Specific Challenges to Design, Estimating, Installing and Project Managing Telecommunications & It Infrastructure Projects
The field of Information Transport and Technology is a rapidly evolving one, the last 75 years have shown an astonishing level of growth that outpaces any other construction or engineering field. Aspen has been able to handle this rapid pace by maintaining our membership in the world’s leading ICT (Information and Communications Technology) professional association BICSI (Building Industry Consulting Services). BICSI holds and maintains the standards for this field and Aspen and our Employees over the last 24 years, have accrued thousands of continuing education credits, attended dozens of worldwide events, and both learned and taught in scores of classrooms and on the job training hours. Adhering to the BICSI Gold standards translates into a wealth of up to the minute knowledge and understanding of the ITS best practices. It prepares our Designers and Installers for any real-life situation. So, what are some of the challenges our team faces when Estimating, Designing, Installing and Maintaining IT Infrastructure projects? Let’s take a closer look at them together.
When designing a system often our Designers must work within the parameters of the existing building. This can present a multitude of challenges many unforeseen by the customer. Often IT rooms were originally not designed for that purpose. Our designers must ensure that the IT rooms will be of adequate size, have adequate existing power and HVAC depending on the type of units and cabling to be installed. There are often existing pathways or racking that can interfere with optimum performance. These can cause service issues, or in some cases Health and Safety violations. Many of the projects we see are not in adherence with local or Industry Codes and Standards. These are imperative corrections our Designers make with the end goal, and the Customers budget in mind. Aspen employees are aware of the challenges related to various types of environments, such as Data Centers, Health Care Facilities Residential Buildings and more and we understand the challenges associated with the various types of Systems that can be deployed in both new and existing buildings ie; Building Automated Systems (BAS), Audiovisual Systems (AV), Wireless & Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS), Electronic Safety and Security Systems and many more.
Aspen employees need to be able to work closely with other trades prior to beginning the construction process. To aid in this all of our Designers are well versed on multiple software programs to better meet the needs of other engineers, tradesmen, contractors and project managers. Our capabilities include Revit, CAD and BIM. Our Project Managers and Installers are used to working on site with other trades. Our clients are not willing to pay the high cost of our staff standing around on the job sites waiting for walls to be painted or flooring to be installed, nor should they be! Our teams respond quickly and engage in the best communication practices with their non-staff team members to make sure that our onsite hours are both productive and efficient. An example of an issue we see on site is the problem of maintaining live drops while adding new ones. This becomes particularly acute when installing new CAT6A Cable, because of its large size. Our team is armed with multiple ways of working around this dilemma to keep our customers able to use their existing system, including re-terminating the existing cable in a temporary fashion to move it out of the way, but keep it operating and therefore not interrupt phone or internet service.
Our top priority is the satisfaction of our end user, and to provide the most current technology at the best price while maintaining the best available practices. When it has to be done right, whether it is Design, Insulation or Maintenance, it has to be Aspen.