Project Execution

The Four Things Digital Device Will Offer
Our Engineers are professionals who are qualified to research our client's media needs, make design and installation suggestions, draw up engineering documents and install and maintain the technology. We offer a broad range of services in four major areas:

Pre Project Consulting
The first step for us is to find out what you, the client, need in your facility, and as any good AV contractor would, we take this step very seriously. Often, we will conduct a formal needs analysis to find out what AV capabilities you want the facility to have. The goal here isn't to decide on specific AV components, but rather to talk about all the ways in which you would like to use the room when it's finished.

Once the needs analysis is complete, the project moves to the initial design phase. In this step, we “paint broad brush strokes” of what the room might look like. One common way of doing this is to list the various blocks of technology that might be employed and provide ballpark estimates for the price of each. For example, an audio system would be one technology component with its own price tag, while a projection system might be a second and the acoustic system might be a third. Similarly, in studio designing, the physical studio will be one cost block, the hardware and software the other and so on. The point of the exercise is to show you where the money is going. And if the rough estimate totals more than you have budgeted for the project, it gives you the information you'll need to match your organization's expectations with your budget. Our goal here is to make you understand what you will get for the amount of money you can spend.

Project Planning and Documentation
After the broad parameters of the project are agreed upon; we will initiate full-scale design efforts. With the aid of CAD software, our engineers will develop flow diagrams and detailed layouts for all the equipment and their respective wiring. All the odds and ends, from equipment listings, design layout to millwork dimensions, are factored in. All details surrounding the project are committed to paper, in a clean and organized way.

Hence if you decide to upgrade the facility in the future with new AV equipment, a good set of engineering documents will provide a road map for future contractors and go a long way toward keeping the cost down.

Once the basic design is complete, we will review it with you to make sure it can provide everything you expect. At this stage, we will customarily present a detailed cost analysis for the project, including a detailed pricing list for each of the components. If there's an AV control system involved, we will typically review touch-panel programming interfaces with you at this time, so you have a good idea of what you can expect the system to control and ensure that it will be easy enough for all potential users to understand. Once you accept the proposal and sign on the dotted line and make the necessary payments, the project gets underway. Here we are obliged to commit a reasonable time frame by which the project can be completed.

Ongoing Maintenance and Customer Support
Once the system is checked and certified, then we typically spend some time training the key people at your facility on how to use the equipment. For a meeting room or other installation that will be used by many people, you'll want to involve a corporate trainer or IT specialist in this orientation process, someone who can be counted on to explain the system to colleagues. We also offer after-sales support in the form of service and preventive-maintenance agreements. For an annual fee, you can obtain warranty support plus periodic visits from us to check and fine-tune your equipment, replace lamps and adjust or update the control-panel programming. Regular visits by us can go a long way toward eliminating equipment failure.

Fabrication and Installation
After the agreement is in place, we will order any necessary equipment not in stock, fabricate brackets and also commence any wiring work where applicable. If possible we will typically put together the equipment in our own facility before setting it up at your location. This portion of the job is known as "fabrication." Our technicians will build the racks, wire the equipment, load all the components and test the system once it's built. This enables us to make sure the project has been engineered correctly and that all the major components are in working order before they're transported to the client’s location. If an AV control system is ordered, we will also program the system at this time, entering the computer codes that enable the various devices to "talk" to one another and receive input from the touch panel.

Meanwhile, our Engineers will also spend a good deal of time at the site to make sure all the necessary groundwork is being laid. This involves such things as working with the electrical contractor to make sure the cable runs are installed correctly and all the power requirements for the system will be met. They will also make sure that all the auxiliary devices—including projection screens, projector mounts, interfaces, speaker brackets, microphone floor boxes and acoustic panels— are mounted and installed properly.

Once the groundwork has been laid at the site, all other civil works completed (where applicable) and the fabrication phase complete, all equipment will be shipped to the site for final installation. This stage also involves a lot of testing to make sure that everything is in perfect working order.

For installations that involve complex audio systems, our audio engineer is sometimes called in to take acoustic measurements of the finished room, check the cabling, make sure the signal flows are correct and tweak the controls on the audio components for optimal performance. Since the audio performance is so dependent on the room's unique acoustics, this step can't be completed in the fabrication phase and must come near the end of the installation process.