Minimal Disruption. Air Canada s SOC Takes Off. DIGITAL SIGNAGE EXPO Preview & Product Debuts SEE PAGES 54-59

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Kerry Atkinson
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1 Vol. 60 No.1 January 20, 2014 AV FOR SYSTEMS INTEGRATORS, CONTRACTORS AND CONSULTANTS Minimal Disruption STANDARDIZATION IS MISSION-CRITICAL AT PEPPERDINE U Air Canada s SOC Takes Off GESTALT IS KEY TO SYSTEM DESIGN DIGITAL SIGNAGE EXPO Preview & Product Debuts SEE PAGES VIEW OUR INTERACTIVE DIGITAL EDITION:

2 BY DAN DALEY Gestalt is key to system design. AIR CANADA S SOC TAKES OFF You don t hear the word gestalt applied to AV systems projects very often. But tectonic changes in the technology and ultimately in the culture of AV that are already underway will see the industry borrowing concepts from other disciplines to help make sense of very new ways of doing things. That s very much in evidence in the second phase of Air Canada s new Systems Operation Control (SOC) Center at its site just off the property of Pearson International Airport outside of Toronto, Ontario. Phase One is pretty much what you d expect of a typical central operations center: several concentric rings of workstations in a circular room about 150 feet in diameter, each with multiple LCD displays, focused around team leaders workstations at the center of the ring, with large displays encircling the entire seating area. It wouldn t look out of place in a Michael Bay movie, except that, at these workstations, Air Canada employees are engaged in the mission-critical but quotidian tasks of day-to-day airline operations, such as making sure aircraft are are enroute to where they need to be and that fuel, crew, spare parts and catering are waiting for them. Air Canada s new Systems Operation Control (SOC) Center at its site just off the property of Pearson International Airport outside of Toronto, Ontario, is a tale of two buildings in one. 38 Sound & Communications

3 You want the opposite of complexity in this kind of environment. You want a place where a few people can huddle around a whiteboard and exchange ideas and be able to mark up documents as needed, then get back to their workstations and implement their decisions. Mark McPherson, Vice President, Advanced On the other side of the building, in Phase Two, is where gestalt comes up. Omar Prashad, General Manager of Systems Integration at Advanced Inc. (Mississauga, Ontario, vancedinc.com), is trying to explain why the equipment list for the part of the SOC that they worked on seems so, well, sparse. That s actually very much the gestalt of the building, he said, segueing smoothly into what is essentially a classical definition of the term: It s greater than the sum of its parts, and it s different from what you d expect those parts to add up to. Support Facility Prashad told Sound & Communications that the mission for Advanced was to develop a design that supports the conventional network operations center, that would let employees move from the purposely intense environment of the SOC (which is all about making sure everything goes exactly according to rigid agendas and schedules) into a completely different setting. This would be one designed for collaboration on specific problems or challenges, such as an aircraft taken out of service that disrupts multiple connections, or unexpectedly adverse weather, for instance, that lets workers converse with each other or others from different locations within the company, pulling data from the SOC as needed to smaller multi-user displays but away from the bustle of that place. The main part of the SOC is supposed to be hot and intense, in terms of its day-to-day activity, said Prashad. The collaborative part is supposed to be, by nature, cool and open. The goal was to create several types of spaces, such as huddle rooms and conference rooms, located outside of the 360 SOC but adjacent to it, so that kind of calming atmosphere would be readily available when it was needed. This would be a place where people can troubleshoot a problem or review a challenge away from the intensity of the SOC. Shaping Idea Spaces Mark McPherson, Advanced s Vice President, offered that Air Canada knew it wanted something like this, but wasn t sure what shape its AV technology should take. They were looking for systems that support collaborative functionality that can be accessed quickly and simply, he explained. You want the opposite of complexity in this kind of environment. You want a place where a few people can huddle around a whiteboard and exchange ideas and be able to mark up documents as needed, then get back to their workstations and implement their decisions. There are 13 spaces in total: The Advanced team designed two large conference rooms, four medium-sized meeting rooms, two open-concept collaboration spaces, two large training rooms and three small training rooms. The AV technology across all of them is consistent. Nine of the spaces have SMART 885 boards with UX80 projector and SMART Meeting Pro software; two are outfitted with SMART s 55-inch interactive displays, also fitted with Meeting Pro; two more have the 70-inch interactive displays. January

4 accessed via a range of wall panels and remotes, including TPMC-8X Isys i/o WiFi touchpanels and DMPS-300-C DigitalMedia presentation systems. McPherson said that the need for user transparency argued for a simple control system, one that could pass HD video, originating from the main control side or ingested via wall-mounted DVI and VGA ports that connect directly to the SMART Boards to connect staff laptops, and could transport uncompressed audio and video on a single Cat6 cable. (Cabling used in the project was BlackBox Cat5e/Cat6; speaker wire was from Provo.) One of two large conference rooms in the new facility. Both are fitted with 5000 lumen 1080p projectors and a motorized drop-down screen. Each room also has a slim PC for quick, simple presentation access. The two open spaces and the two largest conference rooms are each also equipped with an NEC NP-PA500U- 13ZL projector and a Draper Access/ Series V motorized dropdown screen. Signal routing is via six Extron two-input HDMI switchers and a pair of Extron two-output HDMI distribution amplifiers for HDMI video and embedded multi-channel digital audio. Each room or space also has a slim PC for quick, simple presentation access. These, said Prashad, provide the fastest, easiest way for staff to make presentations and load files for use through the SMART Boards or projectors, requiring only a memory stick and eliminating the need to plug in a separate laptop or PC. Six of the smaller rooms use SMART s projection audio system, which attaches speakers directly to the interactive boards; audio is distributed to other spaces using a distributed system consisting of four JBL Control 24CT and six TOA F-2352C2 2x30W coaxial speakers, powered and managed by a Crestron DMPS-300-C DigitalMedia presentation system with integrated amplifier, matrix switcher and DSP. Equipment Choices According to Prashad, the AV systems were chosen according to several criteria: certainly functionality and ease of use, but with esthetics in mind, as well. This is a modern, sexy-looking building and Air Canada wanted a clean, uncluttered look in these spaces that complemented that, he said. It was also intended that, when you leave the main operations center and come in here, you are making a very clear transition. We wanted to show that you are moving from the traditional, large area with formal presentation technology into a much more intimate, collaborative space that has the technology to match. He added that the ability to walk from room to room, space to space and encounter the identical presentation and display platforms was critical. The two largest spaces have both projection displays and large supplementary 70- inch LCD displays that allow complex imaging to spill over from the LCDs when necessary. System control is provided by a Crestron DigitalMedia network system Philosophy, Culture Change The control system is emblematic of the shift in culture for the corporate operations center, from the complex, granular level of control that such facilities have long favored, to a macro type of programming that loads multiple functions into a single button s programming. Prashad doesn t flinch when the term residential is brought up. It is almost residential in nature, he said of the programming that Advanced s employees applied to the Crestron system. Our programmers spent a lot of time talking with the people at Air Canada who would be using the center, and it s important to point out that our programmers speak the end-user s language. They want to move quickly from scene to scene, not just function to function. They don t want to have to go through 15 pages of script to set up a meeting a certain way. We don t use nomenclature on the labeling of those macros, either; they are very simply labeled, stating what the button does. McPherson added some larger context that goes to the heart of how things are changing in AV systems integration. This is a change in the culture of collaboration and control that we ve been observing and integrating into our thinking for the last couple of years, he said, using information 40 Sound & Communications

or unexpectedly adverse weather, for instance) that lets workers converse with each other or others from other locations within the company, pulling data from the SOC as needed to smaller multi-user

5 (Left) Phase One of Air Canada s central ops center is typical of the genre, with many workstations concentrically arrayed around a central core. This is contrasted with the second phase of the building (right), designed for collaboration on specific problems or challenges (an aircraft taken out of service that disrupts multiple connections, or unexpectedly adverse weather, for instance) that lets workers converse with each other or others from other locations within the company, pulling data from the SOC as needed to smaller multi-user displays but away from the bustle of that place. and feedback gleaned from analyzing the types and nature of service calls from clients. From that emerges a peculiarly Canadian and refreshing kind of candor about AV technology, offering, We look at the kinds of problems some of them are having with AV in multiple-zone systems and some trends emerge: There is a tendency to overcomplicate things in the name of providing increased functionality and flexibility but, honestly, it s sometimes kind of justifying our existence, he said. [As integrators], we re used to complexity and maybe it s natural to assume clients also want that. But the reality is, now, they just want to get the meeting started. More Programming Prashad says his designers now spend more time with clients in the programming stages of a project, parsing exactly what the client expects of a system s operation. Functionality meetings elicit the clients styles and philosophies about how they work with their colleagues. In some cases, he said, they ve actually designed and installed dual GUIs: a basic macro-heavy one and an expert interface, allowing employees to pick how they want to proceed. But, he stressed, the trend is inexorably toward a macro-based envi- Equipment BlackBox Cat5e/Cat6 cabling 2 Crestron CEN-WAP-ABG-POE-PWE wireless access point wall mounts w/poe injector 14 Crestron DM-RMC-100-C DM 8G+ rec/rm controllers 8 Crestron DM-TX-200-C 2GWT DigitalMedia CAT Transmitter 200, 2-Gan wall plates 4 Crestron DM-TX-200-C-2G DigitalMedia 8G+ Transmitter 200 wall plates 12 Crestron DM-TX-201-C 8G STP Transmitter 201 transmitter/multimedia interfaces 4 Crestron MPS-300C DigitalMedia presentation systems 2 Crestron TPMC 4SMD-BS 4" touchpanels 2 Crestron TPMC-8X Isys i/o WiFi touchpanels 2 Crestron TPMC-8X-DS docking stations 2 Crestron WMK-U4SM-B-S universal wall mount kits 4 Draper Access/Series V electric projector screens 6 Extron 2-input HDMI switchers 2 Extron 2-output HDMI DAs 4 JBL Control 24CT speakers 2 Logitech LOGZC920 HD webcams 2 Middle Atlantic PTRK-14MDK rolling racks w/accessories 4 NEC NP-PA500U-13ZL WUXGA 5000 lumen 1080p projectors Provo speaker wire 2 SMART 70" interactive displays w/meeting Pro 9 SMART SB885IX2SMP interactive whiteboards w/ux80 projector, Meeting Pro 2 SMART SBID8055ISMP 55" interactive displays w/meeting Pro 6 SMART SMAN-SBA-L projection audio systems 6 TOA F-2352C2 2x30W coaxial ceiling speakers w/2 tile bridges List is edited from information supplied by Advanced Inc. 42 Sound & Communications

Informal huddle spaces are a critical part of the Phase Two concept, allowing less stressful collaboration for problem solving. ronment. That s what s driving much of it out there now.

Lines are being crossed regularly and it s less and less clear what constitutes a professional AV environment versus a consumer one.

One of the collateral effects of this change in the culture of collaborative AV is that more of the effort will be shifted to the front of the project.

6 Informal huddle spaces are a critical part of the Phase Two concept, allowing less stressful collaboration for problem solving. ronment. That s what s driving much of it out there now. This cultural change is also being driven by the proliferation of collaborative platforms and products being used by individuals in all aspects of their lives, not just in business. Lines are being crossed regularly and it s less and less clear what constitutes a professional AV environment versus a consumer one. We re seeing Skype being used in enterprise-level systems these days, observed McPherson. The world is moving on. One of the collateral effects of this change in the culture of collaborative AV is that more of the effort will be shifted to the front of the project. McPherson reported that it took a full year of conceptualizing the project with Air Canada before all the pieces came together on the drawing board, much of it spent listening to the client s goals. The actual installation and integration aspect of the project took far less time, though they had to deal with the usual constraints of working in a high-security environment, toward the end of the major construction period (when walls already in place would make cable pulling a bit more challenging) and when a new version of the SMART Board was released just prior to installation, Advanced made modifications to the site drawings midproject and installed the brand new models instead. Noting that Advanced has worked on airline and airport projects in the past, McPherson added, We haven t seen [a project like this] take this long in the design stage before. But this is the way things are headed. HDMI on 1x3 SPLITTER UHBX-3S Dan Daley has covered the confluence of technology, business and culture for more than 25 years. He has also been a successful composer and recording studio owner, and authored the book, Unwritten Rules: Inside the Business of Country Music.

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