhavana Mittal, Executive Director and Chief Growth Officer, Bert Labs Private Limited shatters a lot of assumptions and clichés about the use of technology in business. It does not always have to be something huge or glamorous or Big Bang. Like Johannes Vermeer and Nicolaes Maes - the brilliant artists who captured the complex beauty of everyday domestic life- Mittal sketches us a picture of the quotidian digitalisation.

You were in the media and advertising industry for a lot of years. What is this switch feeling like?

As exciting as it was there. It has been a 25+ years’ career and I have worked with media and creative agencies, Consulting, MNC, FMCG, Indian business conglomerates. I have been with RP Sanjiv Goenka Group, Accenture, GSKCH and Reckitt, as well as with advertising agencies like Group M, IPG, McCann, etc. I began working at Bert Labs in 2021. Now I am part of the vision to make a technology conglomerate out of India – which is, so far, a country of technology services. We want to create a strong product and innovation brand from India. It is exciting to solve interesting problems through technology here.

You work on a lot of sustainability areas also. Are sustainability and business goals still an ‘either’ ‘or’ equation?

The ‘and’ approach is present at the top level. But between the CEO and the production head, the priorities change. As we go down the hierarchy, operational goals take precedence over environmental ones. So we are trying to create awareness and educate people that both business and sustainability goals can be balanced well. Our approach and belief say that we cannot reduce carbon footprint without practically cutting down on energy consumption.

How? Any examples?

We helped a marquee airport in APAC in achieving optimal temperature comfort for passengers and airport community. We did this by using real-time temperature checks and controls. By noticing ups-and-downs as per the time of the day; as well as changes due to change in density of crowd, we help in changing the temperature as per that very hour’s factors.  Similarly, in a manufacturing set-up, fans tend to run at the same RPM and add to electricity bills. We create algorithms that can take into account real-time humidity, production schedules and operating parameters so that we can wipe away these redundant costs.

Like – how at an airport- our deep learning models can watch equipment to predict energy consumption; help on Chiller/Building condition (Power, Water & Air flow, Temp, Off coil Temp, Occupancy, IAQ); predict time required at each process and also predict machine availability & run status.

How? What’s in your box?

We use reinforcement learning, which has, until now, been used dominantly in autonomous cars and gaming only. We want to expand its use in industrial scenarios. A child learns to ride a bike by the right nudge and direction, and also by falling and getting up, learning from mistakes on the way. We use data to keep training the models to ride their bikes. It’s like giving a mind to the machine. With the right set of penalties and rewards, the machine can go for a higher set of parameters. We have a 360 degree solution, an IoT suite, dashboards, digital twin solutions etc. in our portfolio.

Which ones have been your favourite adoption examples so far?

Many. But the everyday stuff is quite interesting. Like if there is a dinner in the banquet hall in a hotel at 7 pm, the AC is usually set up by 4 pm. But not all people spill in exactly at 7 pm. Also the temperature changes in the evening. Now that’s where our algorithm can help by marking patterns from data of one whole year about occupancy, peak crowd times, temperature etc. and, then, using it with real-time data. I also like how we helped an automobile maker in their paint-shop. The ‘body in white’ paint is dried in a tunnel which has to be heated to ensure the paint sits well and there is no peel-off. But this temperature is usually set at the same level whether the car is hatchback or a SUV. We help with real-time monitoring for adjustments to the kiln temperature.

Is India Inc. gutsy enough to take risks with technology investments?

There is a ‘why fix it when not broken’ mindset in many places. We are trying to change it. We can work with a small PoC, then build it up and encourage a customer to pick more unit stations. There are a lot of decision makers – like a CEO, a CFO, and a CIO etc. in the process. That elongates the time for taking an investment decision. Another challenge is to get data from a customer. It’s all there, though. But it is approached with a post-mortem lens.

By Pratima H