Mid Kent Water PLC - Maidstone Kent
Requirement: A future-proof solution to network a listed building and a purpose-built building, with minimum disruption.
No. Of Points: 2000.
Equipment: RW Data infrastructure supporting gigabit technology.
Back To The Future
Mid Kent Water PLC, the largest supplier of drinking water in Kent, decided that they needed to update their predominantly thin-wire network to a faster, more future-proof solution which encompassed the move of the company into a single, purpose-built building. The upgrade also included four other buildings on the campus, which were occupied by other companies within the Mid Kent Holdings group.
Two separate strategies were required to tackle this complicated project because one of the original buildings was listed and had an old paper mill at the rear. The contrast between the buildings was significant because the old building required the removal of the existing cabling and the insertion of the new cabling system into the existing structure, whilst the building was occupied. The new building was built around the IT infrastructure and was empty.
This was a challenge that ICOM, UK, a cabling sciences partner approached head-on because they believed that Mayflex as a leading distributor, could provide the right product with the best delivery to meet such a challenge.
High-Tech
Adrian Smith, IS Infrastructure and Operations Manager for Mid Kent Water was responsible for obtaining the internal backing for his project which was to incorporate cutting edge technology into a public service to achieve financial value, delivery of water and enhanced customer service. Adrian felt that a large investment in terms of cost and time would help maintain the high levels of service offered by Mid Kent Water to its quarter of a million customers.
Mid Kent also specified that they wanted an option to run gigabit technology over the copper cabling system and to achieve this ICOM recommended a Cat5e solution using standard RW Data CAT5E products which are guaranteed to do this. Also ICOM could offer a full system warranty of 15 years on the structured cabling system that was installed, due to being one of the South East's premier Cabling Sciences partners.
Mid Kent Water PLC are now running gigabit over fibre with the capability of running it over copper. Resilience has been built into the system at every level including the network hardware, to ensure that there is no single point of failure and the maximum down time, in the unlikely event of failure, would only be 40 seconds.
The design of the structured cabling was fundamental to Mid Kent Water, therefore 'fingered cabling' was considered to be an essential requirement which ensured that no more than 50% of any one department would be out of action at once, should a failure take place.
ICOM also ensured that the newly-installed structured cabling system needed a minimum of maintenance. There are 20 people in the Mid Kent Water IT Department and only two look after the infrastructure now, because it generally looks after itself. The system is future proof, with the capability to treble the capacity if necessary in the new building.
The cutting edge technology with resilience and future proofing could only have been achieved through teamwork and a close relationship between Mayflex, ICOM and Mid Kent Water. Mayflex communicated regularly with ICOM and between them agreed that the tender should be based around Cat5e structured cabling and a gigabit technology solution, when it was still revolutionary. Mayflex assured ICOM that they could deliver the required products on time to the designated place and they kept their end of the bargain. ICOM assured Mid Kent that they could install this hyper-complex infrastructure across the two key buildings and a further 3 buildings, one of which was occupied, in just 5 months, which they did!
The Maidstone-based firm worked weekends to provide a seamless installation service and even went to the trouble of hiring in contract cleaners to ensure that the building was constantly clean. The kit and installation proved to be a massive success. Over one weekend 330 people were moved and nobody lost work and there were no faults - excellent kit, excellent installation and excellent communication between all parties.
The Desired Result
This project was complex requiring the latest technology and total dedication by all three parties. Mayflex and ICOM's reputation was on the line.
Adrian smith, talking of the structured cabling system, said "It was a large initial investment, but the result is that the network is now much easier to manage, especially when complicated moves are required, plus the costs involved in doing this have virtually disappeared. This has saved us significant amounts of time and money in administration."
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