I often am tasked with putting a solution together for services to deploy systems. One thing that you learn by doing this is that many times there are things you can’t foresee. That’s the Art of Solutioning. Putting together the solutions for customers that will make your company money and be competitive. Most companies call … Continue reading The Art of Solutioning (Estimating for Profit) →
I often am tasked with putting a solution together for services to deploy systems. One thing that you learn by doing this is that many times there are things you can’t foresee. That’s the Art of Solutioning. Putting together the solutions for customers that will make your company money and be competitive.
Most companies call this estimating. They send in a guy to look at what needs to be done and build a model. Often, it’s built off of models that have already been done. We look at what we have done in the past and then estimate the parts and hours we need.
For the hardware site, it’s generally straightforward, or so we think. You have the basic system and all the interconnections to put them together. From a high level, it looks easy. Let’s look at a cell site.
* Radio head if needed
* BBU/controller
* Power
* Backhaul
* Fiber jumpers
* Antennas
* Power supply or rectifiers
* Hybrid cable
Wait, how do we mount the crap?
* Tower mount
* Snap-ins for the hybrid cable, if it’s a tower, a channel for the
cable if it’s a rooftop.
* Outdoor cabinet or a rack for a shelter, room.
* Clamps for antenna
* Junction boxes where needed
* Conduits where needed
Great, we have a high-level solution, what does it take to get this mounted? The services?
* Site Acquisition to align the lease and structural with the equipment.
* Site walk team
* Tower crew for tower or rooftop.
* Ground crew for cabinet installation.
* Civils if we need to add a concrete pad at the site.
* Electrician if we need to add power, breakers, or additional power runs.
* Commissioning engineers to get the equipment up and running.
* Drive teams to optimize and test the site.
* RF teams to align RF design with actual coverage.
* Remote networking team to integrate and bring site live into the core.
* Network teams to add or upgrade routers.
* Fiber providers if we need to add or upgrade fiber backhaul.
* Microwave team if we’re adding a wireless microwave backhaul.
* Closeout package
* Project Management
Then we have all the incidentals that could be used up along the way.
* Zip ties
* Weather seal
* Electrical tape
* Fuel to drive to the site
* Meals, hotels, per diem
It all adds up and it all takes a savvy and creative team not only to put it together but to come up with ways to do it better. Often, if we look for efficiencies we can find them, or at least the team in the field can help. If they follow the MOP, (Method of Process) that the carrier provides, it’s hard for them to do one thing out-of-order. While the carriers don’t want to miss anything, they build a system that is not always efficient.
For example, years ago I would go with a team and install all the hardware at a site, power it up, and commission it, integrate it, and with one cell tech, we could have the system live and on the air with one crew, a tech, and an electrician. Those days are gone, sites are more complicated, but the real reason we see the inefficiencies is because of how the quoting is done now.
Years ago, you could have a tower crew that had a sound network engineer on it and a good RF engineer on it, I know. I was on one of those teams. The carriers decided to break down each task to save money,