Reducing the burden on the environment by using the Smart IoT Service
- Case example of refrigerator temperature control for restaurants -
The Smart IoT Service enabled reductions in the work hours needed for measurement work, the amount of electric power for opening and closing the door of the refrigerator, food loss, and the burden on the environment. (CO2 emissions were reduced by 47%.)
Customer's issues
- Many work hours are required for employees to measure temperatures and write them in control logs. (Work hours for monitoring temperatures: 365,000 hours a year. Temperature control logs: 60,000 sheets a year)
- Food loss occurs due to abnormal temperatures, because temperatures are not measured during the night.
Functional unit: Work to manage the temperatures in refrigerators at 1,200 sites (12 locations per site) a year
Effect
- The work hours for temperatures management and consumables (control logs) were reduced by using IoT to perform 24-hour monitoring, measuring, and automatic data transfer, and using the cloud for data management.
- Food loss caused by temperature abnormalities was reduced by implementing measure for sites with automatic transfer of temperature abnormality warnings.
CO2 emissions: Reduction per year = 39 t of CO2. CO2 reduction rate = 47%
- Factors that reduce the burden on the environment
- Reduction of work hours for temperatures management and consumables (control logs) by using IoT
- Reduction in power consumption by reducing the number of times refrigerators are opened and closed
- Reduction of food loss caused by abnormal temperatures
- Factors that increase the burden on the environment
- Increase in the amount of electric power due to management of data by using the cloud
- Increase in the amount of energy due to the increase in people's movements in cars to handle abnormal temperatures at night
- The factors related to the burden on the environment differ depending on the assessment conditions or the assessment model.
- This assessment used SI-LCA(*1), which is Hitachi, Ltd.'s method for calculating CO2 emissions. This assessment was calculated using the information as of November 2017 and using the operation stage as the assessment target.
- With regards to the reduction of food loss, the effect of avoiding food loss in the operation stage of the IoT service is calculated based on the data of the environmental label program "EcoLeaf" of Japan Environmental Management Association for Industry.
- *1
- SI-LCA (System Integration-Life Cycle Assessment): This conforms to "FY2005 Eco-Efficiency Assessment Guideline for Information and Communication Technology (ICT)" issued by the Japan Environmental Efficiency Forum (currently Life Cycle Assessment Society of Japan) in March 2006.