Documenting cabling connections is vital to prolong the life of the infrastructure, contain the cost of managing the day-to-day changes and recover from network outages
Through the years companies have tried various methods to improve the quality of the information being recorded while reducing the time spent doing so. As many of you may know this has been an exercise in futility. In most cases the process is dropped all together.
Integrated, real-time management is now mature with state of the art applications designed for the purpose of managing cabling infrastructure. This document will explain the benefits of a cable management software (CMS) package.
Reasons for documenting
A CMS system provides a detailed picture of the cabling infrastructure, allowing the MIS group to improve service and reduce cost in these areas:
To fully understand the benefits we will use an example company that has 1000 employees with both voice and data requirements.
According to recent studies cabling infrastructure accounts for 25% of the data/voice network cost. Some estimates of investments in information technology per employee are as high as £6000; therefore, at 25%, the cost would be £1500 per employee or in the case of our example company with 1000 employees £1.5 million. This cost is only compounded as time goes on.
Moves, adds & changes
Industry surveys show that 70% of service calls are cabling related. Furthermore, technicians spend 80% of their time on a service call searching for the problem and 20% fixing it. Most of that 80% is spent locating the end to end connectivity. This situation worsens when the connection spans multiple floors or buildings. A 30% to 40% reduction in cost of repairs due to the implementation of a CMS can be achieved as it allows technicians to have the required data at their finger tips to enable them to resolve issues quickly and efficient. Additional benefit is each process undertaken in resolving the issue is documented allowing analysis to be performed at any time in the future enabling the organisation to base financial decisions on actual/real time data.
A typical company moves approximately 30% of its employees each year, with an average labour cost of £200 per move. In our example company this would mean 300 employees would be relocated at the labour cost of £60,000 per year. An automated CMS can reduce this cost by more than 30% or £18,000 per year. More important however, a CMS that is easy to use will reduce the day-to-day cost of moves, adds & changes, thus increasing the life of the infrastructure.
Repair downtime
The cost savings in the moves. adds & changes is minimal compared to the cost of a network connection outage that typically lasts four to nine hours, at a cost of £22,500 per hour. This in comparison pales, however, to the time and money lost while vital telephone or data systems have failed and brought business to a screeching halt, where costs are measured in the millions, and the inquisition, after all is said and done, reveals the weak link was the MIS documentation, or lack there of.
Physical plant loss
Abandoning cable can quickly become a problem where the average business has an ongoing stream of moves, adds & changes. In the case of a multi-tenant building it is possible for the owner to rewire the entire building every three years.
When the core cabling is abandoned it artificially depletes the inventory while it continues to take up space. Soon there is no room for new cabling causing the owner to expand or abandon the closets, or purchase new costly equipment to solve their capacity problems.
This equipment does nothing to improve customer relations, instead it usually disturbs relations due to the costly after hours migration process. This capital expense can be avoided with a CMS that would enable the owner to reuse existing cabling.
Controlling vendors
A CMS with the ability to generate work orders can be an effective way to manage multiple vendors. These work orders can be used as a means to track how effective a contractor is at handling emergencies, multiple projects and contractor-to-contractor communications.
It is also an effective way to track reoccurring problems (that always have reoccurring cost) to identify if the problem is the technician. Most important, however, is that a CMS can allow the end user to negotiate fixed cost for certain tasks a contractor has to perform, based on a history of related work orders cost.
Security
Another issue that should be addressed in a multi-vendor facility is security. This can be simplified with the use of a CMS by simply giving the vendor the information they need to complete the task and validate the work when it’s completed. Again allowing the MIS to track and measure the productivity and accountability of the technician.
Since down time is reduced with a CMS in place, exposure of corporate information to loss or penetration is minimized, translating into a higher level of customer satisfaction.
Disaster recovery
No one likes to think about the loss of facilities due to theft, natural disasters or some man-made calamity. But, these events can, (and usually do) happen. Planning ahead to minimize down time and recover the losses requires contingency planning supported by up-to-date records. A CMS would allow the MIS to quickly identify the lost resources, replace or re-route the connections to other facilities.
A report is generated with a detailed description of the assets that were lost and the depreciation factor pre-determined. This can be sent to the insurance company, within minutes, to speed the recovery process.
Future expansion
The only way to fully understand where you’re going is to first understand where you’re currently at. Adding one more connection to a closet can eat 30% of the department budget, if a new feeder has to be installed. The situation only gets worse if this happens twice in one year.
Usage reports from a CMS can give you current capacity of any type of devices in your network infrastructure, floor outlets, switch ports, fibre & copper cabling etc. This information can be viewed during the planning stage of an installation, thus eliminating the outrageous costs of “emergency upgrades”, not to mention the frustration of a schedule delay.
Fiscal budget planning can be one of the most difficult times of the year for a manager. The guesswork of defining budgets for services, hardware and first time evers (FTEs) must be handled carefully. Budget justifications need to be written and then the battle for something between what is requested and what the financial division feel is required takes place. This is a yearly exercise that ultimately ends with the outcome far less than the initial requirements.
The ability to graph a month-to-month, or year-to-year trend can be a strong argument for the MIS needs. Additional reports can be generated showing work orders completed within a cycle and any other information that would be pertinent to budget justifications.
Summary
A properly designed product decreases the day-to-day expenditures by increasing efficiency. It allows the MIS staff to take a proactive management approach to planning, budgeting and all daily activities.