Glyde – Making Workforce Accommodation Smarter

Glyde was born in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, which has iron ore mines that supply the world’s steel industry. Operating mines in this region demands accommodation for hundreds of people, who work long hours extracting and processing iron ore for export to Asian steel mills. It is in this workforce accommodation that Glyde is making a substantial difference.

For the miners that fly in and out of remote regions to work for weeks at a time, the workdays are long, in very hot conditions. Hence, optimizing workers accommodation conditions for comfort and ease in their free time so they can rest and recharge between work shifts is vital.

Glyde is all is about using technology to improve the guest experience and operating accommodation more efficiently. Glyde creates a smart ecosystem using the application, collaboration, analysis, and actuation of IoT (Internet of Things) technology across workforce accommodation facilities and services. The proprietary Glyde Node and Glyde Software Suite and the integration with third-party IoT sensors and software packages, brings the guest and workforce accommodation closer together.

The technology enables Glyde to learn and apply solutions specific to the individual guest, situation, and circumstances to deliver an optimized and comfortable stay.

Workforce Accommodation Redefined

Glyde mines the accommodation booking information and simultaneously sends information to the Glyde Node in the guest’s designated room and nominated email or mobile/cell phone.

The node then prepares the room for the guest’s arrival, with access authentication and control of in-room appliances such as air conditioners, to deliver personalized environmental comfort settings.

On arrival at the workforce accommodation, a guest can open the email or SMS and then link through to the Glyde Smartphone App. The App navigates the guest to their room and provides authentication to unlock their room and access accommodation facilities for the duration of their stay. In anticipation of a guest’s arrival, rooms can be automatically prepared by the Glyde IoT node to deliver optimized temperature and comfort.

On entry, the Glyde Node reports access and continually monitors and updates room conditions for the duration of the stay whilst reporting back to the central database. The Glyde Smartphone App provides up-to-the-minute information to the guests about the accommodation and related services, showing activity levels using a traffic light system in the dining room, gyms and laundries, which enables the guest to determine how, when, and where to access these services to optimize their convenience. The data collected by the Glyde Node and third-Party IoT and software is directed to the Glyde database, where the Glyde Software system collates data and conducts analysis using Glyde’s Machine Learning Algorithms.

Data is then integrated and displayed via Business Intelligence Platforms to enable managers operating the accommodation village to see near real-time guest activity and performance of the workforce complex. Management can gain insights from this information to make timely, well-informed decisions to improve performance. In this way, Glyde bridges the gap between the guest, facilities and services to enable the speed and quality of decisions and actions to improve facility performance and the experience of guests using the accommodation.

Glyde has changed the nature of how workforce accommodation operates. Operating in a high labour environment, Glyde has transitioned guest and staff transactions from a physical to a digital exchange. By changing Check-in and Check-out from a physical transaction conducted at a traditional guest reception to a digital transaction conducted through a Smartphone App, Glyde has enabled labour savings and the reassignment of staff managing the accommodation to higher-value tasks.

In a similar way, data from Glyde has facilitated the optimization of staff and labour hour deployment across the range of accommodation services provided. The insight provided by the data shows the specific temporal and physical use of facilities and services and has enabled the use of predictive analytics. This has resulted in far more accurate resource matching to real needs that subsequently delivers labour and material savings. The continuous learning paradigm that Glyde has created enables constant iteration that creates compounding optimization gains for the owners and operators of workforce accommodation.

A Unique IoT Solution

Glyde is a physically robust solution and the system’s durability is essential to operate in one of the harshest climates in the world. Local summers regularly have temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius and the region is prone to some of the world’s most intense cyclones. The local conditions that have fostered an abundance of iron ore also support dust. Glyde has been designed to not only survive, but prosper in this challenging physical environment. This is because Glyde has its genesis at the Searipple Village, a workforce accommodation facility in the Pilbara that is owned and operated by its parent company, Fleetwood. Each of the hardware components of Glyde were designed or selected by Glyde’s technical team, who have experience with the Pilbara’s harsh climate and the tough miners who work in this part of the world. Glyde’s hardware is tested firstly in labs and then in real conditions at Fleetwood’s Searipple Village. This has ensured the ongoing evolution of Glyde in harsh, realistic conditions, enabling ongoing iteration and improvement.

“As Glyde seeks to integrate guests, facilities and services as closely as possible, our IoT is powered over ethernet as this delivers the most robust communications and power solutions. In addition, the Glyde Nodes at the accommodation rooms have a backup battery, enabling at least 10 hours of redundancy and storing the last known booking information,” commented Dominic Letts. This means that Glyde can continue to operate without power or communications for extended periods, which has been verified during recent cyclonic events impacting Searipple Village.

Glyde is unique in the market as an IoT solution that makes Workforce Accommodation Smarter. While there are smart locks and an array of sensors out there, nothing has integrated sensors, actuators, and software together that collaborates, analyses and actuates data in a comprehensive way to support a workforce accommodation setting. Nor is there a comparable product that has been spawned, tested, hardened and implemented in real conditions. The learning lab that Glyde hosts at Searipple Village, has enabled a higher risk threshold and faster to market delivery cycle by facilitating iteration and evolution in a real-life and collaborative environment.

Glyde will continue to evolve to bring the end-user, facilities and services closer and deliver improved outcomes by doing so. “Our focus on workforce accommodation will not wane but Glyde will also begin to be implemented in other settings such as education and corrections where our parent company, Fleetwood, operates. Glyde has provided Fleetwood an information edge, enabling the design, development and operations of workforce accommodation to be conducted more intelligently and effectively than any other. We will bring this edge advantage to other markets to ensure we offer greater value to our customers,” concluded Dominic Letts.

The Leader Upfront - Dominic Letts

Co-Founder Dominic Letts is a former Special Forces Army soldier who has led operations and training in Asia Pacific and the Middle East. His focus on the collective power of the team, adaptive leadership and curiosity has created a culture within Glyde where each member is valued and the status quo is there to be challenged. By making Workforce Accommodation Smarter, Glyde is making a significant difference to the lives of our hardworking miners and is supporting improved productivity of Australia’s essential resources industry.

“Glyde is unique in the market as an IoT solution that makes Workforce Accommodation Smarter.”