Four Things AV Integrators Offer

AV systems integrators are professionals who are qualified to research a client's meeting, presentation or Audio-Visual conferencing needs, make design and installation suggestions, draw up engineering documents and install and maintain the technology. AV Integrators offer a broad range of services in four major areas:

Pre Project Consulting

The first step for the AV integrator is to find out what you need in the facility, and any good AV Integrator will take this step very seriously. Often, the AV integrator will conduct a formal needs analysis to find out what AV capabilities you want the facility to have. The goal here isn't to decide on specific AV components, but rather to talk about all the ways in which you would like to use the room when it's finished.

Once the needs analysis is complete, the project moves to the initial design phase. In this step, the AV Integrator paints broad brush strokes of what the room might look like. One common way of doing this is to list the various blocks of technology that might be employed and provide ball-path estimates for the price of each. For example, an integrated videoconferencing system would be one technology component with its own price tag, while a projection system might be a second and a fully integrated remote-control system might be a third. The point of the exercise is to show you where the money is going. And if the rough estimate totals more than you have budgeted for the project, it gives you the information you'll need to match your organization's expectations with your budget.

Your goal is to understand what you will get for the amount of money you can spend. If order must be let for the offer, this is the point at which you decide which AV Integrator to hire. Most AV integrators can provide offers to facilitate this process.

Project Planning and Documentation

After the broad parameters of the project are agreed upon, design engineers are brought in for the full-scale design effort. Engineers develop flow diagrams and detailed layouts for the AV equipment and wiring. All the odds and ends, from projector throw distances to millwork dimensions, are factored in. It's very important that all of the details surrounding the project are committed to paper, and a conscientious AV integrator will do this in a clean, organized way.

If you decide to upgrade the facility with new AV equipment in the future, a good set of design documents will provide a road map for future Integrators and go a long way toward keeping the cost down.

Once the basic design is complete, the AV integrator will review it with you to make sure it can provide everything you expect. At this stage, the integrator will customarily present a detailed cost analysis for the project, including a line-item pricing list for each of the AV components. If there's an AV control system involved, the Integrator will typically review touch-panel programming interfaces with you at this time, so you have a good idea of what you can expect the system to control and ensure that it will be easy enough for all potential users to understand.

Once you accept the proposal and sign on the dotted line, the project gets turned over to the AV integrator's in-house fabrication and field installation teams.

Fabrication and Audio Visual Installation

After the agreement is in place, the AV integrator will order any necessary equipment not in stock and set up a timeline for when you can expect to have a fully operational facility. For smaller, simpler jobs—for example, upgrading a projection system—the installation process is straightforward. But for large jobs, the process becomes much more complex.

The AV integrator will typically put together the equipment in its own facility before setting it up at your location. This portion of the job is known as "fabrication." The fabrication crew will build the racks, wire the equipment, load all the components and test the system once it's built. This enables the integrator to make sure the project has been engineered correctly and that all the major components are in working order before they're transported to your facility. If you've ordered an AV control system, the integrator will also program the system at this time, entering the computer code that enables the various devices to "talk" to one another and receive input from the touch panel.

Meanwhile, the field coordinator will spend a good deal of time at your facility to make sure all the necessary groundwork is being laid. This involves such things as working with the electrical contractor to make sure the cable runs are installed correctly and all the power requirements for the system will be met. The field coordinator will also make sure that all the auxiliary devices—including projection screens, projector mounts, interfaces, speakers, microphones and floor boxes— are mounted and installed properly.

Once the groundwork has been laid at the facility and the fabrication phase is complete, the AV integrator prepares the racks and other components for shipment, and delivers it to your location, where the field crew will get everything up and running. Aside from connecting wires and hefting heavy electronic components into place, this process involves a lot of testing to make sure that all the components are still doing their jobs and that the cable runs check out from point to point. The programming for the AV control system must also be tested and debugged. "Debugging is a very important milestone, particularly as control systems become more complex," else "You build it, you wire it, and then you know that it's going to take you three days to debug it."

For installations that involve complex audio systems, an engineer is sometimes called in to take acoustic measurements of the finished room, check the cabling, make sure the signal flows are correct and tweak the controls on the audio components for optimal performance. Since the audio performance is so dependent on the room's unique acoustics, this step can't be completed in the fabrication phase and must come near the end of the installation process.

Ongoing Maintenance and Customer Support

Once the system is checked and certified, the Integrator typically spends some time training the key people at your facility in how to use the equipment. For a meeting room or other installation that will be used by many people, you'll want to involve a corporate trainer or IT specialist in this orientation process, someone who can be counted on to explain the system to colleagues. AV integrators also offer after-sales support in the form of service and preventive-maintenance agreements. For an annual fee, you can obtain warranty support plus periodic visits from your AV professional to check and fine-tune your equipment, replace lamps and adjust or update the control-panel programming. Regular visits from your Integrator can go a long way toward eliminating equipment failure.

It used to be that AV integrators offered a first-year warranty contract, with extended warranties added on a year-by-year business. Now, ongoing maintenance is becoming a bigger part of the picture. For those with very high-end or complex installations or several multimedia facilities on site, a new trend in maintenance is to contract with AV professionals to maintain systems on a full-time basis. Their jobs can include doing regular equipment maintenance, walking new end-users through the use of the system, and even acting as meeting facilitators.

Round-the-clock support is another popular new offering, and some AV firms can be hired to manage a client's AV equipment on a service-contract basis. And as the technology for monitoring AV equipment over the Internet matures, you can expect AV systems integrators to offer an even broader menu of service plans.

AV Architect Benefits

Faster decision making

Unparalleled ease-of -use

State-of-the-art AV Facilities

Impressed visitors/ customers

Superior quality communications

Increased efficiency and productivity

Significant reduction in travelling expense

Improved Team -work in your organization

Higher effectiveness of your training programs

Enhanced impact during every meeting and presentation