One day, a branch office of IBM found it needed to redeploy around 200 of the cables in its structured wiring system, but, as commonly happens, it had little idea which of the cables were live and which were dead. After much deliberation, the decision was made to go ahead and cut all of them – luckily, in this example, only one of the cables was being used at the time, and there was no serious damage, but then, not everybody has IBM’s good fortune. Whether structured wiring is used or not, cabling systems are becoming increasingly complex, with the result that it is estimated that on average 25% of cables installed within a building are not in use – but nobody knows exactly which ones these are. BICC Information Systems and Services, formed last August as a part of the BICC Cables group, reckons it has a low cost system that enables companies to keep precise records on all of the voice and data cables within their offices, and so manage cable movements, additions and changes more effectively. The BICC computer aided design Cable Management Bureau service is based on software from BICC’s partners in the project, Isicad, and consists of two stages: entry into a scalable Unix database of all information pertaining to the cabling structure already in place, and the live part of the operation, where the database is continually updated as changes take place, with new cabling structures being developed and analysed via a graphical interface linked to the database. The user can pinpoint exactly where in a building there is cabling in place, how much cabling is needed in a given situation, and, because the software also keeps a record of which terminals are positioned where, it can be used as an assets management tool as well. The basic idea behind this is nothing new in itself firms have been implementing cabling management systems off their own bat for some time now, but Luton-based BICC Information Systems claims that the cost of these in-house developed systems – put at about UKP100,000 for a medium-sized firm – makes its customisable CAD Cable Management Bureau service a particularly attractive proposition, with first year running costs roughly estimated at UKP5,000 for a small firm and double that for a medium firm.
Churn rate
These figures are based on a churn rate – the percentage of terminals that are moved once in a year – of around 30%, and will rise as the churn rate of the company rises. There are a number of ways that firms can take on the service, either by handling the entire operation itself, or, as the term bureau suggests, allowing BICC to administer it remotely; alternatively, BICC staff can be involved on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, depending on the individual company. In the end, it is hoped that clients will become so convinced of the benefits of such a service that they will eventually decide to buy the hardware and software outright – and this is probably where BICC will see its main payback. BICC admits that the Isicad software has yet to offer a complete facility for managing complex local area networks, but says that this is being worked on now. In the meantime, however, the main problem with systems like this is that they are only as good as the data that is input into the database. But for companies really committed to keeping an up-to-date record of installed cable and equipment, the computer aided design Cable Management Bureau service could enable them to do that very inexpensively. – Mark John
