See how Willow can help you cut costs, save energy, and operate your buildings more efficiently and sustainably.
Experts anticipate the harsh winter storms blanketing the United States over the weekend costing the US economy over $100 billion in losses. Whether a facility is in a region with significant snowfall or one where an inch can halt a city, emergency preparedness is crucial in any location. A winter storm strains buildings as well as the operations that keep them running. Cold snaps cause a surge in burst pipes, frozen coils, emergency repairs, and unplanned downtime. And when critical infrastructure fails in places like hospitals, airports and university campuses, these costs multiply quickly for teams and facilities.
Organizations can find themselves ill-prepared for these harsh conditions. When the weather hits, it can be a challenge to determine how to reprioritize maintenance tasks. Willow unifies real-time data, applying Operational AI for anomaly detection. In conjunction with Willow Copilot for conversational access to the building’s Knowledge Graph, teams can figure out their plan of action and make their preparations proactive.
Let’s walk through three critical areas that Willow helps with:
1. Skills and Insights: realtime monitoring, automated alerts, and impact analysis 2. Preventive Maintenance with Willow Copilot: proactive tasks, schedules, and suggestions that keep critical systems storm-ready 3. Document Management and Consumption: all O&M manuals, procedures, and emergency playbooks uploaded during onboarding at your fingertips, asset-linked with conversational access
Willow brings these capabilities together to streamline operations and support teams across every stage of building readiness for winter weather.
Willow unifies building automation systems, HVAC assets, meters, and sensors into a Knowledge Graph, then layers rules on top through Skills and Insights. The result is that teams get actionable guidance. From rooftop units and boilers to pumps, Willow provides a real-time view of the state of assets. Facility teams can track telemetry, spot anomalies and drifts from design specs, and prioritize actions based on criticality of Insights. The Knowledge Graph makes it easy to understand which HVAC assets serve which spaces.
Willow supports a range of Skills and Insights that can help with building management during periods of inclement weather. Freeze risk detection alerts users when indoor temps approach thresholds in vulnerable zones like mechanical rooms. Economizer lockout or stuck dampers generate Insights to prevent supply air temperatures from getting dragged down in subfreezing conditions. Skills run continuously to monitor for setpoint drift. This ensures that preheat and heat recovery performance is not compromised.
As an example, AHU Freeze Alarm Activated helps detect alarms tripped on low temperature events. Priority is adjusted to Critical when outside temp is below 38 deg F.
Each Insight includes context around the physical location of the asset, root cause, as well as recommended next steps, so technicians know how to respond.
Willow maps how assets, spaces, and systems relate. As an example, when a rooftop unit has an issue, teams can ask Willow Copilot to quickly determine which occupancy zones, rooms, or tenants are impacted. Facility teams can then choose to service to the most critical areas first. They can also automate entire workflows for critical insights with automated ticket generation so technicians can be dispatched quickly.
Willow simplifies building a winter preventive maintenance schedule and updating it for weather conditions. Copilot Actions lets users conversationally create preventive tasks. Examples include filter replacements timed to maintain airflow, boiler checks, and valve and damper validation. Organizations can also use their CMMS system to upload PMs in preparation. With bi-directional CMMS syncs, Willow maintains a cohesive view of all work orders and Willow Copilot makes it easy to analyze them with natural language.
When temperatures drop and Insights are generated, quickly finding asset-specific details buried in O&M manuals and troubleshooting docs is crucial. Willow simplifies this part of operations and makes relevant information available to technicians in context of the task at hand. As part of onboarding, key documents for winter weather prep can be uploaded to Willow. Examples include:
These become a part of the Knowledge Graph as they relate to a building or specific assets. As a result, a technician working on an AHU can instantly pull up the exact document or a fault code error explanation that they need with Willow Copilot.
Willow empowers teams to act in time and present escalations by providing visibility and guidance. Skills and Insights surface prioritized actions to take, Willow Copilot simplifies technician workflows, and document management makes information readily accessible. As a result, teams can mitigate and resolve that arise due to winter weather conditions.