I want to express my sincere appreciation to all of our customers and extend my best wishes for a joyous holiday season and a very happy and healthy New Year.

In our last newsletter, I spoke of our full-service capabilities and our four dimensional approach to the technical space. In this issue we profile a project we did for the City of Miami Police and Fire Communications command, an excellent illustration of why the Wright Line methodology has been so successful. We’ve also included an article from Bob Knott, our Installations Business Director, outlining four basic points you need to keep in mind to make your installation a success.

Finally, I want to congratulate the following individuals who each won a Sony^® PlayStation^® Portable in our reader survey drawing in the last issue of The Wright Connection. They are:

Dale Foster Principal Engineer Boston Scientific/CRM Minnesota

Jeff Harbour EMT-P Communications Director Kanawha County Emergency Ambulance West Virginia

Christy Flowers Telecom Manager Piggly Wiggly South Carolina

Happy Holidays!


Larry McHugh

Furniture Installation: Four Things to Remember

By Bob Knott

Installing technical furniture can be a complex business, and a badly planned installation can result in costly downtime and operational inefficiencies. When you have spent so much time selecting the best furniture for your operations it is important that you finish the job by installing it properly!

Here are four basic points to keep in mind when approaching any installation in order to ensure your project goes smoothly.

The User

For any installation to be successful, the needs of the various users have to drive the design and layout. Simply focusing on the spatial accommodation of equipment and furniture can create problems for operational efficiency down the road.

• Ensure that new environments are task specific and optimize the way personnel use equipment
• Accommodate traffic patterns, considering both inter-personal and inter-departmental adjacencies

Is it Live?

Ideally, the area affected can be shut down completely for the duration of the install. However, in many cases installations take place in a live environment, therefore you need to carefully coordinate every aspect of the install, especially contractors, in order to avoid unexpected and costly downtime. You don't want the project held up because the furniture installers are standing around while the electrical contractors clear old cables from under the raised floors. This is especially important for installations that involve demolition and replacement of legacy equipment.

• Develop a logical, step by step workflow that ensures that all work is done in the correct sequence required to complete the whole project
• The plan should make optimal use of the time that contractors and installers spend on site
• If you can afford the space, set up a staging area where tradespersons can work and prepare materials in advance of when they are required at the actual site
• For installations involving mission-critical business functions, consider a temporary setup for these operations, away from the install site

Future Growth

It is easy to get caught up in the immediate needs of your new install, but if you want to get the most out of it, be sure your plan is flexible enough to accommodate future growth, technological changes and potential business operation changes.

The Installers

If you want your equipment to perform to the best of its capacity, it has to be installed properly, and getting the right people to do the job is key. Many technical furniture vendors use third party contractors to install their product. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you want to ensure your installers have experience with the product you have selected. This is critical for technical furniture, which is designed to perform specific roles or functions. Equally important are the safety training and credentials of your installers. They should be OSHA certified at a minimum. If they are to be working in an area with special safety and control requirements, you must ensure that they are qualified to do so.

Bob Knott has been Installations Business Director for eight of his ten years with Wright Line. His experience in the technical furniture field goes back almost two decades, and in that time he has covered almost every aspect of this unique market, from design right through to installation.

For more information on Wright Line's full service installation services, please contact us news@wrightline.com.

 

Featured Installation:
City of Miami Police and Fire Communications

The City of Miami (FL) Police and Fire Communications Command was confronted with a number of challenges as they faced the obsolescence of aging dispatch technology and the furniture that surrounded it.

Goals

• Consolidate multiple agencies into a single communications center
• Create an environment where communicators can perform life saving communications as efficiently as possible

Challenges

• Accommodating complex user and equipment requirements associated with rapid migration from traditional rack-mount and slave terminal gear to high end PCs with multi-screen video cards and flat panel displays
• Accommodating changeover in a live environment
• Eradicating decades of cable clutter under the raised floor
• Piece by piece removal of legacy consoles

The command center needed a company that could provide not only industry leading console furniture, but one that could partner with them to coordinate with multiple system and infrastructure technicians, integrators and consultants, carpet layers and installers. After looking at all the competitors in the dispatch furnishings market, only one company met all their requirements: Wright Line.

The Plan

Dozens of space plan solutions were created and reviewed in team meetings with members of communications center management and all key personnel in order to ensure that the following objectives were met:

• Flesh out the best overall design
• Ensure that all equipment is efficiently accommodated
• Create task-specific environments that optimize the way communicators work with equipment
• Ensure ease of access for technicians to PC and rack-mounted gear without disturbing communicators
• Address inter-personnel and inter-departmental adjacencies and traffic patterns
• Determine ADA and fire code compliance
• Coordinate with architectural infrastructure
• Facilitate cross-over from legacy systems
• Make allowances for anticipated future technology migrations

A Well Choreographed Process

The execution of this project required cooperation between the Wright Line team, contracted personnel and Miami personnel at every stage. A live changeover was required, so existing consoles had to be demolished and replaced one at a time, a process that involved a step-by-step cycle approach:

• The electrical contractor pre-wired as much as possible under the raised floor
• The carpet contractor then began covering floor tiles with the new carpet tiles
• These finished tiles were staged outside the center to be rotated in as needed once the renovation started
• Wright Line's installers removed existing furniture and erected new Profile^® consoles, LCD arms and conference tables in the Emergency Operations Center, which could then house key dispatch functions as consoles were demolished and replaced in the main center
• Wright Line then removed the command bridge as painting contractors tackled the walls and Miami IT techs pulled floor tiles and cleared legacy cable structures
• Simultaneously the electrical contractors cleared aging conduit and completed runs from new breaker panels
• Carpet contractors continued to rework and stage floor tiles as Miami PD techs completed cabling in the plenum and tiles were replaced
• During all of this Wright Line installers were receiving, uncrating and staging console furniture parts so they could be installed without a hitch
• Miami IT then installed PCs, LCDs, printers and ancillary gear
• As they completed this work, Wright Line was demolishing the first two legacy consoles and the entire cycle began again in that area

Results

Using this approach, the entire renovation was completed in three weeks, on time and under budget. Today, the City of Miami Communications Center serves as a benchmark for ergonomics, aesthetics, and operational efficiency for communications centers all around the globe.

 

Wright Line Introduces "One-Stop Shopping" Resource

You told us that you want to be able to purchase additional supplies and accessories on the same purchase order as your Wright Line equipment — and we listened! Introducing the Wright Line Third-Party Products Catalog.

This 64-page, full-color catalog highlights a variety of Wright Line specific third-party accessories, as well as a menu of auxiliary and complementary product lines that would typically be seen in a traditional office products catalog.

We created this catalog based on direct feedback from our customers, who wanted a one-stop resource for the various accessories and accoutrements that integrate with our Wright Line consoles, enclosures, office and technical furniture. The catalog also contains smaller office products that you may want to include with your order, further consolidating the purchase order process.

For more information on our new Third-Party Products Catalog, contact Wright Line at 1-800.225.7348 or email us at catalog@wrightline.com.

 

Have you had a data center adventure? You could win a Raytek MiniTemp Handheld Thermometer!

While the rest of the world may see data centers as quiet places where nothing happens, those of us who work in them know that isn't the case. It's a high pressure environment where anything can happen. If you've got a funny anecdote, a horror story or a tale of up-time adventure, then send it to us and you could win a Raytek MiniTemp handheld thermometer!

Infrared thermometers have become popular tools for diagnostics and inspection anywhere temperature is a factor. Just point, pull the trigger, and instantly get a temperature readout on the display. They are especially handy in the data center to obtain temperature readings within enclosures, racks, vents, ducts, CRAC outlets, return air supplies and more.

Click here to send us your data center story and a chance to win one of three Raytek MiniTemp Portable Infrared Thermometers.

 

Product Spotlight: LCD Monitor Options

LCD Lift
Get the world's most innovative monitor accommodation for LCD flat panel technology! Wright Line's patent- pending LCD Lift is now available for the LINX® line of modular work surfaces. Ideal for:

• Computer labs
• Education and training environments
• Lobby and reception areas
• Your personal workstations

With the LCD lift, your panel recedes into the desk to completely transform your workstation into a multi-purpose platform, while providing security and safety for your enclosed monitor. To access the monitor, simply push a button and your screen will instantly lift without generating noise.

The LCD Lift is compatible with most 15" to 19" LCD flat screens. Your screen must have a VESA mounting interface standard.

Please visit our website for more information on our LCD Lift or any of our other Wright Line Products.

 

Industry News

Data Center Budgets: Radical Changes Ahead
Ken Brill, founder and executive director of The Uptime Institute, recently gave a great interview in Computerworld. In it he discusses the causes and impact of the increased cost of providing power, cooling and other facility support for servers, and what data center managers can do about it.

 

Upcoming Trade Shows

Wright Line will be at the following trade shows in the coming months. Drop by the booth and say hello and see our latest offerings!

January 21 - 25	BICSI Winter Conference Gaylord Palms Hotel Orlando, FL
January 28-30	CALNENA Hyatt Regency, Orange County Garden Grove, CA
February 26 - March 1	APCO Western Regional Conference & Exposition Long Beach Convention Center Long Beach, CA
February 25 - March 2	PITTCON McCormick Place, Chicago, IL

Visit our website for a complete list of shows we be attending in 2007.

 

Did You Know?

The easiest way to test the airflow from a data center floor tile is to place a business card in the center of the tile. If it floats about 1 inch above the tile, you've got approximately 500-600 CFM of airflow!