Dignity. Technology. Sustainability. — Redefining the Afterlife Industry.
Dignity. Technology. Sustainability. — Redefining the Afterlife Industry.
Smart Funeral Home
Smart Funeral Home Solution
Funeral homes are being asked to become information systems as well as buildings. The difficulty is that the software has to sit on top of real equipment — refrigeration, purification, cremation — and read it, not sit beside it and be typed into.
FourSubsystems
EightOperating areas
Siemens PLCControl basis
01 What it solves
Policy has moved faster than practice. The national comprehensive funeral reform pilot programme in 2017 asked funeral homes to build management information platforms, share data and raise online service capacity. The "Internet plus funeral service" action plan in 2018 set out online publication, provincial platforms, online declaration and review, remote farewell, online memorial and online booking.
Most facilities are then left with a practical question: what actually gets installed, and how does it connect to the equipment already in the building? A system that cannot read the refrigeration unit or the cremation platform is a form that staff fill in by hand.
02 What the solution includes
Information management system
Field operations, internal operations and business management for the funeral home, developed over five years specifically for funeral-home workflows rather than adapted from generic ERP.
Identity-linked process control
Farewell, cremation and ash deposit are linked to identity verification, which removes an entire class of process errors.
Intelligent business & equipment control
Controls refrigeration equipment, the safety protection system and prefabricated smart buildings, across the eight operating areas of the facility.
Central environmental control
A 10.4-inch high-brightness touchscreen with digital and graphical modes, monitoring room pressure, supply and exhaust pressure, supply air velocity, temperature and air quality, with an air-quality warning module and automatic ion adjustment.
Two control modes
Touchscreen control with one-touch start/stop and freely configurable parameters, plus an emergency manual mode that can start and stop main power, fans, air conditioning, sterilisation and lighting.
Self-service enquiry
Windows touchscreen terminals connected to the information management system, so families can check fee status and see where a body is in the process without asking at the counter.
Visual operations
Dispatch centre, alert query and operations overview on one screen, with equipment status and data shown graphically rather than as tables of numbers.
Automated reporting
Temperature curves, historical analysis and printed reports, so compliance and maintenance records are produced by the system rather than compiled by hand.
03 How it works
The system is layered deliberately. The information layer records and routes; the control layer acts on equipment; the visual layer makes both readable.
01
Record
Intake, preparation, memorial, cremation and ash deposit are recorded against the individual case.
02
Verify
Identity verification is applied at the process steps where errors are most costly — farewell, cremation and ash storage.
03
Control
Equipment control acts on refrigeration, purification and the building services, per operating area.
04
Monitor
Environmental and equipment sensors feed the central control system continuously.
05
Publish
Process and fee status become available to families through self-service terminals.
06
Review
Dashboards and reports show the facility as a whole for management decisions.
Eight operating areas in scope
Memorial hall · Mortuary · Ash building · Anatomy room · Cremation hall · Business and cashier hall · Cosmetics room · Disinfection room.
04 Technical basis
The control layer is built on Siemens PLC technology for stability, with the purification control system carrying a registered software copyright.
- Control platform
- Siemens PLC, 10.4-inch high-brightness TFT touchscreen
- Display modes
- Digital and graphical
- Monitored parameters
- Room pressure, supply pressure, exhaust pressure, supply air velocity, temperature, air quality
- Control modes
- Touchscreen (one-touch) and emergency manual
- Warning functions
- Air-quality warning module, automatic high-energy ion adjustment
- Coverage
- Eight operating areas plus related equipment management
- Terminals (self-service)
- 19-inch capacitive touch, i3 / 4 GB / 120 GB HDD, or 21.5-inch with SSD
- Compliance features
- Temperature curves, historical analysis, printed reports, SMS alarm and query
| Policy | Requirement met |
|---|---|
| MCA pilot scheme, 2017 | Management information platform, data interconnection, higher online service capacity |
| MCA action plan, 2018 | Online publication, provincial platform connection, online declaration and review |
| MCA action plan, 2018 | Remote farewell, online memorial and online booking |
| Data-exchange standard | Funeral management service information-system data sharing specification |
| Regulatory capability | Funeral big-data governance and historical data back-fill |
05 Where it applies
The solution applies to the whole facility, with the workstation and terminal mix decided by which areas are busiest.
Service hallMemorial & farewell hallsMortuary & cold storageCremation hallAsh buildingEmbalming roomAnatomy roomManagement office
06 Selected references
Products in service500+ funeral homes nationwide
Software copyrightPurification control system, registered nationally
Municipal alignmentBuilt to the 2017 pilot scheme and 2018 action-plan requirements
Per-project references for the information system are available on request.
08 Questions buyers ask
Can the system manage equipment we already own?
Where the equipment exposes a usable data interface, yes. Where it does not, we will say so at survey stage rather than imply an integration that cannot be delivered. Equipment with its own proprietary controls usually remains stand-alone but can still be reported on.
Is the system compliant with provincial platform requirements?
The information layer is built against the data-exchange specification so the facility can report outward. Actual provincial platform onboarding is a per-province process and is confirmed at project stage.
Do we need the full system, or can we phase it?
Phasing is normal. Information management and central environmental control are the usual starting points; self-service terminals and building systems follow once the base data is reliable.
What happens to the data if we change systems later?
That is decided by the data-ownership and export clauses in the project contract. We keep the records exportable rather than locked in.
Where to go next
Scope this solution for your project.
Send the site, the zones and the stage you are at. We reply with what we would deliver, which interfaces we would own and the standards we would build to.