Occupancy Insights
Case Studies
Our low cost solution helps gather invaluable insights to optimise your corporate real estate spend
Queensland State Government
See how Zeplin delivered USD $664,383 per annum in savings
Our client, an Australian Governmental Department, occupied 3 floors within a central business district building in Queensland, Australia, comprising of 407 desks and 35 meeting rooms. Facing challenges around unknown occupancy levels across their existing footprint, high lease costs and inefficient space utilisation, the organisation required a data-driven, macro-level floor and building occupancy analysis to better align workspace supply with current demand.
The Problem
The Building Facilities Team lacked access to reliable, data-driven insights to validate workplace utilisation and inform space optimisation decisions. Existing data sources—such as network and access control systems—did not provide the accuracy or granularity needed to confirm perceived occupancy patterns, leaving the team unable to confidently plan or justify changes to the workplace footprint.
Our Approach
Zeplin delivered a customised live floor and building-wide data collection dashboard integrated with a capacity planning tool and supported by Intuitive’s ongoing analytics consultancy service. This provided the client with continuous and customised ROI insights into both historic and real-time occupancy levels. A hardware-light approach was adopted, deploying 15 entrance counter sensors strategically positioned at lift lobbies and inter-floor stairwells to capture accurate movement data. Complementing this, user awareness screens were installed on each floor, displaying live occupancy levels against current desk supply, fostering transparency and engagement among building users while providing a real-time feedback loop for facility planning and decision-making.
Key Highlights
Through bi-weekly consultancy sessions and ongoing data analysis, the client identified a peak occupancy rate of 67% over a 12-month period—equivalent to 273 occupants across 407 allocated desks. These insights enabled the organisation to consolidate three floors into two, optimising space utilisation and reducing operational costs. The vacated floor was renovated and repurposed to accommodate a new call centre, eliminating the need for an additional leased site and achieving a significant cost avoidance while maximising the efficiency of the existing workplace footprint.
Return on Investment (USD)
-
Year 1:
15 Device Capex for entrances: $6,750
Custom Data Analytics Service for Year 1: $18,000
-
Year 2:
Custom Data Analytics Service for Year 2: $18,000
-
Nett ROI (excluding taxation and fitout): USD $664,383 or 1,554%
Global Mining Giant
Background
This customer has large offices all over the world and understands the significant cost savings they can achieve when they have detailed occupancy data. We have provided hardware and analytics data to them across their portfolio for the last 5 years.
Our Approach
This customer wanted detailed analytics across all workstations, collaborative spaces and in some cases meeting rooms. Through our extensive research and testing with different device manufacturers we recommended specific devices for each use case. Our desk based sensors are extremely compact with a battery life of at least 8 years. They provide detailed usage patterns across many thousands of desks around the world. The customer can understand not only how buildings and floors are being used but how specific zones on each floor are being used. Sensors for meeting rooms and collaborative spaces mount on ceilings and are able to anonymously count how many people are in each space and for how long. This ensures the customer understands not only whether the space is being used but by how many people. This type of data provides precise efficiency of spaces which the customer can then use to correctly plan meeting rooms mix and other design elements of their workplace.
Our solutions run completely independent of the customer's IT infrastructure which meant we were able to bypass rigorous Cyber assessments. We are also able to remotely access all devices to update firmware versions and device configurations. This ensures that the overall solution is extremely low maintenance for the customer.
Key Highlights
-
Our customer employees a staff member who is responsible for global workplace analytics. That staff member uses our reporting engine to work with all regional offices and senior executives to supply intelligence on how their workplaces are being used and ongoing adjustments they need to make to optimise facilities.
-
At a U.S. location there is a large mix of resources who move between mine sites and the office. Leasing space was originally based on a desk ratio which was not supported by occupancy data. Our desk sensors showed this location had a Peak occupancy of only 50% meaning at its highest point the office is only half used.
-
Based on our occupancy data the customer is currently looking to sub-lease 2 of their 4 floors at this U.S. location. They are also planning to re-stack remaining floors using our data which has provided detailed behaviours on how each department each zone of the floor.
-
In Australia the customer used our occupancy data to:
-
Continually monitor occupancy across all of their locations
-
Consolidate multiple locations into a new office fit out delivering significant savings
-
Convert unused collaboration spaces in their Brisbane office into 150 new workstations to accommodate growing demand
-
Confirm that they could accommodate a new project team consisting of 80 people without adding more space or furniture, despite the anecdotal view that there was no room
-
Gather data on how collaboration spaces in their new Perth office are being used. These spaces were part of the original office design however the customer now knows that there are over 100 seats across various shared designs that are simply not being used the way they expected. These spaces are now pending redesign.
-
Global Streaming Brand
Background
Our client, a Fortune 120 Company, initially occupied two floors within a central business district building in Singapore. The workplace design included a total of 72 meeting rooms, 410 desks and 20 Framery Booths, distributed across both floors. The client was facing challenges related to underutilised space, employee hybrid work ratios, a return to office strategy, escalating lease costs, and inefficiencies in space management.
The client sought to optimise their office space usage to reduce costs, improve efficiencies, and better accommodate their evolving workforce needs relative to a productive workspace. Specifically, they aimed to understand their real estate usage with the potential to consolidate their operations while ensuring a productive workplace and right-sizing meeting facilities for their employees.
Our Approach
Our data consultancy and analytics team conducted a continuous and customised space utilisation analysis. By leveraging advanced data analytics tools, we provided the client with detailed insights into the actual usage patterns of their meeting rooms, desks and phone booths. This analysis revealed significant underutilisation in certain areas, allowing us to recommend a consolidation strategy. Continuous data sharing with employees and Business Unit Leaders reduced the associated change management cycle significantly.
-
Space Consolidation: Based on bi-weekly engagements and analysis, the client first consolidated their operations from two floors to one, reducing the number of desks from 410 to 210 and meeting rooms from 72 to 38. This move allowed them to cancel the lease on the second floor, resulting in a savings of $500,000 per annum.
-
Space Refurbishment: Following the consolidation, the client actioned the refurbishment of the remaining floor to better align with their needs. They reconfigured the space to include 114 desks and 50 smaller sized meeting rooms, optimizing the layout for both collaborative and individual work whilst facilitating new neighbourhood area’s.
-
Adjustment and Expansion: Three months after the refurbishment, a data driven outcome added 14 additional desks in response to increased demand, bringing the total to 128 desks on the single floor, a 1 employee to 0.58 Desk ratio.
-
Furniture Asset Reallocation: All spare desks—272 in total—were efficiently reallocated to their Bangkok and Manilla office locations, maximizing the utilisation of existing assets across the Asia region, resulting in a once off Capex saving of $408,000
Highlights & Results
-
Cost Savings: The consolidation resulted in a significant cost reduction of $500,000 per year from lease savings, a reduction in once-off Furniture Capex cost of $408,000 for other locations and an Electricity Savings in Year 2 of $129,474.
-
Space Optimisation: The refurbished office space was better aligned with the client's needs, providing a more efficient and productive work environment and 1 employee to 0.58 desks.
-
Asset Utilisation: The redistribution of desks to other locations ensured that resources were fully utilised, preventing waste and further supporting cost efficiency across the organisation.
-
Operational Benefits: Catering Forecasting, floor facilities shutdown on Fridays, sustainability savings due to hybrid work adjustments and reduced change management cycles.
Return on Investment:
Year 1:
-
810 Workspaces Device Capex = $38,000
-
810 Workspaces – Custom Data Analytics Service for Year 1 =$26,720
Year 2:
-
430 Workspaces – Custom Data Analytics Service for Year 2 =$20,160
-
Facilities Saving for Year 2 (excludes A/C) = ($129,859)
Year 3:
-
416 Workspaces – Custom Data Analytics Service for Year 3 = $19,992
-
Once Off Furniture Relocation = ($408,000)
-
Rental and Facilities Reduction for Year 3 = ($645,284)
Nett ROI (including Singapore Taxation) = USD $1,053,502 or 812%
(Use of alternative data sensing sources would reduce upfront Capex to $22,000)