Poka-yoke (ポカヨケ) is a Japanese term used at Toyota which means “mistake-proofing”. If you’ve never heard of it before, that’s okay. Not many people I know outside of Toyota actually heard of the term. It’s basically what we know as “foolproofing” (poka-yoke actually used to be called baka-yoke, baka meaning…

Is your facility on Time of Use billing? If you don’t know the answer to that question, there’s a large chance you have thousands of dollars to save by digging deeper. New digital smart meters collect electricity consumption data at regular intervals (typically every 15 or 30 minutes). This evolution…

What is Short Cycling? Short cycling is the rapid turning on and off of a mechanical system, and occurs frequently in air-compressors, furnaces, chillers and AC units. It can be caused by dirty air filters, an oversized system, or the differential pressure being set too small. This rapid state-change adds unnecessary stress on the…

Generating revenue is better than avoiding costs — pretty much any business school will tell you that. What you may not know is that when your product is real estate, it’s possible to do both at once. For a commercial real estate manager investing in sustainability, Verdigris provides high definition…

One year ago we launched our fifth generation of Verdigris hardware. Our proprietary hardware crucially samples current and voltage at an extremely high frequency (8 kHz, or 8 thousand times every second). Our algorithms use this information to create a virtual physical layer of data. One of these enhanced data…

It’s that time of year: the smell of Christmas trees, sugar cookies, and the flu bug are in the air. Employees are getting sick, vacationing, and no-showing during the time of year when hotel needs them the most. …

Everyone is worried about data security these days. And rightfully so — good actors and bad are constantly trying to access your data. The recent dustup between Apple and the FBI shows that protecting personal data is a constant concern, especially when that personal data includes sensitive information like financial…

Corporate are increasingly looking at their employees to be superheroes in the good fight against energy waste. This year 57% of corporations have formal energy reduction initiatives, up from 46% last year. That’s a lot of corporations, and a lot of energy waste to conquer! Corporate energy reduction initiatives often…

What’s your Halloween costume? I have a feeling nobody will be dressed as an energy-sucking overnight-running computer monitor. But if you’re a commercial building engineer — or a cost-conscious homeowner — you can be sure that unknown devices in your building are sucking up energy when you don’t know about…