In a time long ago, audiovisual systems installation were built and serviced in a reactive manner. There was no option other than tracking parts through a spreadsheet that had an expiring shelf life. During these dark ages of maintenance, if a site went down it left a foul taste on the end user’s tongue about the company who implemented the solution. This is a nightmare for an integrator because staying on top of the client’s need is the number one priority. Well fear no more!
As time progressed, so did the back end of the audiovisual control system. Emergency management software solutions are now a heavily used concept for companies that connects all audiovisual systems over a server based platform. EMS delivers real time usage statistics. This can cover a wide gamut of information and is highly versatile to the end user’s needs. The software can track peripheral diagnostics such as lamp hours for projectors, as well as other services like power/water usage and room scheduling from email calendars. It truly is a swiss army knife of information crucial to the client’s uptime and return on investment.
A prime example of this platform is a version produced by the industry leading Crestron Electronics, known to the world over as Fusion. They develop many components for building automation in the residential and commercial markets, but they also paved the way to work with third party manufacturers to incorporate the Fusion chipset into other’s equipment. Many of the devices you find in today’s market now carry Creston Connected out of the box. For the first time, this gave the end user flexibility to integrate natively with Fusion over several device types not made directly by Crestron themselves. Regardless if the customer uses a specific brand, the back end programming is easily done the same way every time as long as the feature is present.
All of this company wide site information resides neatly on one server that spans an entire enterprise network. The value is that regardless of the location, Fusion will operate from anywhere you need to pull data. The analytics features allow load balancing of resources to provide insight on what spaces are seeing high traffic and equipment usage. The automation functions work in collaboration with Fusion to initiate and shutdown spaces that may otherwise be left on overnights/weekends to save money and reduce the carbon footprint. Where preventative maintenance comes into play, the system can send a report with detailed failures before a single person knows of any issues. This negates the embarrassment of broken equipment and solidifies the product in place works when it is needed most. Step out of the Stone Age and ask ExhibitOne if Fusion can shape your business with the resource management it deserves.
