University of Worcester - Integration Project

Managing university campuses means coordinating maintenance across multiple buildings and facilities. Historically, while the existing SmartScan system provided lighting management and emergency testing functionality, this was a separate, closed system, monitored and controlled through its own online portal.

The University wanted to improve efficiency by integrating SmartScan with Archibus, helping its teams identify priorities, direct resources more effectively, and make better-informed decisions about assets and space. Additionally, it would further boost safety compliance.

In a separate project, the University looked to answer specific occupancy questions. First, in a large specialist teaching room containing costly equipment, site managers wanted to understand actual utilisation with a view to dividing or repurposing the space.

Secondly, in a campus café, managers needed reliable footfall data to inform staffing decisions and balance service capacity with operating cost. Resolving these queries would provide proof-of-concept for potential future occupancy management projects.

Thorlux engineers first edited the on-site SmartScan luminaire and group data to match the university’s chosen naming structure, ensuring API-exported data from the approximately 2440 SmartScan devices were legible when received by the CAFM system. This brought the lighting system information into the same management view used for other estate tasks, meaning the team could assess it alongside other site issues, reducing fragmentation, and revealing the big picture.

This improved efficiency means facilities teams can identify potential failure points, prioritise risk, and direct resources to the areas that need attention, with automated workflows that convert failed emergency lighting tests, battery warnings, and communication faults into work requests, complete with precise asset locations. As a result, compliance has been strengthened across the university estate.

Alongside this integration, Thorlux deployed SmartScan-connected OptiCount people-counting devices to record movements in and out of the selected spaces, gathering evidence of the teaching room’s utilisation and café’s footfall. The amassed statistical information enables fact-based decision making; for example, data from the café could support choices about additional staff requirements based on demand.

This project demonstrates the effectiveness of making data usable across systems. Instead of being an isolated lighting system, Thorlux SmartScan Analytics technology uses API connections to reliably integrate with and contribute to the university’s broader digital estate, helped by effective data alignment and naming.

The University of Worcester is leading the way in creating truly smart campuses. Electricity-related emissions have already fallen by 18% year on year, driven by a combination of a lower grid emissions factor and operational improvements across the estate, including building performance enhancements, HVAC optimisation, and lighting upgrades delivered through the Thorlux SmartScan system.