Picture this: You own a medium-sized business whose sales have been trending upward for the past several years. As a result, your business is working on expanding into a brand-new facility to support the increased demand.

The new facility has plenty of office space to house your growing operation. It features huddle rooms for ad hoc collaboration and a big conference room for professional presentations. The warehouse space is also significantly larger than your previous space.

While this is all great, it’s presented some questions that need answers. Consider the following:

• What technology systems are required to best support the way you do business?
• What options do you have for audio and video systems, internet connection, telephones, security, etc?
• Where do you begin?

These decisions must be made correctly, and in a timely fashion, for the overall well-being of your business.

• When you reach this fork in the road, you have two options:
  • Seek out the help of an independent contractor
  • Enlist the services of a design-build systems integrator

What is an Independent Consultant?

People tend to seek out help or advice when faced with an issue in life. Generally, they consult someone to find out what to do next. In the technology field, this is where independent consultants come into play.

A consultant can guide you when you have little to no knowledge of what the next steps should be. Consultants are highly skilled at evaluating your current and future needs. You can also expect an unbiased opinion because they have no alliances with particular product lines or contracting companies.

Independent consultants can formulate the design direction from a “blank slate” or conduct a feasibility study after visiting your site. They are usually part of a larger engineering/architectural team tasked with designing a new facility or renovating an existing one. As a result, they will ensure technology systems are integrated seamlessly with the other elements of the facility design.

Consultants act as the Owner’s advocate, refining the technology systems’ design to balance the Owner’s concerns. This includes:

• Technology scope
• System complexity
• Level of user expertise
• Costs

A crucial phase of the design process is the creation of drawings and specifications. These are then used to solicit bid proposals for individual trade divisions and are required to build the facility. Consultants usually have the opportunity to recommend some prequalified systems integrators who could best execute the scope of work.

If you need to establish a defined scope of work on which multiple systems integrators can bid, the independent consultant method may serve you best. This method allows you to compare bid proposals to each other.

What is a Systems Integrator?

Owners seek out alternatives when looking for a more cost-effective option. Called the Design-Build process, it uses the expertise and design knowledge of the systems integrator themselves.

Selecting a systems integrator is generally the most challenging part of the process for the Owner. It requires a targeted effort from them to succeed. You may ask:

• How do I find the right systems integrator?
• Which systems integrator has the appropriate expertise?
• Is the integrator capable of designing multiple types of systems for my facility?

These are all great questions. The Owner needs to be asking these questions and many others to establish a level of comfort and trust when choosing an integrator that will deliver on every aspect of the project scope.

What you should expect from a Systems Integrator

So, what are the answers an Owner should expect from said integrator in response to these questions? Owners should always ask for, and contact, the integrator’s references for similar projects. This is likely the best indication of how successful the integrator will be with your project.

You should expect a systems integrator to have a detailed process when it comes to assessing the Owner’s systems needs. You should also expect that the integrator will compile those needs into a written narrative; describing the conceptual form of each system design. Finally, they should reevaluate and retool the design and costs with the Owner before arriving at a final design and price which best aligns with the Owner’s desires and requirements.

Expect that your integrator is capable of working with multiple system types and applications that work with one another, usually through the data network, which also requires the integrator to have design expertise.

Making a project a reality from concept to completion requires the integrator to have the correct personnel and internal resources. This includes:

• Industry-certified design engineers
• Standards-based CAD departments
• Certified project managers
• Highly trained shop and field technicians

Systems integrators combine software and hardware from multiple vendors to create their systems in a custom way. When done correctly, this process can reduce the overall cost of design and installation, thanks to mimicking a single integrator approach.

In Conclusion: 

As highlighted above, independent consultants and systems integrators both have a valuable place in the world of technology. Ultimately, your decision should be made based on which method best suits your needs. Which method will you choose?

This is a Pentegra Systems article that was re-written for Mechdyne with the approval of Pentegra.